Pentatonic String Hop

Technique Critique
#21

Well I’ve had a crack at it. I really need to figure out how to make videoing easier. Balancing a phone on box while contorting myself into view is not ideal. In any case I did manage to put together a couple of clips.

The first one is the original pattern with the pull off on the second note played D, pull, D, U, D, U. I was a little surprised at the end as my intention was to increase speed from 120bpm to 152bpm at which point I expected it to all go to downhill fast. Instead the four sections are 120bpm, 138bpm (I was aiming for 132bpm on my metronone but missed!), 144bpm (got back on track) and then mistakenly up to 160bpm instead of 152bpm! At that point I’m not sure whether I’ve gone into full alternate picking mode but it felt like the “snap” of a pull off was still there and looking at the video I looks like my pick is jumping over the E string to get to the B while the pull off is happening rather than hitting it but I really can’t tell.

The second clip is the tabbed example I showed in my original post played at 160bpm. Not as clean as I’d like but…

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#22

That second clip sounds great, even with a few hairy notes- killer.

Regarding the second clip, are you just as good at the 16th note triplet feel? (106bpm)

I find that harder than the straight 16ths and wondered whether you find any difference in difficulty or synchronization?

#23

120 BPM 2’s through 6’s.


Here, I play rhythms of 2, 3, 4, and 6.

I like to have rhythmic control so that when I want to stay in time, it’s in time. Free floating phrases can be very cool, too. But for this, I want the right number of notes, evenly spaced from the downbeat. I don’t want to play rushing and make it sound nervous our jerky or out of control – it’s a bad sound.

#24

Cool, I suppose the ultimate is to play the repeating pentatonic lick, going through each subdivision with no gaps!!!

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#25

My gut feeling when you mentioned that was it would feel about the same as playing straight 16ths at 160bpm or maybe even slightly easier because a lot of the time I’m thinking and playing in 3 note per string patterns. I haven’t had a chance to plug in and test the theory properly so I had a short little unplugged session this morning.

Initially I struggled to get the feel of the rhythm with that pattern - especially because it’s 2 notes on one string, 3 notes on the other and 1 back on the original string before restarting the pattern.

Took me a few minutes but once I got the hang of it I could do it at 108bpm comfortably (I don’t have 106bpm on my crappy old metronome :frowning: ). After a bit more practice I could push it up to 120bpm and still play something remotely musical. Beyond that it descended into chaos and honestly I wouldn’t feel comfortable going much above 108bpm in a live environment for a pattern like that.

And of course it’s playing unplugged. The acid test is plugging in so hopefully I can have a proper go at it in the next couple of nights. Technically I’m not supposed to be doing any playing at the moment after damaging the tendons in my left wrist. These topics on the CTC forum are bad for my health :slight_smile:

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#26

Don’t do it mate, rest your tendons! There will always be another time!!!

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#27

That is a very good exercise to do. It helps lock the mind and with the beat and ties that through the hands which are synchronized to the mind, together. I guess you could think of it is that the right hand to synchronize to the left hand, but I don’t think of it that way. I think of it as both of the hands are synchronized to the beat and the beat is in my head. But I still like to get an attack on the top note of the phrase, as the starting out changes throughout the cycle.

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#28

I tried the pentatonic lick last night, and for me the only way it can work smooth and fast is with an escaped downstroke (DSX) picking motion - possibly using the wrist and /or elbow to achieve the escaped trajectory (in my case I think it’s a combination of the two). The only tricky string change is automatically solved in this way, and I could more or less reach my top speeds with the lick.

With a DWPS / USX setup it felt very clunky, and of course I would always swipe the ascending string change when doing alternate (the sweep is too hard to keep in time for me). This didn’t feel good at all. But I am pretty sure a more seasoned USX player like @qwertygitarr might be able to play it this way very smooth and clean.

In conclusion this seems to me a very DSX-friendly lick, and a nightmare for my available DWPS/USX setup.

PS: if you get bored of practicing this with the pentatonic, you can also play 2-string 7th arpeggios with the same pattern (like the Batio/Gary Moore lick).

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#29

D, P, D, U, D, U?

Here’s the DWPS version. I can play 16ths at 100 bpm. I need to get it up to sixes at 120 BPM. That’s about 80% faster, or what would be 16ths at 180. How is this possible?

#30

Here is the same lick with D, P, D, U, D, U. Still 100 BPM

100%

50%


Cropped & slowed to 50% in Final Cut.

From the 50% video, I am DPWS and bouncing over the high E, or “string hopping” in CTC parlance. If I can fix that to reduce the bounce, I can get it faster. I might do that with either a cross picking approach or with an upwards pick slant. Does that sound right?

#31

Upwards pick slant with palm muting — Possible?
This is very uncomfortable for my R shoulder. How can I avoid the shoulder pain and how can I mute?

#32

Soz for the shoulder, not sure what the issue might be but later I can try to make a video to show you what arm/hand position I am using.

Muting-wise I can’t really do “palm muting” per se from that position, but I can mute unwanted noise from the lower strings by using the palm of my picking hand (the part closer to the thumb) as well as the left hand index that I place a bit flat to mute the string below the one I’m playing:

image

I also realised that I learned this picking sequence from the beginning of the Master of Puppets solo (didn’t learn the whole thing, just that initial flashy lick).

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#33

Great way to learn it! Changing the left hand fingering to different notes helps keep the left hand from getting tired too quickly - change is (almost) as good as a rest! If I repeat the same thing too long, my brain switches off!

I managed to get a handful of repetitions up to 120bpm (6s), but its right on the bleeding edge of what I can do, before my hands give up with fatigue! With the pull-off for the 2nd note I really struggle to do D, pull, D. So what I do is:
D, Pull, U, D, U, D the first time round but then I do U, Pull, U, D, U, D for the repeats. I kind of do a ‘air shot’ downstroke when executing the pull off which keeps the picking alternate. Sometimes the airshot actually hits the string by accident, but is in time so it just picks the note! (Sometimes just a swipe, others are fully picked!)
I’m not sure if the airshot is really a good thing, but it stops me from doing some super shoddy economy picking. I’m gonna see if I can get a video of it tomorrow…

#34

You only changed the first attack on the first note from the DWPS one.

#35

I find that the upstroke doesn’t make too much of a difference than the downstroke, especially at 120bpm with distortion. I give the upstroke a decent strike so you can still hear the pull-off contrasting against the picked stuff.

If one can get any version of it close to 120bpm, then thats the way to go, rather than banging their head against a mechanical choice that doesn’t (at that point) get them anywhere near what they are trying to do - at least at the start. That being said, I would be interested to see how quickly/slowly the D,D version would come together if I practiced hard on it.

#36

6plets in 120bpm - is equal to 16th in 180bpm! damn, it’s fast

I believe it’s impossible to be relaxed on such speed. You can’t run a 100m sprint relaxed
IMHO

#37

Hey @GTR, I made a short video to show you the UWPS (escaped downstrokes) form I would use for this picking pattern. There’s a bit of slop at the end as I try to speed it up, but this gives the basic idea - and I’m pretty sure I could clean it up and make it faster with a little extra work. The pattern is really perfect for wrist/elbow picking, in my opinion!

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#38

Great playing as always @tommo! Your version sounds super smooth.

Here are my attempts. I haven’t really worked very much on 2 note per string with my rotational USX motion and it’s not as smooth as I hope it to be in the future. In the video there are two versions; first my current USX which does the U P U D U D sequence. I really like the feeling of this although it would be nice to be able to start on a downstroke and possibly swipe to play it fully picked. Maybe I’ll give it a shot later.

The second one is DSX and using a different picking sequence than Tommo. I start with a downstroke on the first finger on the B-string, pick three notes on that string, and then pick two notes on the G-string, finishing with a hammer on before repeating. D U D U D H. This feels natural for me and only real downside to this is that it is harder to get a good muted sound on the notes. Anyway, it seems that inside string changes are generally easier for me for some reason.

Something that I think of when I practise these things are that I make sure that I really use the same picking motion when I play the licks as when tremoloing on a single string. You can see that when I play the USX version in the video. I don’t get it really smooth in the first take, so I tremolo for a while to get the feeling of what it is supposed to feel like and then try again. This might be old news, but important not to forget.

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#39

I gave this lick a go, I started with an upstroke, slight upward pickslant and alternate picked all the way through. I hit the speed limit at 16th triplets at a 100 bpm. Funnily enough, my right hand feels relaxed (as long as I maintain an upward pickslant) but my left hand can’t keep up above 100bpm. It runs out of stamina and the synchronization breaks down. Thx for sharing this one.

#40

Very similar experience here - almost there now, last 10 or so bpm is really taxing to repeat more than twice!

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