Pickslanting is dead. Long live pickslanting!

Playing Technique
#1

We’ve always known that the motion path of the pick is the operative part of the “pickslanting” concept. Escaped versus trapped, and so on. But we have been guilty of not really thinking clearly about what the visible orientation, or slant, of the pick itself has to do with this. For the most part, we have called them both “pickslanting”.

This was fine when the two were correlated. Downward pickslanters with downward slanted picks? Lots of them. Joscho Stephan and Marty Friedman are classic examples of the obvious cases. But this all breaks down when someone like Andy Wood walks in. He is a supinated player with a downward slanted pick who uses an upward pickslanting motion path.

Say what?

The acronyms “dwps” and “uwps” have served us well. But to eliminate confusion, it’s time to apply them to the grip only. We have names for the three dimensions of pick orientation in relation to the guitar, and these have all held up pretty well: pickslanting, edge picking, and lean. The terms are arbitrary, but they’re clear. Any beginner should be able to pick this up.

We need the same clarity for motions. And as compact as it is to describe a phrase as a “uwps” phrase, it’s just going to cause confusion when the pick doesn’t look “upwardly slanted”.

So ok code crackers, what are the motions? What’s a “dwps” phrase? Is it an “upstroke escape” phrase? What’s the abbreviation, “use”? That’s going to be a disaster. I can see the videos now: “Ok YouTube, let’s learn how to use USE!”

Hit me with some ideas here.

3 Likes
Hi everybody! I'm Luca from Italy!
#2

I’d suggest referring to a movement with escaping upstrokes as EUS and a movement with escaping downstrokes as EDS.

2 Likes
#3

I’ve came to think about this, especially when I saw the Molly Tuttle clip. That really was striking to me, how she hold the pick (grip) and how the pick was within the context of a phrase. I realized that this confusion of grip-slant vs stroke-slant (so-to speak) could apply to me as well.

I believe this is especially true with players who are kind of ‘primarily uwps’ (if that makes any sense), because a lot of the guitar vocabulary has downward stuff (like rest-stroke, consecutive downstroke for slower stuffs, strumming …)

#4

Oh man we’re really in for it. Everything sounds like a medical condition to me now. “Are you living with EDS? Ask your doctor about Cracking the Code…”

12 Likes
#5

Up Free/Down Free or UFree/DFree or UF/DF!

#6

That’s better! I think?

#7

The problem will be that formerly DOWNwardpickslanting is now UPFree and vice versa… confusing…
But Free has the connection to freedom, that people mostly feel positive about :slight_smile:

#8

The alternative would be to avoid abbreviations entirely and give different systems memorable names that are not descriptions.

I think this would be disastrously confusing for new members.

1 Like
#9

Maybe instead of referring to how the pick escape one can say if the pick has a ‘buried’ phase or not, and on which direction. Down-Buried will be like former DWPS. I know it doesn’t sound cool :wink: … but there’s less confusion. And as a bonus you have the Free-buried (aka ‘freebird’) stroke.

#10

Better than my suggestion. Maybe Up/Out (UO) and Down/Out (DO) would be more descriptive?

#11

I thought about that, but we actually do have the “rest stroke” concept already. It’s not exactly equivalent, since you can be trapped without specifically doing a rest stroke. But if we’re looking at terms that emphasize the “trapped” phase of the movement, those terms are the closest.

#12

Especially for the doom metal fans here :wink:

2 Likes
#13

Ah yes … that would be the ‘cryptic stoke’. and the escape is the ‘rise from the dead’ :wink:

3 Likes
#14

I think it’s important to keep the up/down direction in the name the same as it is with pickslnating, otherwise it would be very confusing. So maybe something like Downstroke/Upstroke trapped picking, DTP/UTP? Not sure about the TWPS version of this though.

#15

To me the TWPS (or 2wps) is kind of a pivotal stroke. A shorten motion of what has already a name : the ‘pendulum of death’ (aka crosspicking)

#16

I think someone may have suggested this exact nomenclature before. I don’t think it was on the forum - maybe someone else’s forum. Or maybe Ben Eller? Don’t recall.

We’ve been using the escaped/trapped terms for a while now. In fact we do that in our most highly viewed YT channel video, the “Crossroads Diminished” one. The terms coexist happily this far because they mostly just clarify what we mean by pickslanting. Simply phasing out the use of the term “pickslanting” for anything other than grip, and continuing on with escaped and trapped as we have been is probably the path of least resistance here. Acronym or not.

#17

I see the problem. When you coined the phrases UWPS and DWPS, you were referring to the path of pick stroke.

It turns out that the actual slant of the pick may be independent of the stroke.

While I think its fine to keep it the way you have it with an “*” applied, to be more exact, you might just call it a pronated or supinated pick stroke.

You have actually been referring to the stroke all along, not the slant of the pick.

Although, I can see where your nomenclature could cause problems. If someone has a “downward pick slant” (supinated stroke), it will be be difficult to teach them 2WPS because if their actual pick slant is not neutral, it may be more difficult for them to change from a supinated to a pronated stroke (that actually works.)

1 Like
#18

I think the confusion issue is maybe a non-issue. Pickslanting stil exists and applies to what the pick looks like. It’s what most new subscribers and casual internet viewers already think anyway. Simply learning that there’s an additional dimension of the motion path is the more sophisticated piece, and that’s what they learn when they sign up.

1 Like
#19

We’ve really been referring to both, haphazardly, because I didn’t know they could be uncorrelated. Sometimes I have meant “slanted pick”, and other times I have meant “slanted motion”, and our animations have been unclear on this also. It has mostly been from context that you could tell which one I was referring to.

The problem with this is that arm position is also independent of pickstroke. You can be supinated and use a downward or upward pickslanting motion path. Andy Wood is the textbook example of this - supinated player, upward pickslanter.

#20

Yes, that was my mistake when posting Ufree. Downstring and Upstring (DS and US) or Downstring Contact and Upstring Contact (DSC and USC) or without string DC/UC.
Or like the previously said, Trapped instead of Contact: DST UST or without string: DT/UT.

(So, now I’m out of ideas for today anyway)