My upstroke is suffering

Technique Critique
#42

It doesn’t look like recoil to me. It looks more like you are not spreading your fingers apart to reach for the next fret in the sequence. Instead you are keeping your fingers very close to each other and moving your entire left hand to get to each note.

I don’t know whether this is intentional or not, and I’m not a teacher so I can’t say for sure that this is ‘bad’ technique, but it seems like it could easily cause problems. This approach seems to convert every new note into a position shift, which many players find to be less accurate and harder to synchronize than playing within a box (i.e. one finger per fret). It also seems likely that it would make hammer-ons and pull-offs especially difficult. Again, I’m not a teacher, so it’s possible I’ve overlooked some obvious benefit to this approach.

It reminds me a little of Lisa X. She shifts her left hand more than other people to compensate for the fact that her fingers are so much shorter than average (still being a kid and all) and she can’t reach as far as other players can, though she still spreads her fingers quite a lot. (She’s a great player, though. Don’t get me wrong.) As her fingers get longer, I imagine she will do less shifting.

I’m curious. Can you play the standard 1234 chromatic exercise without lifting your fingers?:

  -----------------------------------------------------------1-2-3-4--
  ------------------------------------------------1-2-3-4-------------
  -------------------------------------1-2-3-4------------------------
  -------------------------1-2-3-4------------------------------------
  -------------1-2-3-4------------------------------------------------
  --1-2-3-4-----------------------------------------------------------

After you play each note, keep each finger in place until you switch strings.

I’m not saying you should always play this way. I’m just asking if you can do this. How does it feel when you do?

Is there a reason you avoid stretches with your left hand? Do you stretch when you play chords?

#43

Hi all, Tommo back with the moderator’s hat on :sweat_smile:

I decided to remove all the comments than in my opinion violated our guidelines — see in particular the “Keeping it Civil” part: https://troygrady.com/policies/forum/

I don’t want to point any fingers in this case, I’d just invite the interested parties to have a read at the guidelines, and hopefully it should be pretty obvious to them why I removed the comments and what to avoid moving forward. Obviously, feel free to get in touch with me via PM if you have any concerns about this.

Let’s keep this thread a constructive discussion on how we can try and help @357mag sort out the upstroke :slight_smile:

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#44

Quick question,

When you are practicing your fast tremolo motion, just right hand on one string. Are your upstrokes getting stuck?!
Is it only when you are going slower that it’s getting stuck?
If so it would suggest that maybe something has changed in the motion and you should keep working on that tremolo.
Also, sometimes there can be a mismatch in the direction the pick travels and it’s slant. There is a section about it in the picking primer.
When I have this issue, there are two things I try first. Wrapping the thumb (bending the thumb) for more edge picking, or the opposite, pressing the thumb a bit. Both of these things actually affect the slant of the pick. It’s not immediately obvious to see, hence why it’s very difficult to spot.
Experiment with these two things. You want the upstrokes and downstrokes to feel even. If one is feeling sticky, there is a slant and the direction the pick is travelling mismatch.

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#45

@357mag this is what I was getting at, which @jptk went into more detail. If you’re more of a visual / video learner, I could make a quick video for you.

Also, I came up with a warm-up which might help “even out” your up and down strokes:

#46

What I did is I went back into watching some of Troy’s videos and I found one called Garage Spikes where he talks about the string getting stuck on the upstroke. That video is connected to the next video called Pickslanting.

What Troy recommended is taking your right hand and slightly turning it counter-clockwise to remedy the pick to string mismatch. I tried this and the picking exercise I’m working on started sounding better with the upstrokes sounding more like the downstrokes. I think it’s called a little more pronation.

I think I’m playing that exercise using a downward escape motion.

I’ve got it going a little faster too. Chris recommended trying to go for some speed before too long.

#47

Glad you’re making some progress. This sounds like my suggestion in your other thread to pronate more. Since you were doing a tremolo with your elbow driving the movement (and you reported in ALL videos that you were slanting downwards) I suspected some snagging.

This sounds like your on track based on your comment:

Also, for this:

That’s why we were suggesting a fast tremolo right from the beginning. It’s the true test of the motion being efficient or not. I think that was in another thread, but still applies here.

#48

My tremolo is not as good as Troy’s is. When I use my wrist it still does not feel as smooth as I would like it to be. But earlier I think I mentioned that when I took my right hand and kind of curved it outward it seemed like doing tremolo became easier.

#49

I’d suggest filming this tremolo you are doing now so we can see exactly what motion you are doing, which joints are being used and which escape path.
It’ll make it easier to spot why the problem could be occuring.
Dsx motions can have no slant, or an upward slant. A downward slant wouldn’t pair up with this motion, as far as I know anyway!

#50

Sometimes an upstroke does not sound. I miss it. I guess no matter how much you practice you will make mistakes. I can play this exercise slowly and have it sound great, but as I speed it up the picking gets choppy again.

It’s very hard to pick fast and make it sound smooth.

#51

Keep working on that tremolo. Just one string, don’t even need the left hand.
When learning new motions, it’s sort of hit and miss for a while. That’s why you need to do it often and the hit rate will start to get more consistent.
It should feel relatively easy to do at about 150bpm 16th notes.
If the upstroke is getting stuck, have a look at my previous reply about bending or pressing the thumb. Feel it out and see what makes the downstrokes and upstrokes more even.
If it’s not working, post videos here in this thread so we can see what’s happening.
You’ll get there, just keep working on that temolo

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#52

and if it gets boring, you can always play the melody of Misirlou on whatever string you are practicing the tremolo on :wink:

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#53

Haha yes! A dynamics challenge!

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#54

I’m a little confused about the need to always be working on tremolo picking. I rarely use it. I understand that when you tremolo pick supposedly that is the fastest you can play on the guitar. But what if a guy discovers a faster way to tremolo pick, but he discovers he can’t use that method to play his regular licks?

I mentioned in one of my posts I curved my hand and held it outwards a little and it seemed like tremolo picking became faster and smoother. But if I try to use that hand approach to playing the picking exercise I’m currently working on it does not work.

Isn’t it entirely possible that a more realistic approach could be to use one hand position or technique for tremolo picking and a different technique for just regular playing?

#55

I understand what you mean for sure, and you may be right.

The whole idea of doing the tremolo picking thing is to find out which picking motions, grips, angles and anchors work for you, that’s all.

Then you can apply those same techniques to playing more than 1 note on the same string, then progress to playing more notes on different strings.

The picking exercise you are working on, is it on a single string ?

I guess you could say that if you are playing across the strings, then the motions you will use will be different to those you use for tremolo picking on just one string, but that’s really only because you need to make those string changes (the escapes).
The motions you use when picking multiple notes on the same string should be the same as the motions you use for tremolo picking.

This is why the advice is to start with tremolo picking, and just see what works for you and feels comfortable. Then you can move on to trying to play licks on one string and then changing strings (escapes).

I have been going back to try and change my picking motions again, and I have been using tremolo picking WITH string changes to experiment with using different joints, grips, anchoring. I used a metronome to find my top speed at tremolo picking, then kept it running and tremolo picked even or odd notes on each string to see how the string changing works with the motion I was using. May not be a tried and tested method on CtC but I’ve found it helpful. Although, I’m back at square one using the same USX wrist motion I have for 30 years with a weird elbow jerky escape motion for escaping downstrokes. That’s the only thing that works for me it seems. But for you, progressing into the shredding world, there could be multiple motions that work for you on some level.

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#56

The picking exercise I’m working on uses only a single string.

#57

Ok cool. So maybe once you’ve got a picking technique that works with tremolo picking, like you said you have, you could slow it down and start on your single string lick. However it’s best if the lick is straight forward and repetitive so you don’t have to think too much about your fretting hand at this point.

Of course speed does requires a fast fretting hand and fast picking hand, but if you are just working on picking speed improvements and motions then it’s best to choose a lick with a shape that your fretting hand is familiar with, so you can put your full attention into the picking side of things.

Or alternatively you could get your fretting hand up to speed by playing the lick with hammer ons and pull offs (legato) then progress to a fully picked version (staccato).

#58

I’m back to square one with some things also. Something went a bit ars*ways with my wrist motion… so back to tremolo to try figure it out. Ugh!

#59

My hand and wrist looks like Troy shows in his videos, but his tremolo picking sounds quite a bit more even than mine. My downstrokes are the loudest. My upstrokes still are quieter and don’t sound as good as my downstrokes. It’s hard to understand why. I wish I could make them even so both my downstrokes and upstrokes sound pretty close to each other.

#60

I think it just takes a bit of time my friend, to get used to the motions and get some consistency.

Keep playing a bit every day and it will improve I’m positive.

Although a lot of the techniques and discoveries on CtC seem like magic, for people like Troy who have been playing and picking fast for decades, probably practicing for hours every week year after year, it might be easy for them to adapt to different motions and develop techniques and get results quickly, but for most people it takes some time to develop.

The more time you spend playing the better you will get, it’s as simple as that, but knowing the right techniques and picking motions to use gives you a head start.

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#61

I’ve been practicing my picking exercise on the B string today and I still have problems making the pick go through the string smoothly on both the downstroke and the upstroke. I’m trying all sorts of hand positions and the like and if I could only make the pick go through the string smoothly especially on the upstroke I would have it down.

I have had some success changing my grip on the pick. Not using a trigger style grip but holding the pick more between the side of the finger and the finger pad. And then putting the bone which is on the far right side of the hand up ahead of the bridge.

It’s quite frustrating and depressing.