Petrucci Exercise

Technique Critique
#23

I want you to look at this and make sure I’m not seeing things, or convincing myself of something that’s not there. Can you see what I’m talking about now, or does it still not look to you like what I’m saying it looks like to me? Because it seems obvious to me, even at normal speed, that the motion changes. I may be wrong specifically about how it changes, but it changes.

Re: learning, this is how it works. You do a thing, check it, and if your understanding of it is not correct you change your understanding. Eventually you’ll learn by feel when it is correct. The motion won’t be wiggly or confused any more and will striaghten out and go in a clean back and forth motion path.

Right now I think your speed issues, if indeed they exist, are there because the motion isn’t totally smooth and not following a straight back and forth motion path all the time. Some notes go missing as you try to make certain string changes work out the way you think they should, and the pick misses the string or inserts legato. I would say I think you easily have 20bpm more in this when it’s done perfectly straight line like Brendon does, and the downstrokes are all lined up where they are supposed to be.

This is a fine start. Should’ve filmed this months ago.

#24

The part you did the ultra slow down on and marked up with graphics, 100% agree. I feel like that was my ‘warm up’ section though and that my movement might be slightly different I locked into the full speed. Almost like all our favorite REH videos where they ‘slow’ demo is a different motion. I do this knowingly and I’m really just trying to lock with the click. Now, once I get going at approximately 0:02 - 0:03 in your edited clip That’s the part where to me it looks to me like I’m playing a downstroke on each new string. Also, I feel like I have really forceful intentional rest strokes during the whole thing, again, once I get going, not the little ‘warm up’. I don’t know if they are visible because my pick slant is so aggressive and my thumb is in the way of where the rest stroke’s contact point is

image

and I think this is what’s making my head spin a little. I don’t see how downward rest strokes make DSX possible and I totally feel the rest strokes when I’m locked into my fast speed. If I feel them this strongly and they in fact are not there…that’s what I’m really concerned about. What else am I wrong about? lol! I fully agree with you that what I need to do is what you’re telling me. Just confused how far off I was and that it felt so right.

That is amazingly encouraging

Damn right I should’ve. Full transparency, I’ve been reluctant because I feel like I’ve had to overhaul years of bad habits and didn’t want to post critiques till it was what I thought presentable. That’s terribly prideful, so I get what I deserve regarding the time I’ve wasted. If I would posted this 4 months ago, that’s 4 months I could have been enjoying the product of what will come when I’m not making my brain fight my hands and follow your DSX happy path solution.

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#25

I can’t feel rest stroke contact when I do it so I wouldn’t put too much stock in that. It may be happening sure. But not if the pick is actually escaping on downstrokes. If it’s not, and it’s just a trapped motion with like a little “jump” to get over the string that’s a different story.

I also can’t really tell what’s going on from this camera angle with only 30fps once you start switching strings. It sort of looks like you’re not picking the first note on the new string. But the frame rate is too low to know. Do you have 120fps mode on your phone or not? Let’s see what’s really going on.

We’re just jerking ourselves around here without the right data. We can guess all we want but if we have the tools we’ll know there answer here.

#26

The app I took the video with has a framerate setting and I chose 120 for sure. So if that didn’t work either my app is no good or maybe my phone just doesn’t support it. Let me check with my better half. She has a video camera that I would hope supports 120.

Does it matter though? Aren’t I trying to fit a square peg in a round hole and should scrap that, use Brendon’s form and try some stuff that plays more naturally where all the string changes are after downstrokes? Or has my description of what I feel like I tried to do gotten you curious that you think it’s worth it? I’ll do anything for the advancement of science! Maybe I’m the world’s fastest string hopper or something haha

#27

Do the video, then there will be no questions about what you may or may not be doing… you have gained more insight in the last few hours than you have (i assume) in a long time all because of the video. It makes sense to continue …

#28

It’s for the learning. The reasons why I can sometimes understand what motions are happening without slow motion is because I’ve spent a lot of time looking at them in slow motion too. So when I see certain macro things, like this joint starts moving, and the arm or pick looks a certain way, then I know what that means is really happening. Eventually you don’t even need the slow sometimes. I don’t think this is going to look like USX when we see it up close but who knows, maybe I’m wrong. Again, always ready to learn something.

More generally, you yourself also want to learn about what is going on and why things feel a certain way. Maybe you are rest stroking, and maybe you are correct that you can feel that. But maybe the motion still isn’t what you think. And it’s good to know what it really is because as you attempt to smoothify this you will need to know, by feel, when you are successful and when your’e not. And as you said, how can you learn to identify things by feel? This is how. Connecting the knowledge of what is happening to the feel of what it’s like when you do it.

The phone hardware must have 120, the app won’t give it to you. This isn’t even 60fps so it’s possible your phone just does 30. What make and model is it?

Most iphones since 2014 or so will have slow motion, if you can find one. The setting is in the built-in camera app itself. If you’re on Android it’s all over the map, different hardware, different implementations. You’ll have to check.

#29

Ha, well we may have an issue. Googling ‘android lg k20 plus fps’ tells me I’ve got 30 fps. Guess that setting on my camera app is misleading. My wife has the same setting on her phone (she has a different make/model) and tried the same app with 120 fps and it told her it was upsupported. We thought since my phone didn’t complain it was ok. That sucks. I need a better phone or my magnet won’t help much when it arrives lol! Good think web developers make more money than starving musicians. I’ve been both, so I know :slight_smile:

Will filming closer up be of any help, or should I just go with the plan of the Brendon form DSX happy path and leave my USX that’s actually DSX attempt to rot?

#30

120fps video doesn’t look like normal video even when you watch it at normal speed. It has way less motion blur because of the much faster shutter speed (1/120th maximum) so it will look strobey. That’s how you know this isn’t high frame rate video. Even 60fps is better in that regard because the max shutter is 1/60. If her phone can do that you can try that and that plus the closer and straighter angle would give us a much better view.

Otherwise sure you can try the Brendon form with a DSX phrase and let’s see if it produces better results.

#31

Thanks Troy. I’ll get on this later today. Curious if it will produce any new options…but…

I think I should do this regardless.

EDIT: hey we have a handheld video camera that says it does 120 fps. Of course, the battery is dead. I’ll charge it up and have a clip up by this evening. I’m sure you all just can’t wait for the dramatic conclusion of this hahahahahaha

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#32

Hey @Troy sorry if this wastes your time but is this any better? We found my wife’s phone has a slow setting and it looks clear enough to see smooth motions when we zoom in closer.

Just looping a fragment, but this feels identical to me as the motion I was using before. To me, it looks like I’m starting on a downstroke and maintaining DUDU throughout.

Same feedback? Square peg, round hole, do the Brendon thing?

Thanks!

2 Likes
#33

This is awesome! So much clearer. Thanks for filming. This is really interesting. But hold that thought.

I think the video file may be somewhat out of sync with its audio, enough to be off by one pickstroke. This can make it confusing to know which hand motion goes with which note. Can you access the original high frame rate video file? If so can I get a dropbox copy of it?

Or does it bake in the slow motion section in the middle when it exports it? Can you tell it which part of the file to have slow motion via range sliders? If so, I would take a full export in normal speed and a full export in slow motion. Then I would be able to line up the audio better.

Let me know.

#34

Yeah when we did the slow down we just saved a copy of it, so the original is in tact. I’ve got it uploading to my computer now and I’ll get you a dropbox link when it’s ready.

#35

Aha, excellent. Just email a dropbox link and we’ll grab it, thanks.

#36

Ok the dropbox link is on its way to you

#37

Man I’m getting excited as well :smiley:

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#38

We should turn this into a YouTube series. Troy should just go full clickbait with the channel:

“TOP TEN TIMES JOE THOUGHT HE WAS USX, BUT WAS ACTUALLY DSX”

“98% OF USX PLAYERS CAN’T TELL IF THEY MAKE THIS MISTAKE… CAN YOU?”

“HE TRIED TO USX, THEN THIS HAPPENED (PICKING GONE WRONG)…”

“JOE IS ACTUALLY DSX (NOT CLICKBAIT)”

4 Likes
#39

“$0.25 pick versus $75 pick!”

2 Likes
#40

Ok so there might be some audio out of sync here, which might make this hard to analyse, but looking at this already sped down version at 0.25 speed (yeah you’re playing crazy fast :slight_smile:), to me there seems to be very little slant in the motion at all. I can see swipes in both directions as well as completely missing of both strings right at the string switching. So I’m not sure what to conclude from this, since your playing sounds great to me, and there are others that play with almost no slant that sound just great as well. But if there is a feeling of hick ups at times, this might be the reason.

#41

Yeah we are wrestling with some technical difficulties on the exports. Here’s one I exported that’s 50% the entire time so it should be more even:

Full speed version with no slow down processing:

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Single string picking - no escape or rest stroke
#42

Thanks! Strangely enough, the first part of this video has cleaner switching (efter upstrokes) but also shows a general motion that looks more downstroke escapeish. Look at the pick motion against the beige pickup ring. The pick generally travels towards the pickup side of the ring on downstrokes, and more toward the body side of the ring at upstrokes. So if exaggerated, that motion should clearly escape on the downstroke. Still you’re making clean string changes after upstroke. I have no idea how this works.

1 Like