Pickslanting Primer is too complicated, school-like and boring

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#1

I think that while the primer is great for someone with unlimited amount of time to watch the material, it really is not useful for the majority of the population because the videos are excessively long, and through complexity, fail to explain the essence of the concepts.

It honestly feels most of the time like I’m at school watching a class and not actually playing or refining a technique.

Some observations/feedback:

  1. I feel there are too many shots of Troy shredding throughout the primer. I really don’t want to see Troy shredding, I want to shred myself.
  2. I would much prefer if the viewer is holding a guitar and given actual watered down demonstrations on simply what to do, and drills on how to bake in the motion instead of a thesis on what a hundred great guitarists have done along with slowed down videos of an REH video from the 80s.
  3. For example, reverse dart thrower motion - I don’t need to know why it’s named that way or who else plays this way (along with video demonstrations) and Troy shredding up and down the neck with it. It could just be the animation and how to force the motion to see if it works for you.

While the concepts are great, I think the execution is such that it isn’t really useful. Maybe there needs to be a Pickslanting Primer Mini which is at most 2 hours of material focused on actual application.

#2

The problem is that no single product can make everyone happy. Having more content is arguably better than less, as people can skip around per their taste?

#3

I agree, I mean the normal primer can exist as it is, but for most people who want to actually learn and apply as soon as possible we could have a Mini version. Sort of like a reference book and a textbook.

#4

I agree. It contains too many videos.

#5

We take this type of feedback very seriously, and are constantly revising and rearranging things to be more targeted.

Just to take an example from the recent updates. The new USX tutorial lesson is 7 minutes in total:

It’s divided into 7 sections of one minute each. The sections are all linked and timestamped on the video page. You can click to jump instantly to each section in the topic list below the lesson.

Each section focuses on doing one single hands-on thing. Doing downward pickslanting is one section, for example. Doing a rest stroke is another section, also a minute long. Adding chunking accents is another section, also one minute. And so on. These are key things you need to know how to do.

I could chop this up into one-minute videos and I thought about it. But then that starts to look pretty cluttered, where the section has 50 lessons in it and people get lost scrolling through them all.

It’s always a battle to be as streamlined as possible while making sure we explain the things that we KNOW people will ask about because they ask us in Technique Critique.

So questions:

Have you watched that lesson? Are the one-minute mini subjects targeted or not targeted enough? How would you change this lesson to make it better for what you’re looking for?

This isn’t the first time we’ved moved things around and won’t be the last. You won’t find anyone as committed to improving as we are.

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#6

Thank you for the detailed reply, Troy. I really never expected anyone to look at the feedback but thought I should mention it and I’m happy to see the founder himself is listening.

It’s funny that you mention the USX tutorial because I found that a lot better than prior material and it was much more interactive. I think to truly teach us how to do these movements, some sort of drill which locks us in to the movement or licks would be helpful or an interactive sort of demo, e.g. “Pick up your guitar and follow with me, to do a reverse dart thrower motion your pick stroke is going down and OUT like this (multiple demos, angles, animations, Magnet views etc)…”. The point is more focus on the motion itself and reproducing it versus the theory behind it.

I also find your speed somewhat intimidating, when you scream through a lick once it’s great - because it proves to me that the movement works, but when done repeatedly it makes me want to just give up because it seems impossible.

Just a few comments, and thank you so much for your efforts. I trust your company and website more than any other guitar website out there.

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#7

We definitely look at the feedback! We’re not exactly a megacorporation here. :slight_smile:

In particular the Primer is something we sweat over. We don’t want to skip important stuff, and I have to resist the urge daily to delete or hide everything that’s not a hands-on tutorial. But we don’t really have that luxury, for a couple reasons.

One, not all people will figure out all picking motions, at least not right away. So they need options for doing stuff when some things don’t work. Can’t do wrist? How about forearm? How about elbow? That kind of thing.

Two, you might get one motion but not the escape you needf. Give me a nickel for every player who comes to us wanting to play Eric Johnson lines but can only do one of the DSX motions like wrist or elbow. How do you explain why that won’t work without at least explaining what escape is first? I feel for people who don’t want to know this stuff, and just want to play something.

If I had to boil this down, I would suggest, at bare minimum, you need some understanding of what escape is, and why it matters. Then do the motion tests. Then try the tutorials. That’s how I’d do it. Otherwise without that you won’t know what a USX tutorial is and why it’s any different from any other kind of tutorial. We’ll probably keep trimming stuff, or relocating the more talky stuff to the reference section, until we get to that point.

In your case, if you’re still trying to get through this material, mostly what we care about in the early stages is just doing a single motion fast on a single note. We don’t even care about phrases, because if you can’t move freely, then phrases (generally) don’t help. Slowing down to “getting all the notes right” speed usually just results in stringhopping. We want quality motion first, then we can try to fret something with it.

So if you’re at the tremolo stage, just try to get one of the motions happening with some degree of smoothness. Any one will do. Then make a Technique Critique and upload some clips, we’re happy to take a look!

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#8

@Troy wrote:
“… you need some understanding of what escape is, and why it matters. Then do the motion tests. Then try the tutorials.”

This is so perfect. Perhaps with your next round of revisions you can structure major sections exactly like this. Maybe you already have and there’s just so much content I just can’t see it.

I’ve had the same struggle as the OP, perhaps worse, given that I was clinically diagnosed ADD as a very young child. So while there was one well-intentioned poster who said more content is better, inside my own brain, absolutely not.

I’ve previously posted about my own journey, trying to focus on USX because I thought that was my natural motion. To make matters worse, I’d already developed a strong understanding of 3NPS/CAGED approach to scales and arpeggios. Now I’m starting to think that my natural motion is actually a bouncy DBX that I need to smooth out.

NET: I think an ideal sequence might look like:

  1. Escapes, explained
  2. Motion tests
  3. Tutorials
  4. How to record your own movement

Because at this point, I’d better get some eyes on my technique before continuing my self-diagnosis and falling down the wrong rathole.

#9

This is so interesting because my experience with the Primer is the opposite from OP’s and others. I find that the lessons in the “meat” of the Primer actually simplifies things too much. I got the concepts in the video but it didn’t sound or feel very smooth.

The Technical Reference was essential for me to actually unlocking the basic components of fast picking across all escape styles (i.e., USX, DSX, and DBX): specifically, I think the concepts of the clockface and the 90-degree motion path relative to the pick’s orientation are crucial to understanding how to pick well, regardless of escape motion.

I get why introducing those concepts might turn people away though. That would be even more school-like!

I’m still learning but I wasn’t really getting anywhere until I understood those concepts.

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#10

Oh I’m not criticizing those concepts at all, and some of the ways of communicating - eg the clockface - are brilliantly useful. In fact, I really don’t want to criticize the pedagogy at all, only the volume of material.

#11

What I’d like is a sort of summary or refresher section that just has the main details (hold pick like blah, move it like so and so) so when you want to remind yourself of something you don’t have to go back over loads of video trying to find the specific bit.
I’m also possibly a bit odd in that I’d generally prefer to read text than watch a video to learn something but that’s not really the best medium for a lot of things, guitar picking included.

#12

To get all nerdy, I think that the upstroke and downstroke must sound the same, and one way to do this is with symmetry (via 90 degrees at point of impact). But most people will indeed roll their eyes at this. I suspect that the market for CtC is self-taught guitarists and teachers at the cutting edge?

#13

I’ve been going through the Pickslanting Primer in the sequence shown. After the general picking motion tutorials it goes into downward pickslanting first. I think my default motion is more DBX. Should I go through all of the downward pickslanting modules for Malmsteen and Johnson, and then all the upward pickslanting stuff before proceeding to the DBX modules?

#14

Not really! If you got that far I’d highly recommend to open a technique critique via your user portal, so we (=the instructors) can take a look. We found that without external eyes it’s difficult to properly check what motion you are making. And that is true also for us (=the instructors) — though in some cases the external eyes are our own (e.g. we often film ourselves in slo-mo and look back to make sure we are making the motion we think we are making) :slight_smile:

#15

I am very happy with detailed content. The nerdier the better. I’m glad I was able to watch all of the RDT content released earlier before it was revised. The new stuff is great, but I wish I had downloaded the older stuff as well.

I hope future content is not too much streamlined and to the point. I am able and willing to concentrate on this material. Not everything needs to be fast food.

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#16

“You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.”

I like the nerdy stuff too. I get why it’s not for everyone though. Also, there is a LOT of info on here. That’s because there are (unfortunately, IMO) a LOT of ways to move the pick back and forth, and a lot of implications on each option. It’s a dense topic, college level stuff, and Troy’s done a great job of covering it all.

The idea of a “primer lite” is cool, but I know firsthand how busy and backlogged Troy is so it’s possibly unreasonable. Even a one page outline with links would be a challenge since things shift around in the Primer.

I’m a fanboy, so of course I’ll say “I think Troy’s done the best he can with the information he feels should be available”. Plus, he is constantly thinking of ways to make things better.

Interesting topic, for sure.

#17

Maybe I’m getting old, but the fact that any specific video in the Primer could be described as ‘excessively long’ to the point of ‘not being useful to the majority of the population’ made my heart break and my brain melt.

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#19

It doesn’t need to be fast food, but similar to the concept of a textbook and a reference book - the additional material can be put into a separate repository. There’s a lot of dead content in the videos in my opinion (e.g. talking about a player who uses the technique, or something completely unrelated to the technique). This was especially a problem with the older videos, and has improved over time.

I would think most people feel the same way, but I would rather pick fast than hear reams and reams of information about how picking fast works. At the end of the day, it is a motor movement and you learn by doing. You can’t learn to become an F1 driver by watching an F1 driver explain how his hands move.

If your interest is in motion mechanics and movement, there are resources for that - but I am almost certain most of the people “nerding out” on the content versus worrying about applying it cannot pick fast, and if there is no change in their thinking probably never will. I don’t want to be one of those people.

#21

If the choice was between (a) pick quickly vs. (b) hearing lots of information, of course everybody would pick (a)! But, there are other options that you didn’t mention, like (c) make no progress despite trying hard.

I think the best way to make progress is to get a teacher, where the teacher is ideally well versed in CtC techniques. With a CtC subscription, like you have, one can get expert analysis of their videos, and while that’s not as good as a full-time teacher, it could really make a massive difference in somebody’s progress.

Now, let’s say that you’re not interested in a teacher—this means that you are the teacher. Will you have enough knowledge to understand what is going wrong, particularly taking shortcuts with the material? That’s for you to decide.

Finally, did you get to go through the CtC recipe and take the tap tests, etc.? If not quite yet, I think that you’ll enjoy them, because I think that’s CtC’s fastest path to speed.

I suspect that in coming years the material will be unified to become much more coherent and elegant. For example, I think the early perspective was “pick slanting,” but later it became obvious that the “escape” is really the fundamental concept, as escape dictates the path, the path dictates the slant, etc. Indeed, simple symmetry considerations start to really constrain the slant choices. Now in pedagogy one man’s meat is the other man’s poison, so there is no right answer here.

#22

Yeah. The slant wasn’t the whole picture. But let’s be honest, alliteration is one of the most powerful of all literary devices. “Pickslanting Primer” just works. I’ll submit the following for consideration:

Joint-Motion Journal
Escape-Motion Exposition

Or, if old-school Biblical words ever become hip again:

Escape-Motion Epistle

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