Hi guys
Im a new member and I’m blown away by Troy’s philosophy on picking technique. I’ve been playing on and off for somewhere around 15 years. I always wanting to play shred guitar but could never seem to bridge that gap in technical ability.
One of my favorite guitar players is Syu from Galneryus and I could never exactly pinpoint why I struggled so much to play his material. I came across the concepts of USX and DSX and now it finally makes sense. I have always played with my pick slanted slightly downwards while Syu has an upwards pick slant!
I have subconsciously experimented with both playing styles over the years but never really thought about the way my pick was escaping the strings. The interesting thing is I have a tendency to start two string pentatonic licks with an up stroke and tend to use economy picking during certain scale runs. I realized that I’ve been doing exactly what Troy has been saying and using economy as a downwards escape to compensate for the pick being trapped in between the string.
I flipped my pick over to an upwards slant while being more conscious about the picking motions and I’ve made so much progress in certain Galneryus songs that used to be really difficult! I haven’t even finished 80% of the material on the website but I thought this was just going to be like every other guitar course out there that I’ve watched. I’ve gone through excerpts of Rock Discipline, Speed Kills, Paul Gilberts course, and several others but none of them worked the way this did. Best $30 spent and I can’t wait to learn more. I wish this existed back when I was learning as a teenager.
Does anyone have advice on switching from a DSX style to USX style of playing? One thing that I have noticed is that 3 note ascending scale runs seem harder using a USX technique unless I start it with an upstroke. (The opposite of my usual DSX technique.) How long does it take until you felt comfortable picking with an upwards slant?