Palm Muting with Elbow Motion

Playing Technique
#12

Oh my thumb is pretty bendy too

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Troy’s talked about how people that fit certain anatomic profiles have access to doing things different ways. So I wouldn’t say your idea hasn’t caught on, or maybe better said “wasn’t on the radar”. Any positioning thing we can do is going to have some implication on how we play. It’s how all the amazing players got to where they were. They chose comfortable setups and figured out the joint/muscle combo that worked with that. I’m sure it’s chicken/egg as to if that ended up dictating their vocabulary or if the vocabulary coaxed them towards the setup that worked with it best.

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#14

I don’t think this is correct. Maybe there is incidental forearm rotation happening but largely the elbow joint moves back and forth

Troy did a whole chapter on this and demo’d his own version and rotation just isn’t there

Not in the ‘CtC’ context where it’s driving the motion and creating the escape. I can rotate my forearm, and I can move my forearm back and forth (from the elbow) but I cannot do both at the same time. Again, if you’re saying that it’s physically impossible to have the elbow joint hinge back and forth without a little incidental wiggle/rotation from the radius/ulna…that’s fine. It’s not likely enough to help with an upstroke escape though.

That video is a couple years old at this point and Troy’s constantly refining his understanding of things. At the time of the video he mentioned he didn’t know what he was doing to cause the escape. Maybe now he knows, but given the fact that Troy’s the owner of one of the world’s most awesome rotational mechanics and knows exactly how he makes that happen, I think it’s safe to say rotation is not something people should think about if they’re pursuing Zakk’s elbow mechanic.

#15

I’m pretty sure it is forarm rotation, like talked about before it blends away visually, but it’s facilitating the entire thing.

If you look at this you can see it. it is small but I see it. I’ve done a lot of usx myself, certainly doesn’t make me an expert but I’m convinced the forarm needs to rotate to allow the picking to work well. When I say rotate it’s perhaps a bad way to explain it. like you know if you wiggle a wheel back n forth in a short range some people might not class that as rotating. Maybe forarm wiggle is a better definition?

I bet you if zakks bones in his forarm were locked in place with a metal bar or whatever, he wouldn’t be able to play. Or atleast it would extremely hamper him.

#16

I can’t view the mnm material atm. I’ll have to check it out in future, perhaps I’m just talking nonsense lol. I do believe the forarm is a fundamental aspect of it tho.

#17

lol I do apologize for bringing it up again :slight_smile: You’re not going to convince me, I’m not going to convince you. I’m gonna go watch your transformer video again though that was AWESOME lol

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#18

Thank you, @joebegly!

I do use muting with the elbow mechanic at times. I had to just now pick up my guitar to see what I actually do, lol.

Most of the time I use my wrist more when muting…especially when playing rhythm stuff or medium tempo lines. If I was going to play faster lines with muting I would use the elbow. I actually do it by just flattening my palm so it touches the strings while keeping my elbow motion and right hand position the same. When I use the elbow without muting…the pinky side of my palm does not touch anything, but when I am muting it does. I hope that helps!

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Whose technique is your ideal and most want to copy?
#19

Cool, thanks for confirming! That’s the only way I can do it not mess up what feels natural. I’ll dig around your videos and have a look. I know you do plenty of Al Di inspired stuff and I’m sure at least some of that features palm muting. Thanks again!

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#20

What do you think of this?

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#21

That doesn’t look like Zakk’s motion to me. Yours looks like a wrist motion that has some forearm rotation blended in.

Here’s another one

On the fast scalar stuff (which we see within the first 10 seconds), watch that big thing on his wrist…it moves in the same plane as his elbow because…that’s all that’s moving lol! Again, if you want to split hairs and say “if he were hooked up to an MRI or X-Ray or something we’d see a slight wiggle in his ulna/radius”…that’s fine. Though it’s hypothetical. The important thing with all these motions is we have to tell our bodies to do something. Plus ‘rotation’ is a very specific term in CtC nomenclature and what we see Zakk do is something other than that, entirely.

Now, this is different motion entirely:

Fast and slow examples, you can see that thing on his wrist wiggle in a rotational plane. I have no issues calling that rotational because it is. That’s similar to the gypsy technique. Maybe his technique has changed over the years?

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#22

[quote=“joebegly, post:21, topic:67810”]
a wrist motion that has some forearm rotation blended in.
[/quote] yeah.

It’s not hypothetical its personal experience. I know my right hand… to much lol

The secondary example literally proved my argument, and I know you’re doing that on purpose lol you know it.

#23

Look at my quote technique …
wait two minutes before replying? comon…
33 seconds…

You literally proved the forarm rotation mechanic. :stuck_out_tongue:

it’s the same. It’s literally how i play, he is doing forarm rotation to keep in contact with the strings and as a fundamental movement to allow it all to work.

Imagine a foundation for a building, it hopefully… shouldn’t move, yet it allows the entire building to stand erect, dispite the fact it visually doesn’t move… But it’s still the foundation. Not necessarily the prime mover, but a prime mover. I can see him twisting/wiggling his forarm. The wrist strap with a light metal piece totally highlights the forarm rotation.

#24

All I did was prove that he does have a forearm rotational mechanic. That’s actually news to me. I’ve only ever watched footage from his BLS era and that all looked like elbow motion. That means he’s got 2 different motions (or, maybe he had one, then switched to a different one)

If you can watch those 2 motions side by side and say they both look the same, you’re seeing things that I don’t see.

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#25

cus its blended… it just like that stupid video i made shows, you need to forarm to make it work.

Did you just make that video? Fast editing skill, wtf

#26

Yeah I just looped a section from the 2 videos captured ~12 seconds and put them side by side in a video. It would be truly eerie if that video was already on youtube and there’s a 3rd individual who cares about this as much as we do lol! Which reminds me…I think we’re at another stalemate. Truce? We’re not helping people who come to this thread wanting to know about palm muting with an elbow mechanic lol (or are we??? haha)

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#27

oh, shall we step out side lol

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#28

I agree it’s such a minor thing, n i prefer soloing in major. Your video editing is so fast tho, hire this man.

#29

Oh my quality is very poor though. I started messing with a video editor less than 2 weeks ago. Dude it is SUPER easy to make something like I just did. I have almost no clue what I’m doing lol! Not sure if you are Mac or PC but I’m PC and the program I used was called Clip Champ - free as long as you create an Microsoft account, which is also free. It’s really fun you should try it. I’d seriously love to see what you’re capable of given you’ve already made one of the best videos anyone’s ever posted on here using just your phone lol!

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#30

it’s not a phone i had a small camera in my mouth. You know proper professionalism.

I never edit videos so if it’s that fast i’ll check it out. :slightly_smiling_face:

#31

Sounds like innovation to me. I almost fell on the floor laughing at the parts where you were narrating with the phone in your mouth lol!

And yeah the editing to get the non pro level I’m getting…extremely simple. Any questions, ask google. Someone has likely made a video of how to do the thing you want to do. Drag/drop/point/click interface is pretty intuitive too. If I can do it, probably most people can do it.

Just remember when you’re winning awards at the independent film festivals that it was me who gave you the push you needed :metal: :metal: :metal: Whether or not that push contained incidental forearm rotation…we’ll likely disagree on :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

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#32

lol you bitch and I will! I’ll say, I just wanna thank, troy, tommo n joe, without them i’d just be another nutter lol
And the Aliens btw don’t wana get abducted…

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