Hi!
I just discovered CtC and I have to say I’m very excited about it as it’s been a few years I have been trying to get my picking hand faster and cleaner without any progress at all.
Some members asked me on my presentation post to make a few videos of my technique to see what is wrong with it, so here they are! As you’ll see, the things I play most are bluegrass oriented, either on mandolin or guitar.
I made quite a few videos (don’t worry, most of them last about 5-10 sec only) so you can see all there is to see. This is my starting point, before I worked on anything from CtC, so hopefully it’ll get better with time!
First of all, a short tune on the mando, first played at a pace where I can still somewhat relax, then at maximum speed where my picking hand gets locked, tensed, and looses accuracy.
Then, a bit of picking across the strings:
Picking as fast as I can on one string, first relaxed and then with arm tensed and locked:
Same with a view looking down on the picking hand (and crosspicking at the end):
Same tremolo, but on two strings, and now it gets pretty terrible!
Now on the guitar! When filming I immediately realised my hand position is completely different for the guitar, so I guess I will have to choose and find one position that works with both instruments, at least for now.
A short bit of a fiddle tune, and then some crosspicking:
tremolo:
tremolo top view, relaxed:
same view, tensing up:
And finally, I noticed that when I play more bluesy and up the neck stuff, I tend to switch my hand position and anchor my wrist:
That’s pretty much it! Please don’t be shy with your diagnosis/critiques, I know I have a long way to go and if many things are wrong I guess it means there is a lot of improvement that can be done.
Watching myself and from the things I know so far, I guess there is some string hopping (without being to sure about it), which would explain why I feel like I can’t speed up my hand (without even aiming for accuracy). I suppose I have to do something about my different hand positions as well.
Mando