Picking Speed vs Motion Size - Explained

Playing Technique
#1

This is one of the few instances where Troy and I disagree on one of the theories he has put forth in Cracking The Code. Although I continue to give reasons to back up my theory and feel confident i’m right, I still think there’s a chance Troy could be right. Troy usually is right; I just think in this particular case he’s not.

I suppose you could say Troy and I partially agree. You pointed out that Troy believes the size of the motion matters when using Hyper Speeds. So do I. I also believe that the size of the motion matters at the other speeds as well.

Something wrong with my forearm rotation
Failing to Escape
#2

This is not actually what I’m saying! I get that this subject is a little bit of a brainteaser for people, and I think you and I actually agree on this subject, but we may be talking past each other a little. I’m going to make this a new thread so we can iron it all out.

What I am saying is that for any speed you can play, whether it is slow or fast, or anywhere in between, your motion size is not something you can control directly. Instead, it is the result of the frequency at which you are alternating the picking motion, and how much force you can apply to the muscular contractions while you alternate. These are the only two things you can “do” as a human to move a joint, and they play off each other to create the resulting movement. This is true whether you’re playing really slowly, or playing at hyperpicking speeds.

Think about it. When you want to make a small picking motion, how do you do that? Well, I think most people would say, “I keep the pick as close to the side of the string as possible”. And I would say, sure, you do. But how do you do that? Meaning, what muscular thing are you doing that causes the pick to stay close to the side of the string?

What is happening is that when you get to the other side of the string, you are turning around as quickly as you can and coming back. Then when you get back to the starting point, you turn around again and move forward. In other words, you are stopping the push from the downstroke muscle and starting the push from the upstroke muscle. And vice versa. The more rapidly you can stop the push from the one muscle, and start the push from the other, is what determines how many notes you can play in a given time span.

This is what “picking speed” is. It’s not speed like race car speed, as in “covering a given amount of distance in a given amount of time”. It’s frequency — the rate at which you can flip the two muscles back and forth. The more rapidly you can do this, the “faster” your picking speed.

At any frequency less than your max alternating frequency, you can vary the force of your muscular contractions, or the frequency itself, to get different size picking movements. This is why players perceive that “movement size” is something they control. At a moderate speed, you can push hard, or push less hard, and get a different size movement. But make no mistake, you are not controlling the size of the movement. You are controlling the force, which changes the resulting movement size.

Alternatively, you can keep the force constant - how “hard” you push - and simply speed up or slow down the frequency. This will cause the movement size to go up or down as well.

But there will come a point when you reach your maximum alternating frequency, where you cannot flip between the downstroke muscle and the upstroke muscle any faster, and that point, changing the force won’t do anything. You can push harder and make a bigger movement. You can push more softly and make a smaller movement. But speed will not change.

That is your maximum picking speed.

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#3

Troy, that is a pretty unique theory and I’m gonna spend some time pondering it before I make an actual reply to it but for now I have one question: Did you develop this theory or is this a theory that either someone else told you or a theory you found in a book? If someone else told you this or if you read it, who is the creator this theory?

#4

It is true that we did a whole series of interviews with scientists on the subject of speed, and how fast a person can move, which is when we brought @milehighshred to the lab and stuck electrodes all over him to measure his muscular output. We will edit that together into a feature at some point - we’re still swamped with a bunch of things currently but we will get there, and I apologize for the delay on this. In the mean time here’s that trailer again:

But to be clear, this isn’t really a “theory”. At this basic level of “how does a joint work”, this is not a conversation I had with researchers since they already know this. They were more interested in figuring out how John was reaching these very high movement frequencies, meaning what muscles were involved, how much power was necessary, and so on.

I think it’s only guitar players that have this mental block, mainly because we often think about things related to what we’re trying to achieve, or what we think we’re trying to achieve, rather than what’s actually happening. Sometimes this makes the thought process a little backwards. And honestly that’s fine so long as it works.

#5

Troy, I hope I’m not being a pest but when you wrote "this isn’t really a ‘theory’ it made thing a little confusing. I believe it is a theory.After all a theory is “A supposition or a system of ideas intended to explain something, especially one based on general principles independent of the thing to be explained.”

The following quote by you meets the criteria to be considered a theory:

So now, whether you no agree it’s a theory or you just want to call it an “explanation”, what I’d love to know is did you come up with that theory or explanation by yourself or did you get it from someone else and if so, from whom did you get it? Thanks Troy :slight_smile:

#6

What part of what I wrote are you asking about specifically? The idea that a joint, let’s say, an elbow, is motivated by an opposing set of muscles, and they turn on and off to create a movement, I definitely did not come up with that idea myself! But I’m not sure how to explain why I know this. I did take anatomy in college, and it was the same material the med students take, minus the cadavers. (Thankfully!) And I was weightlifting before that. So I don’t know, all of the above? I’m not sure how to characterize this.

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#7

Furthermore, I’m asking you specifically about the theory that the size of the movements you make when picking is not a volitional choice. Is that something you came up with? if not, then who did? Thanks Troy!

#8

That’s not what I’m saying! It’s absolutely the result of your choices. You choose the force, you choose the speed - the result is the movement.

Again, I would ask a very simple question. How do you control your movement size? Serious question, how do you do it?

#9

@Acecrusher, @Troy has stated that the two physical parameters a player can control to determine picking speed and amplitude are 1. how fast he/she alternates the motion, and 2. how much force he/she applies to the muscle contractions. You seem to claim that the amplitude of the picking motion should be more fundamental in the player’s mind than the physical motions required to determine that amplitude. Do I understand you correctly? I don’t mean to distort your position.

I agree with Troy that the two of you don’t actually seem to disagree. It just seems that you are taking a result-oriented perspective (how far does the pick travel before reversing) and Troy is using a mechanical perspective (how do I operate my muscles in order to maximize picking speed).

So my question is this: Do you disagree with Troy’s statement about the two muscular parameters that control picking speed? Can you restate your advice in terms of muscular movements instead of teleological results?

Troy has pointed out that the downside of your approach is that advising people to reduce their picking amplitude may lead them to pick less hard, which will not speed up their picking and may have negative performance/tone implications. Instead they should increase their alternation frequency, which is what actually controls picking speed. Do you disagree with this concern or advice?

For my part, I find that the history of guitar instruction has been largely teleological, and the outcome has been fairly disastrous for lots of people, including me. By focusing on mechanisms instead of results, I’ve made more progress in a few months than I’ve made in the last two decades. But that’s me. I make no claim that my own experience is an indicator of larger patterns in the guitar-playing populace.

I’ve also found empirically that large picking motions are no slower for me than small ones, and that rest strokes, which are as wide-amplitude as is feasible for alternate picking, are actually very fast because the adjacent string takes over some of the muscular work of reversing the picking motion.

Finally, I don’t find ballistic-style analysis of picking motion to be especially appropriate to analysis of an alternating motion. Your approach would be more useful if I had ever had a problem where I simply couldn’t cross the string fast enough before reversing my motion because the distance between the pick and string was too large. I have never had such a problem, as my picking speed seems to be limited by how fast I can alternate, not by how far I have to move the pick.

I hope this doesn’t come across as an attack. I’m mostly trying to reframe the disagreement so I can see if you and Troy actually disagree in a practical sense, or if you’re just talking past each other.

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#10

It seems that you guys generally agree, just coming from a different perspective…I think this subject is going to be interesting but I actually don’t think that the answers will help everyone. I am very much looking forward to the science of speed episode, but if the outcome of it is @milehighshred can pick at crazy speeds as he was bestowed at birth with a particular set of muscles that twitch at a higher frequency compared to the average mortal? As a below average mortal, I may shed a tear in defeat😣

#11

I am also looking forward to the video that will document John Taylor’s trip to the medical laboratory where they applied electrodes to his muscles, etc… That should be fascinating! Please don’t keep u waiting too much longer for that.

@PickingApprentice Since I used to be extremely serious about lifting weights and studied a fair amount of exercise physiology at the time, I have some information you are bound to find very interesting although potentially frightening, given the last sentence in your post.

There are two different types of muscle fibers: fast twitch and slow twitch. Let’s take a look at athletes to understand the roles these two types of muscle fibers play.

Imagine a Olympic Gold medalist in the 100 meter dash. He would have very heavily muscled thighs as a result of the high intensity training he has done to be able to run extremely fast for short periods of time and as a result of his genetics.

Then picture a champion marathon runner. His thighs will not appear to be heavily muscled. His thighs will resemble those of the average guy who doesn’t even participate in sports. This is the result of the low intensity but very high duration training he has to do to develop the endurance to win marathons and also the result of his genetics.

I’ve already explained how the nature of the training they do influences their level of muscularity and their abilities which are either running short distances extremely quickly, or running very long distances at a moderate pace but with incredible endurance. I didn’t yet explain how their genetics also play a role in their ability to excel in their given areas and in the amount of muscularity evident in their thighs.

Sprinting is an all out run which is done at top speed for various relatively short distances. The longest dash is the 400 meter dash. Why is there no “one mile dash”? Because it is physically impossible to run at top speed for that long! That is the nature of high intensity exercise - the higher the intensity, the shorter the duration must be!

Men who excel at sprinting all have at least one thing in common - their muscles are made up of primarily fast twitch muscle fibers. Fast twitch muscle fivers are also a requisite for Olympic weightlifters where again the even is of tremendously high intensity and very short duration. Fast twitch muscle fibers are the typeof muscle fibers with the genetic propensity for growing very large. They are of benefit primarily in activities which require the ability to be fast, strong, and explosive. Slow twitch muscle fibers have little propensity for growing large. They excel at being trained to do activities which are of relatively low intensity but require tremendous endurance. Do you see where this is heading?

Chances are, @milehighshred has a physical makeup consisting of primarily fast twitch muscle fibers. You can tell by looking at hi that he has larger than average musculature. Now, whether you possess primarily fast twitch or slow twitch muscle fibers is something I don’t have the answer to. You may want to ask yourself if you tended to excel in sprinting or long distance running. You may want to think about if you ever did any weight training and if so, were your results good? People with fast twitch muscle fibers make gains much more easily and to a greater extent than people with slow twitch muscle fibers.

it’s important to keep in mind that since there are plenty of extremely fast players in their own right who don’t necessarily display the characteristics of having predominantly fast twitch muscle fibers, that exactly how great a percentage of your muscle fibers are fast twitch and how important that is to being able to learn to play fast runs and licks on the guitar isn’t yet known, or if it is, I’m unaware of the studies which deal with that subject. Still, considering your comments, I figured you would find this of interest.

#12

@Acecrusher, if you don’t mind, I’d like to clarify something about fast twitch and slow twitch fibers. When we use these terms, it sounds like one type of fibers are responsible for fast movements and others for slow movements. That is not the case (according to my knowledge). Fast twitch fibers are also called fast fatiguing fibers. They generate high power output and they burn different substrate than slow twitch/fatiguing fibers. They also are inferior in endurance. I am sure you know this but I guess these terms may confuse other members who don’t have that kind of knowledge about muscle fibers.
All that being said, I personally don’t think any of that applies to guitar playing. I think that the physical effort required for playing guitar is negligible for any of that to matter. I might be wrong :thinking:

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#13

Thanks for the great post, really interesting perspective. Unfortunately, physically I have always been an all-rounder, not a sprinter, but agile in sports like football (soccer for those in the US). I have good hand-eye coordination and am routine focused in sports like golf. Overall, I’m hoping my miss-spent youth playing computer games mean I have a decent enough twitch response! :smiley:

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#14

You may be right. I thought it would be of interest since there is at least a possibility that having a predominance of fast twitch fibers may be necessary to develop elite level speed on guitar. I remember reading an interview with David Gilmour many years ago (probably in the 80s) where he said no matter how hard he tries he just can’t his fingers to move fast. At the other end of the spectrum there was Allan Holdsworth who may have had the fastest fingers of any guitar player ever. While the type of practice each one of them did certainly influenced their results, doesn’t it seem plausible that they are probably also genetically predisposed to being good at what each is famous for?

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#15

I thought you were going to mention Shawn Lane as opposition to David Glmour :smiley:

I don’t think I need to add anything. I wrote a long-ish post and then deleted it (:smile:) just because I think you explained it best with the last quote which I’ll summarize here:

  1. Muscular forearms do not correlate with shredding abilities.
  2. We don’t know if muscle fiber make-up is important to this topic.
#16

This is a very interesting topic.i feel,and believe that the muscles that are used to be able to move you’re guitar pick towards the strings,first begins with you’re brain. And the knowledge and musicality,and physical skills,and concentration! To accomplish what you play. On you’re instrument.

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#17

Right, instead of trying to control two degrees of freedom (frequency, distance), only control one (frequency). The DWPS and UWPS techniques are relatively robust, in the sense that a rest note is a perfectly fine way to terminate a stroke, and a little extra air over the string plane is harmless as well.

It’s really all about flipping back-and-forth, up to 13.33 times/second, at the end of the day, although there is a minimum distance that one has to cover (perhaps three times the inter-string spacing) to change strings.

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#18

The difference between a sprinter and a marathon runner is his respective ability to recruit motor units quickly as opposed to the development of his individual musculature. You can probably make an elite sprinter a pretty good marathon runner, but you’ll likely never make an elite marathon runner even a fair sprinter. The physiology at a much deeper level is a lot different than just spread of muscle types.

What you’re trying to do is minimize inefficient movements. A clean pulled in a vertically straight line will always rack higher than one pulled with an arcing bar path. That’s what the advocates of small pick movements are really arguing for and not necessarily small movements for small movements’ sake. CTG has demonstrated that you can have “large movements” and still be extremely efficient and thus very fast.