Mando's Picking - Starting from close to zero

[Mando]

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

[Hanky_Pooh]

Hi Mando! You could see how fast you can pick on one string. That would give you an idea of your picking top speed. Not everyone can pick extremely fast. I seen even Steve Vai admit to this recently. Get a feel for your speed with single string picking and chord strumming first. That would give you a speed goal for the crosspicking technique. I don’t feel comfortable giving any crosspicking advise. I’m sure others will take over for that!

[Mando]

@Hanky_Pooh thanks for the advice!
Here is the thing: my max speed on one string is the one on the tremolo videos… Depending on the day, it’s (4 notes per beat) around 110bpm if I stay relaxed, and 145 to 155 if I tense up a lot but then it sounds pretty horrible.
My max speed crosspicking is around 110bpm as well if I stay relaxed…
Those speed being the same, I think really need to find a way to get the right hand faster, and then the control I get over strings changes will come in handy (and from what I started to learn on CtC in just one day, I’m sure it’s gonna help me a lot on that issue, I just still don’t know yet how to pick faster on one string, but I guess and hope that improvement is possible because some people here seem to pick about 4 times faster than me).

[hamsterman]

Your crosspicking form looks great… its a nice rotation wrist-movement, and I can see why its very reliable for you. It’s one of the better examples I’ve seen… you don’t look like your ‘pecking’ or ‘hopping’… which is great.

The one thing I noticed is that you are not using any sort of contact with the pick-guard area (like anchoring or dragging) Maybe Troy can correct me on this… but I’ve never seen the elite cross-pickers that doesnt ‘anchor’ or ‘drag’. The reason I mention this… is that I get an incredible precision from ‘sliding/dragging’ my pinky/ring finger on the pick-guard area. Without it…everything falls apart… and I am forced to use larger strokes to play reliably… which slows me down. I am just putting it out there as something to consider.

As far as your tremolo… you are doing what many of us went through… you are kinda ‘defaulting’ to the elbow… because it tends to be the easiest way to generate the alternating with speed.

By itself… the elbow is really unreliable, and you will find it tough to translate tremolo picking across strings. I would consider looking into troy’s videos on the different mechanics… and try out some of the others… just for a couple of days. You can still use the elbow… but I find its more reliable when its used to ‘speed up’ an existing wrist/finger/forearm mechanic… kinda like using ‘nitro’ in your engine.

[Hanky_Pooh]

There’s a lot of fast pickers on here. lol. Maybe you can try to do real fast picking in short bursts. If you can short burst, maybe you can start making the bursts longer… ?

[Mando]

@hamsterman Good to have your thoughts about my picking!
First, I do anchor my pinky and to a certain extent ring finger on the pick-guard when cross-picking on the guitar, but not on the mando where I anchor the wrist instead. Maybe I will change the mando picking to match the guitar picking, but honestly I feel equaly comfortable either way.

And yes, the elbow does not seem reliable at all. But I need to find a way to speed up my wrist, because 4 notes per beat at 110bpm is just not enough in bluegrass (I’d need a solid 160 to be able to play any song in any jam, without even talking of including a couple of faster licks).
Anyway, I’m watching Troy’s videos at the moment, and hopefully I’ll run into something adressing this issue. In the meanwhile, DWPS seems to be good fun and feels pretty natural, I’ll just have to figure out how to use it in bluegrass.

After watching some of the interview with Carl Miner, I suspect my guitar crosspicking is a similar style to his (though nowhere near as good). My videos are not very good quality, but when I look at my hand while crosspicking it seems that the pick slightly clears the string after both downs and ups.
On the mandolin however, it seems my technique is closer to David Grier’s.

@Hanky_Pooh : If I try to do short bursts I just don’t pick any faster than if I pick for 5 minutes. It’s not that my wrist gets tired, it’s more like I can’t find the switch to tell it to go fast.