Promise this is the last one - just had another thought: have you tried with a more bendy pick? If you are a “hard hitter” like me, a thinner pick can really help with reducing fatigue and the feeling of string resistance. I once picked up a 0.50 and could shred with it at my top speed no problem, and it felt very easy to keep it going.
There’s this superstition in the guitar world that the thickness of our … pick is somehow proportional to our coolness or something. In reality I think whatever gets the job done is good - we all have different playing mechanics and hand shapes etc.
Paul Gilbert has used 0.60 tortex picks for a long time and I don’t think anyone sane could listen to him and say “this sounds so bad, I wish he used a 2mm”
Clip one is my original pick orientation in DSX. When I need to play running 16ths, this is pretty much the only way I can do it:
It’s working to an extent, but I always feel like I’m clinging on for dear life. My hand is JAMMED inside that little nook where the bridge meets the body. You can see how this would be super inefficient for playing a riff along the lines of “Bark At The Moon”, which is the kind of stuff my band has been writing lately
Here’s my best shot at UPX running 16ths. This is really difficult for me. I have a lot of trouble finding a position that I can do this sort of running motions with any force. I also cant sustain the motion. As soon as I intro movement into the fretting hand, everything flies out the window.
I tried doing some radically different positions like a two finger grip and the amount of power you can get on down strokes is HUGE but I haven’t found a way to get an alternate picking motions. with it yet.
Thanks for the responses so far. I’ll reply to some of the more specific stuff when I get back on a computer
I’m far from an expert when it comes to metal rhythm playing (have been working on it myself for years now), but have had some breakthroughs lately, so I’ll try to give my two cents.
Judging by your latest clip, even though you angle your hand in a downward picking position, you still seem to use primarily your wrist which which makes the pick move more or less vertically over a string, instead of in a downward slope, so it probably neutralizes the downward angle of the forearm. I know this will initially be difficult, but try using forearm rotation instead of wrist motion when using downward pickslanting. If you want, I can make a short video of my picking hand doing gallops and regular chugging to give you an exact idea of what I’m talking about.
EDIT:
I’ve only now noticed that you mentioned a tingling sensation in your ulnar nerve in the first post. That may indicate that you are using your elbow to play chugging stuff, which from I would try to avoid since it might mess up your ulnar nerve in the long run (I tend to have issues with my ulnar nerve from time to time because I was forcing my way through chugging without practising slowly and in a relaxed manner.)
Thanks for sharing the video! Usually works to just paste the link on its own line (this works for YouTube) but testing and I see Vimeo seems to not be working the same way. They may be blocking embeds somehow, I’ll look into it.
To address a couple of the more specific questions in the thread:
I get told this all the time but I’m not really sure what’s to be done. As far as guitar playing goes I’ve been strictly a metal guy and I only really only started taking my lead playing seriously a couple years back when I discovered CTC. But playing fast, controlled and relaxed has been difficult for me my entire life on any instrument.
How much ‘conentrated’ effort do you put into your rhythm playing and practice on a weekly basis?
Added up, I’d say an hour a day on average but I go through phases depending on what’s coming down the pipeline that requires my focus. I often use click tracks and I’m trying to get in the habit of recording myself along with drum tracks when practicing at home.
That Josh Middleton guy is FEROCIOUS, wow. I wasn’t aware of him before, thanks for sharing.
I did monkey around with this a bit with a closed fist and whatnot. I found closed fist was pretty strong, but I had a lot of trouble relaxing and I was getting pains in my hand. Tried a few variations on three fingers and the picking power is pretty awesome on downstrokes but I couldn’t find any position that allowed me to alternate pick. I went back and tried to do more what you do–fingers relaxed and lightly anchored underneath the pickups and that’s probably been the best so far.
Nope, the only way I can reliably play running 16ths is in the clip I posted a couple days ago with my tightly anchored, extremely DSX position. The upstrokes on any other hand placement are utterly confounding to me. It’s clearly a mental block but I don’t really know what to do about it.
Would you mind posting a clip? I’ve been trying to do a proper forearm rotation thing ever since I found CTC but I haven’t yet found a smooth alternate-picking motion where I can fully escape the strings on upstrokes. Whenever I try to do a fast forearm rotation movement (like the EVH tremolo) I get pain in my arm.
I’ll try to film myself as soon as possible. Keep in mind that I’m far from an expert on the topic, I’m just a guy who’s had a few small breakthroughs along the way to mastering this type of playing, but I’ll do my best to explain it.
Also, Josh Middleton is a god among men. Check out Sylosis, his band. Modern metal in E standard.
I decided to do more of a lesson rather than a short clip in order to make myself as clear as possible. Excuse the digressions and general awkwardness, this is the first time I’ve done anything like this and I wanted to provide as much information as I could. Feel free to ask anything if you want a more concise and clear explanation, since I’ve spent most of the video talking about stuff instead of demonstrating my technique. Hope it helps!
EDIT: At 14:15 I said 140 BPM when I meant to say 40 BPM.
Its interesting that you think of the movement as ‘upstroke+back2neutral’. So does it feel like you are primarily using the muscles on the inside of your forearm?
I never really thought about it prior to your question. I’ve just checked it and I think you’re right. When I’m tremolo picking without palm muting, I can feel the muscles on the inside of my forearm (the parts below the elbow) activating and flexing as a result of my flexed positioning of the wrist (it varies depending on how much I’m flexing my wrist).
I can also feel that the muscles on the other side of the forearm are activated, but they aren’t flexed, just kind of tensed up (not in an uncomfortable way, though). However, both outside and inside muscles are flexing a bit when I play downpicking.
Have you tried practicing standing up with your guitar in a relatively low position? I imagine most metal rhythm guitarists developed their right hands because they play standing up with the guitar slung on the lower side, in which case, forearm rotation with a USX is pretty much all you can do. Also, playing a pointy guitar with very little room for any type of anchoring other than the pinky edge of the palm on the bridge.
It’s entirely possible you can develop good fast rhythm playing without that setup, I’m merely pointing out a possible reason why so many rhythm players adopt this position. Actually one thrash guitarist that comes to mind who didn’t use forearm rotation is Jeff Hannemann. He looks like he did some type of combination of wrist deviation and elbow.
What I’m saying is, if you’re finding your body gravitating towards generating speed one way, don’t throw it out because you don’t see “other guys” play that way. There’s always going to be exceptions.
It is not my intention to speak ill of the dead, but from what I’ve read about Slayer’s live shows and the band in general, Jeff might not be a good example of a tight rhythm guitar player, at least not one with a sustainable technique in the long term.
Namely, it is a known fact that Kerry King (who has a more traditional metal rhythm technique) recorded all rhythm guitars on several Slayer albums prior to Jeff’s death ( “Somebody reported some bulls–t. People say s–t when they don’t know what’s actually going on. Even though Jeff’s song, “Piano Wire,” was recorded during the last album cycle [ World Painted Blood ], I played all the guitar. I’ve been doing that for years. Since he has no lead on that song, he’s not on it.” - Kerry King in an article on Loudwire).
Secondly, people on some forum commented on the band’s more recent performances with Jeff still in the fold and comparing them to those with Gary Holt on the rhythm guitar only to reach a consensus that the band sounded significantly tighter with Gary (I can’t remember where I read that).
All this leads to a conclusion that although Jeff’s songwriting was amazing, his technique couldn’t be maintained properly and therefore I wouldn’t recommend that approach to anyone.
However, I agree with trying to change strap length in order to have the guitar slung a bit lower than usual (while keeping the comfort of the fretting hand in mind at the same time), since I’ve found that when I play my guitar slung lower, my wrist naturally assumes a flexed downward pickslanting-oriented position.
Just to play devils advocate here, but is it possible his coordination is to blame and not his motion mechanic for his sloppiness? Yeah, Jeff wasn’t the most precise, but he was fast. I’m sure I can find other dudes who don’t use the gypsy wrist position who play metal rhythm, but he was the first that came to mind. Actually, I seem to remember Troy mentioning Brendon Small from Dethklok uses an elbow mechanic for even rather speedy things.
My point is, with the sheer volume of metal rhythm players adopting the slouched wrist style, I’m questioning if this is more a result of a fashionable strap length forcing this motion mechanic or not, because in the world of speedy lead players who might be more inclined to wear their guitar higher we see a lot more variation.
That is indeed a valid point, especially when considering the fact that both Jeff and Kerry are sloppy when playing leads.
Judging by this video, Brendon Small does in fact use an upward pickslanting orientation, although it seems that on certain downpicked parts he assumes a somewhat neutral position coming close to a downward pickslant, but yeah, he’s definitely a tight and fast rhythm player with an efficient upward pickslant orientation, though I don’t get how he’s able to do it. It seems that wrist extension is the key to efficient downpicking, regardless of the pickslanting orientation of choice.
Yeah I often practice standing up. I tried wearing my guitar lower for a little while for this exact reason but since my band is pretty active (rehearsals/writing/recording twice a week, gigging, etc) I was struggling to keep up so I went back to my higher playing position just so I could get through our material.
I know that Brendan Small and other metal players are using other setups (Brendan Small doesn’t seem too far-off from my usual position so I’d love to see his interview when it’s out) but I think I would benefit from changing things up. Even in my natural playing style I’m finding myself clinging to the guitar for dear life, so to speak. My wrist is slammed in the little nook where the bridge meets the body of the guitar and my forearm crushes the guitar against my body. The whole operation feels really tense. It’d be really awesome to just crush out some fast power metal 16ths like Blind Guardian or Helloween with that badass wrist/forearm action, you know? I’ve been trying to do it my way for a long time and all it got me was an ulnar nerve injury.
@13GuitarDude I’m going to make a long-term practice routine out of your little video over the fall and see how it goes for me. Your English is spot-on, btw!
@element0s “My wrist is slammed in the little nook where the bridge meets the body of the guitar and my forearm crushes the guitar against my body. The whole operation feels really tense.” - You want your forearm to grip on the body of the guitar as lightly as possible. I think adopting the downward pickslanting orientation will help with that. I think you should start off with exercises incorporating palm muting, since resting of the edge of the palm on the bridge, as well as of remaining fingers on the higher strings (higher in terms of pitch) should provide enough support for your picking hand. As for you your forearm in general, try to think of it as resting your forearm on the edge of a table - you don’t dig your forearm into the table while using tableware, a pen, or a mouse, you just let it sit there.
I’m really glad that my video is of use to you. Please provide feedback on your progress.
Since you’ve had an ulnar nerve injury, I’ll just share a few tips regarding your practice routine: go light on the pick attack and palm muting (whenever I go overboard with hard palm muting, the lower half of my forearm starts tingling due to my ulnar nerve damage). Just remember to ease into it and listen to your body. Also, a good thing before playing guitar in any situation is to stretch your hands. I’m currently using these exercises:
(minus the drink at the end ). I’ll chime in if I have any other advice. Good luck!
Heres another dude who looks like he uses wrist deviation in combination with a bit of elbow: Ben Ash. He played in Carcass for a few years and is a much better example of utilizing this style of right hand in extreme metal than Jeff Hannemann
). I’ll chime in if I have any other advice. Good luck!