Well I’m not a native English speaker so here you go. I can understand the will to have a proper nomenclature and definition of motion mechanic. However, “pickslanting” meant something to people -or at least something to me-, and I think that right or wrong, the definition of the term shouldn’t change. It would be wiser IMO to find other more suitable terms in the future than even just tweak/slightly change the definition of an old one. So to the question:
I answer “an upstroke escape phrase”. Regardless of the motion mechanics used to make the pick itself move.
That, or maybe I didn’t get it at all ; then please carry on.
This is totally correct, and if this is what “pickslanting” means to you, then we are in 100% agreement! This type of explanation, about the escape, is probably still the clearest possible way to explain the concept.
That’s the problem. It does not mean what it means to you, to everyone. Some people think it means “pick appears to have an angle to it”, and on top of that, they think “this pick appearance angle causes the escape”. And this makes it really hard to understand why some players can play while appearing to “not have a pickslant”, i.e. “not have a visibly slanted pick”.
Honestly when the dust settles I think your approach is probably what we’ll do here. Clarify that the escape is what matters by saying so. Clarify that the pick “appearing slanted” is how we got into this, and that over time we realized it’s actually more complicated, and has two parts to it, one being the “slanted grip” and the other being the “slanted movement”. And then clarify that they often correlate but not always.
If, for instance, an UWPS-Player with a supinated arm orientation and a downward oriented pick like the Andy-Wood-form wants to change a string after an upstroke while ascending, can he swipe easily? And same for sweeping? Or in other words: Is then as a result the logic of the “garage-spike”-animation scene a little bit outdated?
I’m all for updating the jargon–everything makes sense to me. The crosspicking workshop really sheds a lot of light on the topic, for those who are still confused.
I don’t have much to offer in terms of ideas, I think there is some good stuff earlier in the thread already. But to me, CTC approaches the topic of virtuoso guitar playing from a scientific angle and things in science are constantly being changed and updated and rethought as new research comes in.
I’m trying to parse this one, you mean Andy Wood when he plays an ascending line like a scale, what does he do when he plays an ascending upstroke string change to a higher string? This wouldn’t really be a swiping scenario as far as I can tell, because it’s inside picking and most swiping is outside picking.
When Andy does this, he usually throws in a little forearm rotation with the wrist, so it looks like the “classic 2wps” we all know and love. Here’s a great example, watch it in slow motion:
Again, this wouldn’t really be a swiping scenario. Also note that Andy’s pick isn’t super downward pickslanted here either. In fact if all you knew was to “look for the slant”, it would be kind of hard to tell what you’re seeing here. Instead if you look at the arm setup, and then look at the motion, it becomes a lot clearer.
Now just as a point of comparison, take a look at this short clip from the recent workshop with Andy:
Much more pronounced “pickslant” here. And if all you knew to look at was the “slant of the pick”, you would probably be pretty confused. You’d be asking yourself, is Andy a uwps player, or a dwps player, I can’t tell, because it appears to be changing.
Except that it’s really not. Small differences in grip and setup are causing the pick to “appear differently slanted”. But if you step back a moment, and look at how he is set up on the instrument, and how he is moving, this is mostly the same. He’s using the 2:00 uwps movement, and throwing in a little forearm on the inside string change. Same as the other clip.
Yeah I see it.
Maybe Andy Wood was a bad example for what I wanted to say. I just mean this: If an UWPS-Player who has a downward pick orientation and a supinated forearm and never does TWPS wants to change the string ascending after an upstroke like in the famous 1234-exercise, he could theoretically use swiping to get to the next string?
A pronated UWPS-Player on the other hand would have problems doing it because of the reasons shown in the garage-spike-scene. Like MAB. He with his primary UWPS orientation and movements swipes when descending even numbered notes per string patterns.
Uh sounds all confusing… but just asking
Edit: and of course a dwps-player could swipe ascending too, but when he wants to change string after a downstroke. Short: The garage-spike-scene is appropriate for both: UWPS (with a downward pick orientation)ascending after upstrokes AND DWPS ascending change after a downstroke.
The thing is that it applies to a lot of players when they play real fast, otherwise we wouldn’t be here. Even if such things as pickslanting and motion mechanics appear clearly under closer scrutiny ( like the magnet), because otherwise and as you said in a video, they’d be using magic to escape the strings. I don’t think description of motion mechanics should include the term “pickslanting” for the sake of clarity; especially when they have their own, well referenced terms (“pronation”, “surpination”, “ulnar deviation”, etc.).
Then there’s “crosspicking” and “economy picking”, where pickslanting tends to be “directional”, as in players tend to use DWPS when going to a higher string and UWPS when going to a lower string. All that while in the “linear” world, only the last note on the string matters when using D/U/TWPS. But I think that as long as the motion mechanic is properly defined and the way it’s achieved is clear and simple enough to be taught, the confusion should remain minimal. Andy Wood or not.
Actually I’m not even sure if what I’m typing makes any sense anymore because of the discussion that rose about the terms. I probably should take a break.
OK I’m sorry I’m dense, I see what you’re asking. Yes theoretically you’d have less garage spikes issue because the pick is slanted that way. The garage spikes concept is one aspect of “pickslanting” that holds up because it is related to grip, i.e. the smoother sliding across the strings in the direction of the slant.
However, and I know you’re probably asking theoretically here, but in a practical scenario inside picking still isn’t ideal for swiping for a few reasons: there’s no sustain note to block the swipe sound, the fretting finger might lift off the lower string before the swipe causing the swipe to be an unmuted open string, etc.
I agree that describing the escape is the most accurate way… but it might be confusing to convert to this terminology as explained by JudasPriester and others.
Ok hold on. You’ve indicated pickslanting means ‘escape’ to you. Well, teaching the motions is teaching how to escape properly. That is the core focus. But we’re not allowed to say ‘pickslant’ when teaching the movement, then we’ve got a problem.
I can certainly teach a motion by describing how it escapes. But then what’s the point of even keeping the term pickslanting alive if you think it’s confusing to someone?
The words are escaping me. I mean by that I wouldn’t want to see something like “he is a supinated player with a downward slanted pick who uses an upward pickslanting motion path”. That’s mumbo jumbo to me, I don’t get what’s meant by that. If you say something like “he’s using pronation/surpination/deviation/etc. to create UWPS/DWPS/escape the string/whatever”, then I get it. I can visualise it and conceive it.
EDIT: You got me thinking more about it, I think I’m getting a clearer picture of the discussion and even reconsider the definition I gave earlier. Although I still have tough time to create a picture in my mind of a upward pickslanting motion path with a downward slanted pick. I’m really trying! That’s where I’m getting confused and the definitions don’t add up anymore, where something that was clear to me suddenly isn’t. I’ll end up falling asleep in front of the Fisher Hornpipe!
I’m a digital user experience (UX) designer by trade, and I was always taught to design for primary use cases. With respect to CTC nomenclature, this means I’d stick with DWPS and UWPS because I’m presuming that most supinated players are primary DWPS and most pronated players are UWPS. Players like Andy Wood are edge cases. However, if the a verbiage refresh is inevitable, I’ve always thought of pick paths in terms of “downstroke decline” vs “downstroke incline” and “upstroke incline” vs “upstroke decline.” Just my two cents.
This is exactly what we need to communicate, and we need clear terms with which to communicate it so newbie’s aren’t confused. We can totally do this with the escaped downstroke / upstroke terminology we have been using for years. Our highest viewed video on YouTube, 2.5M views and counting, makes extensive use of this terminology, with a nice clear “ESCAPE ZONE” animation. So we’re not pulling the rug out from anyone.
BUT! In addition, we also need to help people understand that the “slant of the pick” is a related, but separate concept. Because there are useful things to say about a slanted pick, especially when it comes to sweeping and economy.
Au contraire, I think you have a great handle on this! So is the slant of the pick called “pickslanting”, or is the slant of the motion called “pickslanting”? Or both?
Excellent! We prioritize good design, to the extent that we’re capable of doing it! It’s why we fuss over things like names of things as they relate to usability and learning.
That’s where we dropped the ball. I suspect Andy is not an edge case - I suspect he’s more likely the norm. And of course the blame for that lies with us. Even as recently as earlier this year, in our “Intro To Picking Motion” broadcast, we’re guilty of showing this picture of John McLaughlin’s very clearly supinated-to-the-strings forearm, including an Andy Wood-style wrist extension downstroke, and calling it “pronated”:
Is he more pronated than a Gypsy player? For sure. But is he actually pronated with respect to the strings? No, he is not. That means his pickstroke options would be like Andy’s, his crosspicking options would be like Andy’s, and so on.
So if we’re designing for what’s common, we need a way of explaining how these common arm positions look and operate.
Sensible, and more or less equivalent to trapped / escaped, which we have some history and audience familiarity with already.
If I say “an upstroke escape phrase” (which for crosspicking or sweeping isn’t even necessarily true), then I need to know why I’m escaping on upstrokes. I then would think that it’s because the pick is slanted that I’m having that diagonal motion that escapes on upstrokes, which makes the term “pickslanting” shaped like itself: the pick is slanted! And that slant allows me to get out of the string.
I would then think that how that pick was slanted, which means which motion mechanic slants the pick is a different -but ever so linked- matter to the pick’s slant: it can be slanted by flexing the finger(s), twisting the forearm, the wrist, a combination of the aforementioned, so on so forth. This opens up another can of worms on how to perform a picking motion, but at least I can grasp the concept of pickslanting, why someone is doing it and the rough position of the pick to achieve the result I’m looking. “How” or even “how much” are different questions, but at least I know “why”.
On thing that crossed my mind … in a pure crosspicking / double escape pick motion, if it’s large and flat enough, the pickslant can be almost irrelevant to the pick path. If there’ is a pickslant, it’s more because of the wrist 2D motion to produce the curve. It’s almost a by-product of the motion.
Actually the pickslant might be relevant in this scenario, but for the pick attack angle instead, and is kind of affecting the tone, almost like edge picking.
Now when playing faster the double-escape motion leaves place to a shortened trajectory; But if the attack angle is shallow enough there’s no need for a strong amount of slanting (both ways) to escape the plan of the string. It’s not a pickslanting scenario that is comparable to Gypsy style were there is a trapped side of the path because the trajectory is linear, caused by the slant. But with a 2D motion as opposed to 1D it’s more like pick oscillates from a fulcrum.
Going further down the UX rabbithole, CTC also needs to consider what groups of people they’re trying to reach, what effect the terminology has on each group, and what the stakes are when communicating to each group.
A potential problem is that one of the most important groups is “people who stumble across CTC-related content for the first time, with no prior exposure”. And a lot of those people will see the term “pickslanting”, and say “Huh. I already hold the pick at an angle, so I guess I don’t need to waste my time on that guy!”.
The stakes are that if the old terminology really is having that effect, it’s bad for CTC’s bottom line. As someone who enjoys CTC’s content, I want them to keep producing more stuff. Things that hurt their business put the creation of future content at risk.
It’s much easier to clarify a terminology change (and the justification for it) to people who are already engaged with CTC than it is to prevent a casual skeptic from dismissing CTC because their first impression exposed them to terminology that caused them to jump to a mistaken negative conclusion about the value of the content.
Maybe we could keep pickslanting to mean the grip/orientation we take and use the terms “escaped upstroke/downstroke”
E-UP/E-DN. This way the escape isn’t completely tied in with the pick orientation…?
Not sure if somebody already suggested this ( I didn’t read through the entire thread yet).
I can understand the will to have a proper nomenclature and definition of motion mechanic. However, “pickslanting” meant something to people -or at least something to me-, and I think that right or wrong, the definition of the term shouldn’t change. It would be wiser IMO to find other more suitable terms in the future than even just tweak/slightly change the definition of an old one. So to the question:
