Pickslant change sequence question

Playing Technique
#1

Hi guys,

I have a very similar right hand position as Troy, so naturally a downward pick slanter. I started practicing the slant changes one week ago and would be happy to have your opinion on one topic:

Let’s say I am practicing a descending 6 notes pattern with 3 notes per string, for instance:
e-----15-13-12---------------
b------------------15-13-12–

According to Troy, I should practice the following motion (starting with DWPS and downstroke):

Down - Up - Down(rotate to UWPS) - Up - Down - Up(rotate back to DWPS) - etc.

Is there a reason why this movement makes more sense than:

Down - Up - Down(rotate to UWPS) - Up(rotate back to DWPS) - Down - Up - etc.

At least at practicing speeds, the second sequence feels more natural to me, since this back-and-forth-motion feels natural like a small strum, but I can’t judge at this point if at higher speeds this direct back-and-forth motion may create problems.

Thanks a lot in advance!
-Jacek

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Pickslanting Primer question (Primary Pickslant)
#2

I think my hands want to do a similar thing with uwps.

At least for me, two rotations in a row can be challenging at higher speeds (the movement seems a bit more complex and athletic than straight up/down). This can create some tension which throws off my timing, so perhaps Troy’s strategy allows for a smoother sequence of movements?

#3

I guess the natural thing if you don’t want to go “down, up, (down)rotate. up down (up)rotate” is “(down)rotate, up, down. (up)rotate, down, up”

Just so you’re not reversing slant in successive strokes.

I think this is what I do, and I think it helps me feel the correct starting stroke for each new string.

Troy’s method was based on his “primary” slant being DWPS, if you’re not so fussed about “defaulting” to DWPS then you don’t necessarily have to place the rotations where he does.

#4

I think it’s because when you hit the last upstroke, just before you change string to start your sequence again, the pick is rising above the string and this very movement is conducive to changing the pickslanting orientation.

#5

With three-note-per-string stuff, I actually prefer to spread the rotation across multiple pickstrokes. All that matters is having the required angle at the moment you need to clear a string. Spreading the rotation across multiple pickstrokes is limiting in the sense that you need to decide in advance when you’re going to change strings, but it’s less “athletically demanding”.

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#6

Thx guys!
I tried around a bit and realized that when playing a bit more complicated patterns (than 6 notes over 2 strings) it’s much easier to shift between DWPS and UWPS on the last note before the string change. Somehow I don’t have to anticipate if I’ll end on a down or upstroke, but simply change my slant if needed. So it seems to be more economic in mechanics and in my head.
I think the simplicity of a lick like
e-----15-13-12---------------
b------------------15-13-12–
made me improvise or get lazy with the slant changes. However, it’s good to know that others also have the tendency.
I’ll stick to “Down - Up - Down(rotate to UWPS) - Up - Down - Up(rotate back to DWPS)” for now to keep it more structured and see want will happen if I get it up to speed. BTW: Just ordered the parts for a Magnet :wink:

Thx again!

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#7

I am a DWPSlanter and just getting into 2WPS. When trying the 2WPS with the above pattern I also noticed I could rotate on different notes. After some practicing, I agree with the above statement that 2 rotations in a row is a bit tricky at high speed so my preference is for rotating before the string change.:slight_smile:

#8

This is one of those cases where the camera has a pretty clear answer to your question. So let’s look at the footage!

https://troygrady.com/seminars/antigravity/clips/descending-nines/

The descending nines clip from Antigravity is a pretty textbook example of down-up-rotate in practice. Watch this in slow motion. You’ll see that, for the most part, the rotational movements are paired with the string changes. Downstroke, upstroke, then a visible rotational movement and a switch to the next string. Then up, down, and a visible rotational movement to get back. We can debate how much the rotational movement is really spread out over the notes. But what is clear is that the most visible movements are tied to the string change note.

Here’s another example — fives across two strings:

https://troygrady.com/seminars/antigravity/clips/fives-2str/

The movements here are a little more subtle, but again, if you look at this in slow motion, you’ll see the most movement happens right around the moment of the string change.

But what do other players do? Let’s check out Teemu:

https://troygrady.com/interviews/teemu-mantysaari/teemu-mantysaari-clips/scale-sixes-descending-6str/

Pretty much the same thing. Watch this in slow motion, and you’ll see most of the movement happening around the string change. As in my case, there is some asymmetry - for a given pair of strings, the descending string change looks a little different than the ascending one. And this appearance changes depending on which strings he’s playing on. When he’s on the upper pair of strings, the ascending string change is the aggressive one, with more twist. When he’s on the middle pairs, the descending string change movement becomes more aggressive. This is likely due to anchoring. In other words, he’s not moving his hand placement to track the string in a one-to-one relationship, uniformly across the strings with the entire arm. Instead, it’s a mish mash of some arm placement change, some wrist placement change, some pickslanting changes. It’s complicated and mostly subconscious.

Ok fine let’s look at some upward pickslanting scale playing. Here’s Andy Wood:

https://troygrady.com/interviews/andy-wood/clips-guitar/bop-bach-and-roll/

There are many examples we can look at here, but taking a look at bar 12, watch the ascending string changes in slow motion. The pickslanting movements are again pretty much tied to the string change, but inversely. Andy is doing primary uwps here, so he reverts to dwps, and reverts back to uwps pretty quickly after the string change. You will see this quick compound switch and switch back movement everywhere in Andy’s playing. He’ll even do them back to back, which you could say becomes a crosspicking technique. Check out bar 5 of the same clip, the fourth through sixth notes of the bar.

Batio is another great example which we’ve looked at extensively in Antigravity, and we know that he does the same thing - a more aggressive movement tied closely to the string changes. And we can keep going with other players - lots of examples here.

The bottom line is that when you look at two-way pickslanters, the movements you see appear localized to the string change itself. Sometimes very quickly in a switch and switch back kind of way, as in Andy’s case. And sometimes split into halves as in my case. There may be some “spreading it out” happening in between these movements, we can debate. But the most aggressive movements happen at the string changes themselves.

Ergo, in your practice, if you feel like you’re doing more work around the time of the string change, that’s probably fine - that’s what it looks like many (most?) players are doing.

Edit: Didn’t really answer your question re: scenario 1 or 2. The answer is that both methods appear to work, and if you find yourself behaving more like scenario 2, that is fine. Andy and Mike are clearly scenario 2 players, and in fact, this is what we would thinks of as the classic case of having a “primary” pickslant, and using a compound movement to switch away from it, and switch back to it quickly. This approach appears to work fine at high speed.

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#9

Thx @Troy for the response. I took some time to finish watching the seminars and watched some of the interviews to have a clearer opinion of what some Pros are doing.
I think I’ll do the experiment to practice the separated slants changes at each string change properly, i.e. d-u-d®-u-d-u®, for some weeks and then see which of both approaches feel more comfortable then and what my hands will be doing naturally to maintain a clean sound. In the end, every time I attempted changing my technique, I at least ruled out what is worse for me and so build up some confidence in my playing.

I’ll write then what I feel makes more sense from my experience.
@Rockdeveloper: I’ll be curious to hear how that develops in your case.
@Prlgmnr: I think that would confuse me quite a bit, since then I have to decide so many strokes before the string change what kind of string change I really want to do. The scenario d-u-d®-u®-d-u- feels at least right to me, because I can stay in DWPS for a maximum amount of time and only change if the string change requires it. To me, it feels like this is what I would/should do when improvising. In the end, probably these planned string changes that we condition ourselfs to are only practice and after some years we let go and suddenly it’s a fusion with our natural movement that simply works

#10

I’ve been working on this for a few days. Im having trouble figuring out exactly when the reverse slant occurs. Other than that, my playing had improved significantly in the past month. Thanx Troy.