Not much progress : Am I still string hopping?

Technique Critique
#21

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 :wink: !

#23

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.

1 Like
#24

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! :wink: ) 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!

3 Likes
#25

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.

3 Likes
#26

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.