The first is me attempting wrist movement
The second is the way that feels the most “natural” to me
The third is elbow motion.
Sorry for the full on slow motion, having a hard time figuring out the tech to upload with only a slow motioned section.
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Oh most of us on here just upload to YouTube in original speed, set it’s visibility to “unlisted” and paste the link in. I’ll check out the stuff you posted here though.
Cool man! It takes a lot of bravery to upload a clip, so thanks for sharing. I am by no means an expert, I am working on this stuff myself! Some observations though, because I see you going through some of the same things I did when I was working on some of the same stuff. While I don’t know the corrections I definitely recognize what you’re going through! Pretty fast playing though, man! Awesome!
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The wrist movement, looks like strict deviation to me - radius to ulna in a straight line I think? I notice that you are kind of starting towards the radius more so than the ulna, so that means that there’s tons of room for motion on the downstroke, not so much on the upstroke. Maybe the dudes could weigh in on this? Looks tense though, brother.
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Looks like your fingers/knuckles are turning white from grip pressure - might be too much pressure on the pick? Grip issue perhaps? I don’t know. Maybe Troy or Tommo or Joe or Tom Gilroy could chime in on that.
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Looks to me like you are squeezing the guitar into your body slightly, ie applying pressure with the picking hand/arm to the guitar body which definitely interferes with execution of notes! Again, I think that the fellas might have some good advice on that as well.
Probably all kinds of stuff that I’m not seeing also, so I hope my post is somewhat helpful and doesn’t lead you astray. My observations of course are just observations!
Hey man, since you were kind enough to share a video of you doing some picking I thought I’d share one of me playing the pop tarts lick, keep in mind that this is no warmups, just jumping onto my guitar and going for it - so it’s certainly not polished and it could definitely be a lot faster/better! But I think you can see my picking angle, and the pronation. And, it’s an honest representation of my base ability and what my DSX looks like. I use a trailing edge grip between finger and thumb with my middle finger acting as a sort of “brace” so it’s basically a 3 finger grip. The pop tarts lick is a great little study that works great for both single escapes so that might be a good one to go check out?
Anyways man - you got this! Hopefully seeing some dork struggle with life (me) will help out somewhat? Good luck, man!
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The first video your motion looks trapped, the second looks like string hopping, the third it looks like you have a shallow downstroke escape but it’s hard to tell if it’s efficient in slow-mo.
I think the problem is your assuming what you think a correct motion should look like and trying to make it work rather than discovering the correct motion at sufficient speed through experimentation and then trying to learn/ingrain it by recalling it every-time you pick up a guitar 
@Scottulus great playing man, very interesting insight on the second motion. That second motion is kind of the fall back I always default to when things get fast and it simply does not work. I think you’re right though I’m kind of regrabbing the pick tightly everytime I pick so maybe I need to try loosening my grip on it.
@Jacklr honestly man you’re right. I tried what you said the other day about moving hand positions around but I never could get a solid wrist motion going. The only way I could get any fast tremolo picking going was with elbow. It’s a mental barrier for sure. I kind of tell myself I don’t have the ability to pick from my wrist because of the years I’ve played I’ve never gotten it to work.
I watched a Ben Higgens video last night where he says the same thing you and Troy himself have said. Go fast, find the motion that works for you then refine it. I guess it’s that I don’t know how long to try it. An hour a day for a week? What if takes me months or years to find the right motion for me… sorry, I’ve spent a good 5 years playing focused at 60 bpm climbing up to 120 only to hit a wall and start over. Stupid on my end but I’m so frustrated with this and keep looking for that “secret” to make it click for me.
Have you tried placing your picking hand on the guitar without a pick and just try to move your picking hand fast? It’s way easier to “pick” without a pick, there is just no way to get stuck on the strings. Try it and see if you can move your hand fast while having it in the position that you normally use. (Or try to find another position that feels comfortable).
If you can move it fast, try to look at the way your hand moves and see what kind of escape you would have if you would use a pick. After this it’s all about trying to find a pick grip that allows the pick to travel without getting stuck while using your motion.
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Solid advice, I’ll try this whenever I get home today!
I’m assuming you mean in the open air as in, not letting any parts of my fingers touch the strings?
Just play with your hand as if you were holding a pick. So your fingers will be very close to the strings and they might touch the strings but that doesn’t matter, it won’t interfere with the motion.
If I can do it, you definitely can, you just need to figure out how! Guitar playing becomes a lot easier and a lot more fun when you have an efficient motion
This is my old tense/painful USX(kinda) motion going as fast as I could 11 months ago:
This is my tensionless/easy DSX wrist motion from 2 weeks ago, 120bpm 16th note trips here but can go even faster now:
(It doesn’t take a year to work this stuff out, I learnt my rotational motion 6 months ago but didn’t include it to keep this post more concise)
My advice would be to keep working in/above the 115bpm 16th note trips range, start with upstrokes and try to find a motion that you can keep up with no tension for at least 30secs at a time. When learning my motion my string attack was also really quiet and I always play with a crunchy amp with a clean boost to help the attack anyway! I just wanted something that was easy to do and I could do for a long time, as my comfortability increased with the motion so did the attack. Good luck! 
EDIT:
Also quickly on this, you don’t have to labour away at it or anything. Whenever you feel like it, give it a try and see if you can get anything working - the trick is recognising when you are doing it right and then trying to do it right again and again. Over time it becomes instant, though at first you may only be able to get it right for a couple of minutes at a time before losing it
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Man! Lots of great posts here! I was going to say also that I know it’s kind of easy to dismiss, but the “even notes per string” thing is so very powerful and I have made all kinds of strides forward working on 2, 4 and 6 NPS that jive with my setup. I really want to echo that “effortless” and somewhat “quiet” feeling that jacklr mentioned. That really helped me out hahaha I was a tightly wound ball of tension! lol Good luck!
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The difference between your picking six months ago and now is absurd. Great work @Scottulus .
I’m busy for the rest of today and tomorrow, but I’ll chime in for @Jawnka ASAP.
Tom is not only a monster player, but he is absolutely awesome at “seeing” what one has going on and helping with correcting. I can’t recommend him to guitar players enough. Take some lessons with him, he is awesome and you won’t regret it.
This is EXACTLY what I was going through as well. Except that I had been doing it for decades and my technique revolved around endurance training and tension/fatigue management. A lot of work.
Hey Jawnka, how about you post a clip of a lick or a riff that’s giving you some greif?
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Yes. I have become adept at forearm/ elbow , wrist, finger circle etc where I couldn’t do all of these before. I do each to about the same level of proficiency. I just toggle between them experimenting on which suits best whatever I am trying to do. There are pros and cons to each method. I would class myself now as a good (but not amazing) alternate picker. So yep go for it!
In my experience elbow picking gets the highest speeds, but finger circle usually yields higher accuracy. Wrist tends to land somewhere in the middle.
@Scottulus - really nice pop tarts above! Very clean and sounded great.
Well @Scottulus, right now I don’t have a specific lick in particular that’s giving me trouble because I’ve just wanted to accomplish speed that I don’t have yet. I can’t find a reliable tremolo picking motion at all is my problem.
I tried what BoBBoLove suggested with just moving my hand as fast as possible using wrist motion while it’s just above the strings. No issue at all, I can do that. The moment I add a pick and start touching the strings however, my thumb and index fingers want to come up and pull away from the string.
@Interestedoz Interesting, I think the thing I’m having the most trouble with here is, If a player needs to go fast from the get go in order to achieve speed. They could unknowingly employ any type of motion. So how would one go fast from the start with a good specific motion type? As in, did you yourself just decide well now I’m going to use my wrist, forearm, etc. at 200 bpm 16th notes after never doing it before?
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Good question!
For me, I could “elbow” some pretty fast lines, so really no other motion could come close off the bat, not without being sloppy, and not without practice. So I decided to allow it to be sloppy, and focus on the speed. Slop can be cleaned! hahaha CTC has some solid advice about “starting with speed” and I put it into practice in the following way;
I set the metronome quite high, and then worked my way “down”. Like 180BPM, do steady 16ths on each string until I got done all 6 strings. Took a break, then I dropped the tempo down a metronome mark. rinse/repeat for about 20 minutes. Just kind of muting the open strings with the LH, not getting into a rut of doing 5 million reps of a lick, because that doesn’t help. I think that honestly, the metronome really just acted as a reference and measurement tool - it just sort of provided a pulse for me to align with my existing internal sense of rhythm (If that makes sense?). My “base” tempo for controlled, and even 16ths was, like 120BPM. However, sloppy bursting was easily in the 140 to 180 range, so I just kept at the sloppy, yet effortless feeling motion and it got a lot less sloppy and much faster.
I play drums too, and Tom and I discussed at length a drummer’s approach to speed and meter and it helped a lot to think almost purely percussively for a bit.
I know that somewhere in the primer Troy describes a feeling of the arm being kind of “dead” from the wrist to the shoulder, and getting the wrist to activate separately takes a bit of practice, but once you get it - it’s yours! Maybe just think of the hand doing it’s movement back and forth, and it just “happens” to be holding a pick… happens to hit a string… happens to do it twice… happens to do it consistently etc etc
I hope that helps! Definitely talk to the main guys here, they know their stuff!
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Hi @Jawnka,
I’ve looked over your clips. It would be really helpful to your playing at normal speed and also from a front angle, but I can give you my impressions.
I concur with @Scottulus on several points.
In your first clip, your motion path is almost pure deviation. It leans just a little towards the dart-thrower trajectory, but it’s quite flat.
To produce an almost flat deviation requires that you engage both flexor and extensor carpi ulnaris (FCU and ECU) on downstrokes and both flexor carpi radialis and extensor carpi radialis brevis and longus (FCR and ECRB+ECRL) on upstrokes. You’re trying to coordinate the action of two different antagonist groups (FCU/ECRB+ECRL or dart-thrower group) and (FCR/ECU or reverse dart-thrower group), and most of the force each group is producing goes to cancel what the force other group produces, rather than producing movement.
Your grip is also overly tight. Your deep extrinsic flexors for the fingers and thumb (flexor digitorum profundus and flexor pollicis longus, respectively) are strongly activated. These muscles are in the forearm and their tendons cross the wrist, so by activating them strongly you are constraining the movement of your wrist. Your knuckles also appear to be going white to me. The nail bed under your thumb is even more noticeable to me.
The second clip appears to be string hopping with finger/thumb movement to facilitate greater range of motion. Certain finger/thumb movents can be effective, but you aren’t really using a consistent repeating mechanic, and it seems to be lacking in power.
The thrid clip is mostly elbow. It’s faster, but you’re also more tense. Your form also drifts over time, you move more toward the “hockey stick” position (radial extension) as you continue. I don’t hear a consistent rhythmic accent. I would wonder about how long you can continue this form for without fatigue or rhythmic drift.
I tell my students to work on this stuff for five minutes, three times a day.
To give a sense of the time frames (not to advertise), most of my students have discovered an efficient picking mechanic within two weeks, and all of them found an efficient mechanic within a month. If you create the right conditions, you can learn a new movement very quickly.
It’s never too late to learn. Case in point:
@Scottulus has completely re-defined his picking technique and his approach to technique generally in the last six months. Six months, after having spent decades habituating excessive tension. I hope he won’t mind me saying this, but of all the students I’ve taught, his habitual tension in his picking hand (and arm, shoulder and neck) was the most extreme I’ve seen.
I think you can train any movement you want. I had never used a dart-thrower motion to play guitar before the pandemic, but I was able to specifically train the Shawn Lane style dart-thrower USX form.
However, I think this is usually the wrong approach for beginners. You can’t do what feels “right” until you know what “right” feels like. In lessons, my job is to help students to find that feeling, and I usually recommend that they focus on the first efficient movement they discover for at least a few months. The more familiar they become with that feeling, the more intuition they’ll have for learning other movements in future.
I totally understand that some students want to learn a particular form first. However, students will often ignore other forms that may be more easily achievable while they try to pursue the form their mind is set on. In the longer term you can learn whatever form you want, and students are often satisfied with the first form they develop, even if it’s not the one they thought they wanted.
I agree completely.
I have five criteria for picking technique that I insist on with my students, and I’ve been told that even just reflecting on the list has given some students a clearer picture of what they should be aiming for.
Here’s my checklist:
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Efficient muscular activation against low background tension.
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Strong connection to internal clock.
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High dynamic range.
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The facility to escape consistently in at least one direction.
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Tracking capability across all strings.
Any picking technique which meets those criteria is acceptable to me. There are other considerations that I personally value, but they aren’t necessary (daming facility, facility to incorporate hybrid picking, etc). If your picking technique meets those five criteria and it synergises with your lines, people will think you’re world class (because you will be).
If you’re not a Masters In Mechanics subscriber already, I’d definitely recommend signing up and working through the new content. It’s very approachable and understandable.
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I just started experimenting with all of the approaches a while ago. I was originally most adept at elbow - from memory. I have really been on a journey to improve my accuracy. So I started experimenting with all kinds of mechanics. After a while you can just do them. And weirdly, it seems if I correct an error with accuracy with one technique, it seems to be corrected for all! E.g. I notice I am slightly inaccurate on an upstroke - once I start working on that, it corrects on wrist and forearm.
But as I mentioned above, there are still very slight pros and cons with each approach. For accuracy (for me) finger circle style seems to win. But for sheer speed - elbow. This has held true for me for some time.
So (at the suggestion of a poster here) I have been trying to learn the Jet to Jet solo and not only play it - but make it sound like Yngwie! To achieve this, I am currently using a range of techniques in the one solo:
opening 6’s - elbow
first solo section - finger circle
Uli Jon Roth lick section - a rotation of the pick to be almost flat - usx I think?
next section - finger circle
Final run: elbow
I could not play all of these out of the gate - took a lot of practice.
But if you are stuck, I am not sure a change in mechanic will yield a sudden improvement - the differences for me are very nuanced. So I would focus on choosing one mechanic (e.g. elbow) and see if you can get things going with that first. I’m sorry I can’t get the videos above to work so I am unable to see your examples. But I think single string licks are the best place to start. I would have saved time I think by starting with those - e.g. Yngwie 6’s or first section of pop tarts.
You can do it!
Thank you guys all so much for the advice and tips, I’m going to keep at it in trying to find a working motion. I think I’ve built a bad habit over my years of playing with using my thumb as Tom pointed out from my second clip.
I’m going to try what you all suggested and use 5 minutes 3 times a day to try and find an effective motion with Toms 5 tips in mind. I’ll keep everyone updated if I find something, thanks again!
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