Hi,
After close to one year practicing my picking, I still haven’t made much progress.
I went from 4 notes per beat at 110bpm to 125bpm. Which is not great givin that picking faster was the main thing I worked on (though I had long breaks because of sport related injuries that kept me away from the guitar for about half the year).
I suppose that if I am still that slow, it might be because I am still string-hopping, although I don’t think I do.
I still haven’t found any motion where I feel like speed is available. I do understand the concept of playing fast and sloppy to feel what speed is, but when I try different motions, I am even slower (the only exception being pure elbow, but after praticing a lot with it, it never felt good : painful and non musical).
So here are videos of my picking, which I think is a type of crosspicking (with an “upward slant” as in the molly tuttle interview"). Could you tell me if this looks like a usable motion, or is there any string hopping ?
I tried working on bursts with some success : I get a feeling of fluidity and my speed increases, but only for a short time (about 7 notes) before I switch back to a feeling of “unavailable strength and speed”.
And lastly, I am also quite slow at strumming. In case there was a connection between my picking and my strumming that could explain my lack of progress, here is a video (I also practice short bursts, but with less success as I manage to play faster, but only for 4 to 5 strums and without any accuracy) :
That’s is. I hope I am missing something that will make me click, because guitar is what I do most of the day (no joke, it is extremely frustrating to practice tones ans think about the way I practice, but still stay stuck) and I really struggle on the ability to pick faster !