I don’t get what do you mean by ‘vertical’. Do you mean vertical component of the movement (from/to a guitar body)?
Anyway, picking without moving a pick deep allows me to play 3nps scales, which I can’t do with more deep motion (and that’s why I don’t like the way I do it since I can’t control the dynamics well). I probably use a lot of swiping and stuff, but, nevertheless, once my pick goes deeper - no scales, no alternate picking with odd number of notes per string. And I don’t do DBX or TWPS, just string hopping, but small string hopping.
Last night I gave the straight arm, all elbow thing a solid go, just on a tremolo. I was able to do this at 220+ BPM and that’s faster than I’ve ever picked before. When I go at this speed, I feel tension creeping in. 180 - 200 feels ok, like if I got used to it (feels weird since it’s new) I could probably play it with near total relaxation.
I’ll film the various speeds to see what you guys think, just to make sure I’m on the right track. I think I am, but I’ve been wrong before. Like, constantly lol. If this is as kosher as I think it is, I guess now I’ve got a different problem: getting my left hand to keep up 
That should just be chunking to the rescue though, I’d think.
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Nice work. 220 is very fast. Petrucci doesn’t even go that fast on that one part of Rock Discipline where he tests with a metronome. So I think you’re fine on speed here.
If by “tension” you just mean you feel something, then sure, you’re going very fast. If you can do that for two or three bars of sixteenths, most real-world articulate lead lines just aren’t that long. I would be concerned more about being able to play smooth, synchronized lines with comfort in the 190-200 range for a bar or two. If that’s working, then there’s probably nothing specificaly “wrong” what you’re doing.
Try that out on a phrase that switches strings and do the up-close filming to check what the motion and escapes actually look like, just to make sure it’s doing what you think it is.
Ok thanks. Since I first need to make sure the motion itself is ok, would it make sense for me to film a tremolo and make sure I’m escaping and not trapped? It might take a couple weeks to sync my left hand since I’ve never even played anything at 190 before, so doing something that changes strings at that speed I won’t be able to do just yet.
Just trying to minimize time wasting. If that motion mechanic is fast (it is) and smooth (it feels like it) but I am double trapped, I need to adjust. As we learned, I thought I was USX and we saw I was just barely clearing the strings. Hope that concern makes sense.
I’d film both. If you find out that you’re trapped while tremolololoing that doesn’t mean that you don’t do something different while playing a multi-string phrase. As we’ve seen, your hands can be pretty wily. In a good way!
When you film these clips, try to include a defined start and end point with a little dead time before and after, even if it’s just a second. When you can’t see the first note it’s sometimes hard to know which sound matches up with which motion. They can still be short clips, just with a beginning and end.
I’ll get to work on that. I found a pattern I can almost play at those speeds.
brilliant. This is really helpful to know.
It’s of course a great point. Music is the end goal, not being good at exercises. My reason for picking that exercise is that due to its uniformity, it lends itself to speed for a decent duration. I figured if I could conquer that, I could probably handle other things 20 bpm below it with ease…things that were actually musical.
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hey, @joebegly did you try playing that Cracking the Code Intro Solo @Troy referenced?
I spent about an hour with it yesterday but had trouble and I wonder if you’ve already solved these:
USX (as written):
at measure 11, would that very fist upstroke not require a double escape of some sort? I don’;t see that happening in video - maybe there’s an error on the picking pattern on the chart? or in my brain?
DSX:
last note of m. 7 and first of m. 8 are consecutive Downstrokes for USX - how to deal with for DSX?
love playing this thing. Thanks for making it, Troy. Really helping my sloppy USX playing.
Hey man. No, I have not tried it yet. I was focusing on the new setup and figured it didn’t make sense to tackle that yet since I would be also having to memorize new phrases. My brain is small. I will get some new clips posted soonish. Once I know if I am on the right track or not, maybe I’ll give that solo a go. It’s definitely cool. If I have a few minutes later I will try slopping through it and at least see if I run into the same issues you listed.
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please do let me know if ya do!
@Troy – is there some swiping going on there in measure 11? I can’t figure out how all those pickstrokes can work as pure USX without swiping or some double escape and I don’t see double escape.
love playing this. That descending bit reminds me of Eruption.
You have the slow motion video, what motions do you see happening? In other words, what direction does the pick move? Whatever way it moves, that’s the motion I’m making!
Not trying to be a jerk, I’m being a little Socratic here just for the learning opportunity. Take a look and see what you think is happening, and which joint or joint motions you think is creating that.
no, no - I appreciate that opportunity.
I spent about an hour watching it at 25% while both playing along and on my own. I experimented with string change points and even wondered if perhaps it was transcribed incorrectly. After watching both right and left hands like that over and over, I listened hard for the sound of swiped notes but at that much slowmo, it was hard to tell.
If there’s double escape motion there, I can’t see it so determined to play it with swiping for now.
am I on the right track at least?
thanks! I know you’re busy.
ok… I noticed I could make a loop of a spot on the player and now it looks to me like there’s some very shallow (right word?) double escape motion.
if that’s the case, I suppose this backs up the idea that double escape motion doesn’t have to be a drastic shift from supinated to pronated.
What I was looking for is for you to notice that the pick just moves in a straight line from the lower string to the higher one. That’s it. No fancy terminology, just “what is the pick doing”. I’m probably doing that with wrist motion, by moving the wrist in a straight line. I can’t feel it.
The practical answer to your question is, it doesn’t really matter what motion you make, because it’s not continuous high speed picking. Just make whatever rmotion here that sounds good. That’s all I did. Whatever you’re seeing here is simply the result of me doing “whatever”.
We know a lot more now than we did when we filmed this, so now I can look at this, and go, “Aha, that’s a trapped pickstroke probably wrist motion that goes straight across. It slides because of the pickslant so you probably don’t hear much swiping noise. Didn’t know I was doing that. Interesting.”
That’s it!
excellent. thanks for taking the time on this. yes! I see that straight line motion between the B and E strings and then once again between G and B. Without all the hours I’m sure you’ve done, it can be hard to see this and looking for these things is good practice. Reminder of how tiny some of these motions are.
and yes, “whatever” makes sense here. I often think, “man, he’s just going for it here,” when I slowmo other players like Eddie but I hesitated to say that about this because I also think of you as a more intentional player so I wondered!
Now to work on flipping to DSX. there’re two downstrokes in row here that would need to shift. I’ll keep pluggin’.
thanks!
To be clear, everybody is just winging it, that’s how all these motions are learned. So there’s really nothing different here about this instance. The only difference is I wasn’t particularly aware of it. But I wasn’t aware of it the first time I played a USX line either. I just became aware afterward.
So try not to overthink things, the instructions are just there as a hint.
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right - we all ultimately find how our bodies do these things best and it’s not always how someone else’s would or does.
How is this working out? Have you filmed any of the more elbow version of this yet, and what does it look like? If you get a chance to grab a clip of it, that would be interesting to see.
Hey Troy, thanks for checking in. I have not filmed anything to submit, I’ll get on that tomorrow. I did film something quickly on the second day and noticed some wobbling…both the guitar shaking and the pick slant changing a lot. I wanted to try to correct that on my own. I think that is gone, so the footage tomorrow will confirm.
Over all I think this is working out pretty well though. It’s definitely faster picking than I’ve ever done. I wrote a little Bach-ish etude that’s all DSX to help have something fun to play while I’m getting used to it.
Still feels a little weird, but I expected that. Also, I wanted to ask…do you think it’s an issue using this Brendon form, but having the hand more open so that the picking hand ring and pinky fingers lightly touch the body? Not like a hard anchor, just gentle contact to help keep pick depth consistent? I catch that happening without thinking about it sometimes when I look down. I used to play that way back in the day (ever since seeing MAB when I bought his Speed Kills DVD). Maybe the best answer is to film a clip or 2 with that setup as well to see if it throws things off at all? Just having the picking hand float freely may be what’s weirdest about this to me since I’ve always employed a gentle anchor.
But yeah over all I definitely think it’s something to work with it. When I nail it, it feels great. Almost unlike anything I’ve felt. We know how strange my perception of what I feel vs what’s reality is though haha