Well I made this video quickly using my iPhone. I use a drawer to cradle my phone in while I filmed my playing. I filmed it in portrait mode (sorry!!), as I couldn’t get my camera to stay put in landscape. Every time I change it to landscape in Quicktime the whole image shifts too, if anyone knows how to fix it please let me know. Any criticism is very much appreciated:
Awesome, thanks for sharing — 100 internet points for being the first to jump in with a “technique critique” post!
We actually meant to post some sort of “guidelines” to some of the forum categories here but have been so busy we haven’t gotten around to it yet. So I’ll start with a general comment for anyone interested in offering up their playing for critique:
I think it may be helpful to note, along with the video, if there are specific questions you have / things you’d like feedback on. This isn’t strictly necessary but it’s likely you’ll get more useful feedback if people know what to look for.
For example, are you concerned with your hand position? Pick grip? Motion mechanics?
Want to see how others would approach a particular part of a song or lick?
Looking for feedback more on the musical ideas than the mechanics?
Of course if you want to share something just for fun or to show your progress, that’s cool too 
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Thanks for replying.
I don’t think my general picking technique is as good as it should be as I find it very hard to get faster. I max out at about 130bpm for 16ths and 100bpm with sextuplets.
I don’t know what’s holding me back - the way I’m moving my wrist? My general arm posture?
I have tried different ways of holding the pick and trailing edge is very comfortable and natural for me.
I guess I need a fresh pair of eyes to pick up on anything wrong or any bad habits I have picked up on.
Cool clip, thanks for posting!
I suspect a lot of players are in the same boat as you. As per our conversation on the other thread about identifying when something is pickslanting, and what kind, the same question applies here: What path is the pick following? And it’s pretty clear in your case that the pick lifts above the plane of the strings at both ends of the pickstroke. It sounds like you may already know this. You alluded to as much in the other thread in your comment about perhaps not needing pickslanting due to your more neutral orientation.
As far as what’s going on mechanically, this leaves two possibilities: crosspicking and stringhopping. In practice I think what we’re seeing here is probably a little of both. Some of these movements appear a little more like repeated extension (stringhopping), and others look more crosspicky in terms of alternating deviation and extension. And this is what you’d expect from a pronated arm position and semicircular picking movements of the sort you’re making. Others here can check my math on this.
Anyway that’s all kind of academic. Because what you’re describing, this feeling of hitting a speed limit, is generally not something you should feel, either when crosspicking efficiently, and definitely not when pickslanting. So I think what you should do is at least experiment with a more overt pickslanting technique to train your hands away from the hopping movements.
There’s a “Viewer Decode” we did with a player in a very similar situation:
https://troygrady.com/channels/decode/viewer-decode-pickslanting-vs-crosspicking/
This is Kean, who’s a long-time Cracking the Code viewer from way back. He’s got a similarly hoppy movement, which again, might be crosspicky and might be stringhoppy, and in actual practice might be a little bit of both. In the video we did, I think I probably (possibly?) overstated the case to which he’s actually doing a pure crosspicking movement.
After some experimentation Kean himself hit upon the idea of using rest strokes to learn a more strictly pickslanted motion, to prevent the repeated lifting out of the strings that was slowing him down. The idea is that you assume a dwps orientation, like for example the way Teemu explains in his interview. And then, you intentionally contact the next higher string on downstrokes, the way the gypsies do. It’s not the rest stroke per se that’s going to help you go faster. But by learning to feel that rest stroke contact, you’re making sure you’re really burying the pick on the downstrokes. The keeps the motion path linear, preventing the lifting at the far end of the downstroke, and hence, avoiding the inefficiency of stringhopping.
Kean sent progress clips afterward and they looked good. More importantly, he was able to get there very quickly. This was a matter of days, maybe a week or two. Once you remove the fatigue of the stringhopping double-lift, you can unlock a lot more speed — speed you likely already have.
It’s worth noting that in both Kean’s case and yours, accuracy isn’t the problem. You’re both clean players, which is great. It’s just the speed limit we’re trying to remove.
Let me know if I’m explaining this clearly. And thanks for posting - this is a good one that I suspect will help a lot of players.
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Not specific advice, but as a matter of principle, experiment with how fast you can pick just one note over and over again. Try a variety of grips and anchoring strategies to see how you can squeeze extra speed out of that one note without having to worrry about a complex phrase at first. A key detail I found important is finding a way to be able to keep the depth of each pickstroke consistent, and there are probably many ways to try to do that. When I do that sort of thing, I also think about whether I’m striving for a UPWS movement, a DWPS movement, or a “crosspicking” movement, with crosspicking being the most challenging.
My main technique is very different from the clip you posted, but when I’ve done experiments closer to what you’re doing, I found that experimenting with how the heel of my hand anchored on the bridge was a key factor in ramping up speed. For me this meant having a slightly extended wrist and a very slightly supinated forearm with part of the heel of the hand (toward the “pinky” side of the palm) pressed against the bridge. So that might be one area for experimentation.
P.S. Kudos for having the balls to post asking for feedback! 
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Everyone - a massive thank you for taking the time to critique my playing.
After reading Troy’s expert analyses it makes sense that stringhopping is slowing me down. I’m going to try and reconfigure my picking so I’m more aware of pickslanting. I will work on this and post a video in the future of my progress.
Best wishes and thanks again!
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No worries! Thanks again for putting this up there - excited to see what you come up with.
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Regarding the rest strokes suggested by Troy, at least in my case they do facilitate picking speed, or at the very least they seem to reduce fatigue in my hand when picking fast. After a rest stroke there is a kind of `bouncing back feeling’ that helps me initiate the upstroke (well at least it feels like it). I also love the loudness that a rest stroke can give, our only hope to be heard above those loud piano players
For these reasons I sometimes wish I had another string below the high E
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I changed my picking grip, and am trying to use two way pickslanting. My movements look a little stringhoppy I think…
I think it would be wise to test the limits of your new grip with one-way pickslanting before you go too crazy working on your two-way pickslanting with the new grip. Not only does this give you a better idea of your current “speed ceiling” with that grip, but it lets you really zoom into the nuances of how to maximize accuracy and speed with that grip. Not that it’s wrong to work on two-way pickslanting, but I think doing some intensive one-way practice with the new grip will help you refine your movement in ways that might not occur to you otherwise.
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I second this. I only recently (this past week) got anywhere with swiping licks (that I’ve been obsessing over for a while) and it’s partially from putting some focused work in on playing just regular old run-of-the-mill straight DWPS licks with no “escape hatches.”
Even single-string licks (fives, sixes, sevens) will help with this.
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Guys, once again, thanks for your comments on insight. I have a lot work to do!
How often are you working with your metronome?
What do you do when you use your metronome?
I like your 2nd video’s pick holding. You may have TOO much pick sticking out and it COULD be digging into the strings causing too much drag and friction.
What I’m about to share is something I often teach my students who come to me saying they’re stuck on speed, and it’s usually because they haven’t been utilizing the metronome properly.
Since you’re stuck at around 130 BPM this tells me you need more work with 8th notes. What I have students do, AND myself, is work up a given exercise/lick/whatever until you can play it at 240 BPM with 8th notes. True, it’s damn close to the same speed as 130 BPM with 16th notes, but it’s very important you get comfortable at that speed. Working with 8th notes will help with this.
This will also allow you more play time with slower speeds, thus aiding you in improving mechanics.
What I have students do, AND ME , is start whatever you’re going to work on at 60 BPM. As soon as you play your exercise CORRECTLY JUST ONE TIME, bump up the metronome by NO MORE than 5 BPM. Keep doing this until you can’t get any faster.
EVERY TIME you start a practice session over, start at 60 BPM. It’s important to warm up into your higher speeds. Just like you need warm up sets before lifting heavy weights, you need warm up time before playing your fastest speeds on guitar.
What’s a specific exercise you’re stuck on?
How many days in a row do you work on the same exercise?
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@milehighshred, thanks for watching my videos.
Since I filmed that second video I have changed to Dunlop Jazz III Max Grip, so this will hopefully be addressing the issue of having too much pick sticking out.
I never thought of doubling the time with my metronome and playing 8th notes -that’s a great idea! Thank you for that tip. No one has ever suggested that before.
Over the past week I have been working on Gilbert Sixes Connected DWPS and am stuck on it. I can get it clean at 85bpm, but am having trouble getting it clean past that tempo. I work on this every day, for different amounts of time, in between learning songs. “Circular Nines + Asc - Desc 3nps” is another exercise I’m working on. I can get this about 100bpm. I’m going to try your double speed trick later.
Do you also practice single string stuff? I think that is the first place where you can experience the feeling of speed! From your videos it seems that you are already practicing quite complicated patterns moving across strings, but it may be worth it to also spend time working on each string separately to figure out how to pick it fast (each string will feel slightly different).
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I don’t actually practice much single stuff at all. I should work on that!!
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This. Working on single-string stuff helps a lot with your raw speed in ways that I find playing across strings doesn’t.
That’s how Paul Gilbert held his pick till the early 80’s. I know a ridiculous shredder in Italy that picks that way and he has no troubles blazing Jason Becker and Racer X songs all day. It’s funny to watch him pick. That’s really all I have to say about it. 
Clean playing as usual!
The grip looks fine, but I’m not seeing the rest strokes. If you’re looking to untrain your hand from the hopping, this is the one method we have empirical data on as having worked for other players. I’d highly recommend doing this first, before anything else. Getting the hand moving in a straight line is how you unlock the speed, and you can do this on a single string as others have mentioned. I’d recommend doing it in a single position, as with the Yngwie six-note pattern or something else really simple. You’re trying to get a movement here, and you should be able to do it in one sitting.
You can always go back to the two-way stuff once you’ve learned what the straight-line movement feels like.
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Thanks again to everyone for the input. I now know exactly what I have to woodshed.
Just one last question @Troy you mentioned rest strokes - I should go and rewatch the Teemu video for tips on this?
Many thanks to all and best wishes.