Picking paradiddles warm-up, check it out!

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#41

Alright, apparently I had one more speed push in me…128 BPM paradiddles / 256 BPM 16th note DBX:

Wasn’t comfortable “doing reps” of the scale just now (mostly because my fret hand doesn’t feel warm and I had 3 minutes to catch something on video before my wife got on a conference call), but again I’m happy with what it is.

Some background on the additional speed:

Noticed late last night that I was doing the DUU paradiddle at 128 BPM. I don’t normally play at the end of the day, but a few things happened before that probably affect that:

  1. I ate
  2. I did finger training for climbing

Eating might not sound like a big deal to y’all, but for the past 5 or so years I’ve done a pretty aggressive intermittent fasting routine of one meal a day (dinner). Afterwards, I get a huge rush of blood to my fingers, and I follow it up with finger training. Part of that also includes some extensor work, and I notice that group of muscles a good amount when I pick. Paired with fretting hand being warmed up from the bloodrush and workout, I had a pretty good session.

This morning I tried to hit the same speed and was pretty hard. I decided to do the extensor work to see what would happen, and sure enough I hit the speed after a few sets of it. I definitely didn’t warm up my fretting hand enough though.

I’ll likely start experimenting more with warming up my extensors before playing.

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#42

That’s some crazy speed and you are making it look easy

This is probably a stupid question, but what is the link between the paradiddles and the 3nps runs? Is it the practice of doing double upstrokes or double downstrokes increasing your alternate picking speed by minimising movement?

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#43

Thank you! Glad you think it looks easy, I’m trying to focus on keeping it feeling pretty casual.

Not a stupid question at all, because I honestly don’t know the answer! My guess is that the doubled strokes force the pick to travel in a small circular / oval shape in order to avoid the “trapped” state of a straight line, forcing some kind of DBX assist motion. On top of that, the nature of paradiddles (alternating between up / down and 1 stroke or 2) forces quick direction changes. @scottyB had some thoughts on why this is helpful as well.

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#44

One thing I can add to this is when I was into sprinting and learning about that, a big thing was deadlifting heavy just before sprinting. It set the nervous system up for faster firing and force output…
There is probably a translation into guitar there.
The guys with huge one rep max deadlifts were often the faster sprinters.

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#45

Yeah that makes sense!

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#46

I’d never heard of that, I have heard of jumping before squats though!

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#47

The idea was to deadlift, then run. Even having the weights on the side of the track. So quite a fast switch.
How long have you been rock climbing?

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#48

Right around 7.5 years. Having not been a “natural talent” at guitar has definitely helped, since I’m not a natural climber either, lol. The ability to just keep doing it and have fun even though you know you suck and the goal is much farther, tracking progress in the scale of months / years…

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#49

I have been trying these paradiddles a little over the past few days - after a pretty long dry spell of practicing. I find them quite taxing, but I quite like them as a brain/hand distraction after a number of reps of what I’m trying to practice. Its like a brain stretch, and I can go back into reps feeling renewed in focus and energy. I feel less burned out and ‘lighter on my feet (hands :grin:)’

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#50

@PickingApprentice I’ve been using it that way as well, anytime I want to “reset” my picking I do some reps of it. Cool to hear it’s working for you too!

#51

I also started doing them on pairs of strings for example downstroke on B string and ups on the E string - very DBX feely and for some of them, feels easier for some reason.

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#52

I think @ScottyB is doing this too, something I haven’t tried yet! In a way I’ve regressed on experimentation, I’ve stuck to mostly DUU.

Cool view of Gilbert's technique
#53

It’s me again! Tried 270 BPM 16ths.

I distilled the paradiddles to doubled downstrokes and doubled upstrokes with a a single 8th note rest between reps, so a syncopated feel against 4/4. You can hear me do it in the middle of the vid.

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#54

I can barely tremolo 200bpm, you going for crazy town!! Lol

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#55

@PickingApprentice I blame watching some more Shawn Lane videos recently, lol. I’m trying to get my speed to match with my technique, since trailing edge kills the benefits of my finger motion!

#56

Damn! Had you reached this speed before or is the paradiddle exercise increasing your speed now?

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#57

@jptk I’ve never reached that speed before, at least not against a metronome or on camera that I know of. This has definitely increased my speed!

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#58

Another update, this time on how this has affected my crosspicking (Tumeni Notes).

BPM is 210 which I think is what the song is at. In the past (before the paradiddles), I felt like 180 was the point in which things just felt really hard to get even remotely clean, so this is a big improvement for me.

I only know the first riff variation, and vaguely the 4 string part that’s clean. You don’t see it on camera, but my issue is now the second arpeggio shape fingering; I was doing 134 but I started experimenting with 123 instead. I think it helps my fingers feel less jumbled there. The 4 string part is horrible because of the bar across 3 strings with the ring finger. I’m just bad at those and need to either practice it or figure out some fingering variations.

For this you can hear me do DDD and UUU triplets to warm up / get a feel for the speed. Again, I think these subsequent pickstrokes help develop / warm up DBX.

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Update With 3 Finger Grip
#59

Very impressive! I can’t do 1nps alt picking at all. I’ve only just started trying the last few months and can’t say I’m getting very far. It’s a big swiping mess

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#60

@jptk I think one of the added benefits of this exercise is that it forces you to not pick too deep, otherwise you can’t clear the string. I feel it helps me really get the pick depth right.

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