I haven’t looked too closely at the rest of your videos, but I just wanted to say that the ones that you call “pure forearm” look a lot like pure elbow to me!
That’s right Johannes! I was thinking there was something wrong each time I was writting this, without knowing what… I think I just mixed the meaning of these two words in my head, it’s now been corrected, thanks!
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Dude, this is blazing. And it sounds good. I’m not sure what you’re referring to as “slow” but this is not slow. If it feels good and sounds good, then it is good.
As noted, your “forearm” clip is elbow. It is not stringhopping, and it is the only rock/jazz-style linear motion I see you doing here. Specifically it looks like a trapped motion, which means it is not a string switching motion by itself. Unless the pick is escaping on one of those pickstrokes, which I can’t really tell because the camera is still a little too far away. You can determine whether it is downstroke escaping like an elbow motion should by attempting some multi-string downstroke escape lines.
Re: the last clip, “elbow crosspicking”, the elbow cannot crosspick. It is a downstoke escape motion only and cannot switch strings when you play an upstroke. So right away that tells you that this clip is not pure elbow. It is in fact elbow and wrist, and I think you can see that in the slow motion. It looks pretty much the same as your other crosspicking clip just with a little more elbow. The fact that it is fast and a little sloppy is good. That is how efficient motions work. If you cannot do a motion so fast that it becomes sloppy then it is not an efficient motion and needs to be changed or thrown out.
So where does that leave you? Well, elbow is a great picking motion and worth working on. Lots of players use it for tremolo and for fast downstroke escape single note lines. Chris Thiele is a great example.
If your issue with this motion is “arm tension”, well, some arm tension is necessary. You can’t play fast without it. What people get wrong is thinking that tension causes the motion to be wrong. Instead, I think doing the motion wrong causes tension. Elbow is naturally a downstroke escape motion because of its plane of operation. Look at your upper arm - it is angled away from your body to reach over the guitar. Moving your elbow back and forth with your arm arranged like this will cause it to move in same plane as your upper arm. This will make downstrokes move away from the guitar’s body. If it doesn’t, then something is wrong and maybe that is why it feels weird to you.
This is where trial and error comes in. Not trial and error with different motions, per se. But repeated attempts to find the correct way to do these basic motions like elbow flexion/extension where they click and feel fast and smooth. Again, many attempts and tests, with little changes in your form and thought process trying to produce a different feel and result. Verify with video. Up close video. 120fps video is immensely helpful. Save up for a 120fps phone or borrow one if you can. It’s an invaluable tool that eliminates guesswork.
Your “elbow crosspicking” thing also maybe has some potential, because it’s sloppy. Can you do that even faster, to the point where it is very fast but totally sloppy? Try that. If you can go much faster and into the slop zone, then this is an efficient motion and you should work on trying to clean it up. Doc Watson played this way and Jake Workman’s technique appears similar, a combination of elbow and wrist:
If you can go this fast but super sloppy, that’s totally ok. Then you’re on to something. Apply the same trial and error techniques to try and go a little slower while maintaining the feel of “fast” but with a tiny bit more accuracy.
Don’t spend hours and hours on this. And don’t repeat motions that aren’t working. Try something for a minute or two. If it feels good and sounds good, then film it and verify. If not, take a few minutes break and try again.
Keep up the good work.
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Thanks again for your detailed reply!
I’ve been practicing the elbow motion 2 minutes here and there (basically every 10 minutes all day) and I think something is happening there! There is clearly an increase in speed and at moments I do get the smooth feeling I’ve been searching for.
I didn’t kown Jake Workman, he’s great! If I could ever manage to pick like that, then I could finally sit down and think about musicality only, I guess.
I’m gonna work with this new info for a few days and check what I do with videos, and will put video updates when I feel I’ve made a step in the right direction!
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Try to avoid this mindset. You can always think about musicality and technique at the same time. It works better that way anyway since a wide variety of musical ideas is what you need to help find the smoothness / click of the motions.
Fyi I just took a look at some of the lines Jake is playing there and in fact most of them are even numbers of notes per string, last note on every string is a downstroke, aka downstroke escape elbow motion. So in other words, much of this does not even require crosspicking type motion. Jake may or may not be making a crosspicking motion - we can’t tell from this angle. But super fancy picking motions are not required to play face melting stuff - just basic motions and great ideas.
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Hi there!
Sorry for disappearing for a while, I keep having troubles with a collarbone that doesn’t seem to ever get fixed properly and broke for the third time in a year… But this time it should be alright and hopefully I can play without having to stop again.
I started playing again about a week ago and I think I made some progress!
The only thing I found through trial an error that was not a complete disaster was a slight change in the way I hold the pick, which allowed me to play with way less tension and ro achieve a smoother feeling (I understand that some tension might be necessary, but my elbow picking felt so tensed it was ridiculous).
This resulted in an increase of my max “sloppy speed”, and now I can play very sloppy indeed! I got to about 170bpm as fast as I can on one string (no left hand), and 145bpm on scale runs (ultra sloppy).
I feel like this could still be smoother (and faster), so I suppose I should keep searching for a better motion before I start “cleaning it up”. Here are some videos (for some reason, I seem to have more success working on this motion on the mandolin rather than the guitar).
Any opinion on whether I’m headed in the right direction is very welcome! And suggestions as to how it’s best to continue will be more than appreciated as well!
I feel like I don’t see the end of the tunnel quite yet, but at least I started moving.
Another question: I read on another “technique critique” post that strumming could actually be a great tool to work of smoothing out a picking motion. The thing is my strumming is too slow lacks in smoothness as well.
I can’t comp bluegrass tunes above 135-140bpm (getting to 160 would be nice in order to be relaxed at 140), and I never got the hang of double time, triplets, and such things.
It’s more or less the same as with my picking : the only way I manage to get any speed at all is by using an elbow (mostly) motion. I feel like this might not working for funk or swing, which seem to rely a lot on the “whiplash” created by the wrist.
Would anybody have any suggestion to work on that ?
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Quick update:
It seems to get better, slowly but surely. I can now play some fiddle tunes very sloppy at 140-150 bpm.
I suppose I add a wrist component to my elbow motion to make it escape the strings on upstrokes and downstokes, but I regularly fail to escape and hit the adjacent string.
Sorry about the lack of light, I did not realise that until I watched the videos once on youtube.
A fiddle tune:
G scale stuff, all changes of strings happening on upstrokes: this feels pretty natural. I think I only escape on upstrokes here (but I don’t consciously change anything to my motion)
Inside picking and crosspicking on three strings are the two things that I still don’t feel are getting smooth
Playing the scale in fours is also troublesome as there is more crosspicking involved:
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These look really good! looks like you have made more progress than I am having with this.
It looks like the smoothness is coming with the speed - and the accuracy will come as your motions get more refined and more relaxed.
Where are you now with this stuff? any more clips?
I don’t know how I missed these earlier — thanks for bumping this thread.
These look f***in’ great. The issue you started out trying to solve was the stringhopping motion, which for a lot of players in your situation can be a deeply learned and embedded kind of thing that you can’t stop doing. The good news in these clips is that it is now completely gone. You’ve replaced it with a totally different, and perfectly smooth, single escape-style motion which is a little sloppy here and there. Which is exactly as it should be. Fast smooth and sloppy — the long tail will be accuracy over time, and that comes together in little pieces here and there.
Very nice work here. What did you do specifically to get this happening?
Also - are you doing purely downstroke escapes - or are there any upstroke escapes in there? if so how did you get them happening?
Hi there !
I realise, more than one year after I stopped playing anything with a pick with any kind of consistency in my practice (not moving forward with my picking hand got me really crazy, and I decided to work on my singing and other instruments instead for a while), that I missed these replies
Sorry for no replying any sooner and thank you for your insight.
Now that I have taken a break from playing guitar and mandolin, I’ll try to get back to it with a fresher mind (as I felt completely stuck), and try to work on that picking hand with CtC again, as I’ve seen there’s quite a bit of new material online!
What I’m note quite sure about is my ability to make any progress without a more drastic change than just my pick motion/hold: I never got past 160bpm tremolo with a single escape motion (mostly elbow motion), and 120bpm playing actual phrases. And it never felt smooth.
More troubling than that : I can strum faster that 120bpm.
Should I not work first on my pure strumming ability (which is very limitating as well, by the way), and find a way to just move my arm/wrist faster than I do?
I’m left handed, and wonder if maybe I could find a way to “re-wire” my brain to that area (if I try picking with my left hand, it’s instantly as fast as anything I would ever need to play, though extremely sloppy, of course, and I get a very “smooth” feeling, hence the idea that my right hand/arm might not be as “well wired” at the moment, despite a thousand times more work).
Welcome back! I don’t know man, I stand by my earlier comments. Those updates were perfect. You’re basically doing elbow motion, and it looks damn good considering the stringhopping motion you started with. Ever watch any Michael Cleveland? All elbow at high speed:
Notice he’s not playing fours or any of the complicated stuff you’re going for in those last updates. He’s doing mostly straight even numbers of notes per string, all downstroke escape (uwps if you like). That’s the elbow way.
If you want those complicated patterns you can get them by adding in a little forearm or wrist as you’re doing in the “inside picking” clip. But just keep in mind that if you’re down on yourself and thinking you suck, that doesn’t match up with what I’m seeing in those clips.
So, in summary, great work, get back on the horse if you like. Or not, no pressure here!
Thanks Troy!
I am aware that your assessment of my picking motion is that it’s a valid one.
What puzzles me is that it’s not fast and smooth as I need it to.And I’m not talking about crazy speeds, but I feel like having a plateau (at 160bpm for tremolo and 115-120bpm for actual musical playing) for more than a year means something is off. And the fact that my strumming motion is even slower makes me think there is some kind of a breaktrhough to be made.
Hence my idea that if the motion is good (and I 100% trust your opinion and expertise on that one), maybe it’s down to something else I should work on beforehand. When my picking was slow because of stringhopping, I could see where I had to work. But now that it barely got faster and the motion is good, I’m wondering which way to go.
I’ll give it a try anyway, though ! I really enjoyed making progress on other instruments and singing for a while, but I’d really love to manage to overcome this “picking frustration” I have on guitar and mandolin.
Not sure what you mean by musical playing, but that clip above labeled “2 G scale” is about 160bpm sixteenth notes according to my quick and dirty iPhone metronome, and that sounds pretty musical to me. There’s some nice variation in there that would make for a perfectly fine solo in a 160bpm song.
So a few things:
One, are you saying this is as fast as you can physically move? Because if so, you still seem to be able to do this for musically useful lengths of time. Which honestly, most people can’t move at or near their physical limits for long enough to play a whole tune that way. I’m just saying, there are good odds that this is not actually your physical limit of speed that we’re seeing here.
Also, keep in mind that the lines you’re playing here, like the fours thing, those are complicated lines because they require both upstroke and downstroke escapes. Most people when they play in this speed range do not actually use a picking motion capable of doing both escapes.
Instead, most people use a single-escape motion. This a motion where you can only change strings during one type of pickstroke. That’s what Michael Cleveland is doing. He’s using a downstroke escape (DSX) elbow motion, which means the last note on every string can only, ever, be a downstroke. Further, this means he has to play only an even number of notes per string. For the most part, when you look at the lines he’s playing at this speed, these are the rules he’s following.
I can understand that people might find this imiting. However I didn’t make this stuff up, and these constraints are not an exception but rather the norm for most players. Yes there are ways around this. You can make temporary “helper” motions to do certain string changes. Or you can ignore what your motion can’t do and simply pick through strings that are in the way. This can often sound convincing, especially if the string is muted. But the fact remains that when you look at the kinds of lines that get played in this speed range, you’ll see a lot more single escape lines, and relatively few players trying something like fours and actually getting it clean.
My point is that if you choose phrases at random that may or may not match your escape motion, and you decide they’re not clean and you’re bummed out, that’s actually not super fair on yourself. Instead, the fact that you’re getting this far with phrases that require both escapes is great. A lot of people would like this type of progress. This suggests that more progress can be made.
Moving forward, a closer camera angle filmed in 120fps would give us more of a clue about the type of escape motion you’re making, whether it’s upstroke or downstroke, double, or “single with helpers”. Knowing this, if it’s single, you might try some single-escape phrases that fit that motion specifically. These phrases effectively have no speed limit. They can be played accurately as fast as you can move. This would remove the string change complexity issue, giving you an open runway to address the speed thing without needing to worry about accuracy.
As far as speed limit thing, I’d need more clarity if you’re saying you physically can’t move faster than this, or if you just don’t like the results when you do. That Cleveland clip isn’t too much faster, maybe 175 or something, and we’re talking about maybe the hottest group of bluegrass players on the planet. Jake Workman’s face at one point there laughing at the tempo is just hilarious.
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Blockquote
Yes, I can only tremolo a tiny bit faster : maybe 165bpm. But anything faster than that and I start to lag behind the bit in 3-4 seconds.
So yes I can play some single-escape lines pretty close to my max speed.
I completely understand that single-escape motions are the norm, and I would not feel too bad if my crosspicking ability never got up to 160bpm, as my elbow tremelo does.
But at the moment, I have not found a way to make it work when it comes to playing a “bluegrass crosspicking pattern” over 3 strings, french or irish traditional tunes which all ask for some crosspicking, and I feel I hit a wall.
If I play single-escape lines, then the elbow motion is actually great!
But that just does not happen too much in my playing (rolls that use one note per string are probably what I play the most, as I mostly play guitar as a solo and accompanying instrument when playing in bars, and these patterns allow me to have some harmony going on in the solo, a bit like David Grier does when playing solo).
The elbow motion also does not seem to work too well for strumming, where I’m hitting a speed wall as well.
So, unless I’m missing something, I need to find a way to make this elbow motion maximum speed higher and smoother, as well as manage to make another motion work to develop some strumming and crosspicking ability, or possibly mix it with the elbow motion (in both cases, I need to find a way to make my wrist or forearm move in a fast and smooth way).
I’ve gone through the pickslanting primer over the last couple of days, playing the guitar on and off about 30 days a day and doing a lots and lots of tweaking and trying new stuff.
So far, the only motion that passes the “speed and smoothness test” remains the elbow motion. Other motions get stuck around 110bpm (and it’s probably not a string-hopping issue anymore, as I end up playing rest strokes most of the time).
Interstingly, some motions feel very smooth when I play the guitar upside down and pick with my left hand. I can do a wrist deviation DSX that feels very smooth and effortless at about 160bpm.
I’m hopping maybe the smoothness I find as a lefty might eventually transfer to my right handed picking, somehow.
I’ll take these experiments a bit further, and film from a closer angle in the next couple of days.
Once again, I want to thank you for the dedication you have to try and make everyone succeed.
I do read everything you write carefully, and fully appreciate how clear and detailed it is. It actually seems very clear in my mind, but somehow when it comes down to moving my right wrist/forearm faster, I haven’t yet found a way to successfully apply any of it.
Hi there,
It took more time than I thought to come back with videos, but I went through all the new material on the website and wanted to make sure I spent some time trying all the picking motions and pick holds and experiment a lot with “random practice” to see what would happen.
So far, none of the new motions I tried pass the “fast enough” test. Some feel very slow and awkard, some other I could get up to about 130-135 bpm, which is not too bad by my past standards ;).
Only the elbow motion remains quite fast, but 165bpm is indeed my absolute max speed (see tremolo video underneath).
I found that managing to make some wrist based motions a bit faster made my picking better overall, as if the wrist motions could creep inside the elbow motion when needed during play. However, if they did get a bit faster (from about 115bpm to 135bpm now), I am now hitting a plateau, so I guess there’s something to tweak. It seems that if I could get a wrist motion up to speed, it would mix with my elbow motion; which would get much more usable.
Here is a video of some of the many picking motions I tried (only those that kinda work, not the once that are stuck at less than 100 bpm) (all exemples below are played a maximum speed, btw)
As a comparison, a left hand picking motion, which feels way faster and smoother without any training, strangely:
Crosspicking pattern, which is probably the technique I use the most in my playing, I can get it up to 125bpm on the good days, and it did improve a bit since I practiced wirst and forearm motions. It does feel like string hopping to me, though.
Fiddle tune, which kinda works with a mix of single-escape motion and hamer-on/pull-offs
My pure elbow tremolo motion, which stays at a max of about 165bpm:
Last, a video of my strumming, which is not smooth or fast either:
The more wrist I use, the less accurate and fast. Elbow motion works better, but it seems not to work to well for strumming, as it sounds a bit stiff and does not allow for a “guillotine” shape.
Strumming speed is actually a big deal to me, as I do quite a bit of chord soloing, and would like to be able to throw in triplets. Comping above 130bpm is pretty challeging as well. Accuracy is here, but not the smoothness in the wrist.
Bursts are kinda OK. If I try to strum more that 5 notes in a row, then the max speed is 115bpm.
All in all, there are some improvements, but I seem to understand I should not look for that kind of tiny improvements, but rather a “click”. So far, the only way I got to the “fast, smooth and sloppy” stage, was playing as a lefty (and, to a lesser extent, with the right hand elbow motion).
I’ve experimented with bursting (which does work, as I can play quite a bit faster, but only by bursts of 5 to 7 notes, after which the speed drops and the smoothness is lost), but I got not further improvement after the first couple of days.
I also tried dotted and reverse dotted rhythm (heavy swing or reverse swing feel), and lots similar tricks, but I’m still to find what will take me through to the “smoothness” feel.
I think I have at least a good idea of what I should aim for, as my left hand picking feels VERY smooth.
But I can’t seem to find what I can do to get that on my normal picking hand, except for the elbow motion, which works great except for the strumming and 3 notes crosspicking patterns, which respresent about 70% of my playing.
I guess if I find a way to make the wrist motion click, this would add the missing componant to the elbow motion (which I guess I need to improve as well, as I seem to understand 165bpm is not a realistic maximum physical speed).
Sorry for the huge text. If think I have some understanding of the situation, but I am clueless about how to make the next step!
Any comment, critic, advice will be much appreciated 
!
Here is another video, after some progress from “dotted rhythm practice” (included here).
Appearing in this video:
0:00short bursts,
0:12 dotted rhythms (tune, then crosspicking pattern),
0:36 strumming bursts
0.44 fiddle tune
2.15 fiddle tune, view from the front (no slow motion)
I am yet to find a motion including any motion but pure elbow that allows me to pass the “fast and smooth” test, and the pure elbow tremolo stays at about 165bpm.
I’m puzzled and curious as to why I can find such a motion super easily with my left hand, though I’ve always played as a righty.
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Dude… and I thought I was a harsh critic of my own playing…
I’m not entirely sure what you want to “clean up” and speed up with some of those picking patterns you’re doing, but they by and large all look great. If I had those chops, I’d be learning and playing as many tunes as possible. Don’t need to “wait” on some ethereal “final picking point of perfection” or FPPOP (@Troy you can have that one, it’s free! ) you look like you’ve got more than enough in the toolbox already to put towards playing near whatever music you want.
tldr: Nice work and play some tunes!
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The roll on the the A, D and G string in the fiddle tune is the only thing you seem to have any trouble with.
But your 3 string roll in this earlier video looks killer:
Figure out why those two are different. To my eye, it looks like your DSX slant in the newer video is more extreme, so you have difficulty crossing the string on upstrokes. In the older video I linked above, your slant is closer to neutral, and you seem to be doing the roll perfectly. Another possible factor is that since the newer roll is shifted one string in the bass direction, it may relate differently to your hand position/anchoring.
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Thanks for the comments!
@JB_Winnipeg : The thing is, I’m not trying to clean anything up, but only to speed it up.
@Frylock : Well, I think the set of string (A, D G)makes it a bit harder for me, but mostly I feel like it’s because my arm and hand are already somewhat tired after playing the A part of the tune (when the other video was just the roll), so it starts to fall appart.
But I don’t mind the “wrong notes” for now, I’d just like to find a fast and smooth motion.
To clarify:
The speed I play the tune in this video (and all the others), is the maximum speed I can manage to move my hand at. It is not a “moderately confortable” pace, but a total sprint.
Which is why I guess I am yet to find a motion that works to move my wrist or forearm in a fast and smooth way (130-135bpm does not seem to be a good max speed when it comes to passing the “speed-test” for a new motion).
The elbow motion, at 165bpm (still too low to be a real physical limit, if I understand right), is a bit better, but does not work well on it’s own with what I play, especially double stops, 3 strings crosspicking, and comping (where speed is also an issue), which is why I hope to find another motion that would blend with it.