Picking update - 16 notes per second hit!

Technique Critique
#1

I finally hit my goal of 16 notes per second on the circular 6’s lick! I realized that tension in my arm was one of the biggest things that was causing my pickslant transition timing to mess up. It didn’t feel natural. I mentioned in my first post that I could ascend and descend 6 note per string scale shapes at 16 notes per second, but I noticed later on that one way felt a lot more comfortable than the other. After practicing my left hand timing, getting the feel of changing strings using only uwps and only dwps at these speeds, and focusing on staying relaxed, I recorded this clip.

It’s still difficult for me to subconsciously relax my arm when I’m playing, which I believe is why I can’t maintain the lick for very long (not that I’m tense when I first start playing the lick, but my arm involuntarily tenses up after a second of playing it. I can tremolo pick this fast for long periods of time, in a relaxed state, so I’m confident that with a bit of focus, I’ll be able to play this lick this fast in a relaxed state for long periods of time).

9 Likes
#2

Awesome - great work here.

Why this phrase in particular, and what metronome marking are you using for this? Are you doing five notes per click? I’ve always found the whole ‘notes per second’ thing frankly bizarre outside of a laboratory setting, and difficult to relate to musical time.

e.g. 15 notes per second or 16 notes per second, I don’t know if I can even tell the difference, especially if it’s only for a second or two and the speed isn’t constant. But a tune written at 225bpm versus 240bpm, totally different thing and easy to hear even for a non-musician.

Edit: Ok I’ve struggled through some basic math. Circular sixes is ten notes, five notes per click is 25% more than sixteenths, so 240bpm sixteenths (240 * .75) is equivalent to quintuplets at 180. So you’re using 180 for this? That’s cool. Super common tempo, and the ability to do fives at that tempo adds a color that could be pretty useful in a lot of situations.

Again, great work here.

6 Likes
#4

Looks fine. The rotation happens when it supposed to - last note on the top string switches to uwps, and so on.

More importantly sounds great - synchronized and doesn’t sound swipey. Even if it was (or is) swipey, that’s still fine if it sounds good!

3 Likes
#5

Thanks for the reply! I chose this lick because the problem I was encountering in my previous post had to do with the transition between dwps and uwps, and this lick demonstrates that problem very clearly. I also just think it’s a cool phrase. The way to figure out how many notes per second a phrase is played is to multiply the amount of notes per beat by the bpm and then divide that number by 60. In this case I was playing 5 notes per beat at 192 bpm which equals 960 notes per minute. 960/60 will give you 16 notes per second. The only reason why I did the lick at 5 notes per beat is because it’s much easier to count than sixteenths or sixteenth triplets due to the fact that it’s a 10 note long phrase rather than an 8 note phrase or a 12 note one.

2 Likes
#6

Ugh - 240 to 192 is .8, not .75. I should stick to music and not math!

Good job here.

3 Likes
#8

Some more practical questions: have you worked on picking speed before and maxed out? At what tempo? Or have you never really approached this before, and now you are, and you’re seeing results? Or were you able to play this speed prior, just with simpler phrases like tremolo, and not with articulate lines like this?

When it comes to the issue of picking speed itself, we lack strong evidence that it is changeable, or changeable by much for mature players who can already play pretty fast. I’m sure it has happened. I’d just like to see more evidence of this. And I’d like to know how much that limit has moved, and what was done to get there.

Edit: Sorry, I’m not good at math OR reading. You were able to do one-way patterns at this speed prior. I would ask the same questions though - has that speed changed at all, and when/how.

4 Likes
#9

It wasn’t necessarily the speed itself that was the issue. When I was saying in my first post that I could do “one-way” phrases at 16 nps, I also stated that one way was more comfortable than the other. When I ascend a 6 note per string scale shape that fast, I can do it pretty consistently and with a somewhat relaxed arm. When I descend the scale shape, I could get it about 60% of the time, and my arm tended to be more tense, but I could technically do it. The difficulty of the lick was caused by the imbalance in proficiency between the pickslants rather than the speed itself. In this lick, I have to swap back and forth between uwps and dwps orientations and in the dwps section I tend to nail it, but when I swap pickslants I have to stiffen my arm to confidently hit the string. This inconsistent tension is what I believe causes the lick to fall apart at these high speeds.

I believe in terms of sheer speed that I hit my limit a long time ago, but I still have a long way to go as far as controlling the speed I already have is concerned.

2 Likes
#10

Well… I can’t do it with your speed, anyway…
I’ve just noticed that I have problems with even notes phrases when doing ascending motion, while descending ususally goes better.

1 Like
#11

Great playing. Inspired me to work harder on my 6. How’s going with outside picking?

1 Like
#12

Troy, I am working on the DWPS and UWPS technique, also, It seems to work when I use DWPS for ascending and vice versa UWPS for descending. As of yet, it doesn’t feel natural yet when I change directions frequently but it is coming. Is this the right approach for runs that change directions, ascending and then descending?

#13

I have the same issue. And trouble really comes when I change position up or down the fretboard, sliding up seems to trouble me the most. But that is what i work on since it is a weakness.

#14

The pickslant is determined by the final note on a string, because this is the pickstroke that needs to escape, i.e. go up in the air. It doesn’t matter which direction the lick moves, or if it even has a consistent direction - it only matters what the final picked note on the string is. If it’s a downstroke, you use uwps, and if it’s an upstroke, you use dwps. This is a really important concept, because just using pickslanting by itself won’t actually do anything (for the most part), and might even hinder your playing, if you don’t match these up properly.

1 Like
#15

Thanks for the feedback! I’m actually a pure economy picker so outside changes isn’t something I really ever do. Needless to say, I suck at them.

#16

Keep up the good work. :+1::+1::+1:

1 Like
#17

The video is unavailable :persevere: I was looking forward to seeing it!

1 Like