Preston Black USX Wrist(?), same as Shawn Lane?

Playing Technique
#41

Says the guy who is really good at describing his technique!

Thanks for the insight Bill. If you’re doing the pronated position then I think it has to be the dart thrower motion, or you wouldn’t be able to escape on the upstrokes. Unless there is something else that I’m missing. And there is always the possibility that there is.

This is interesting from a technical perspective just for us to know that it is possible. And obviously from a teaching perspective we can recognize when people are already doing this and help make them aware of what their form is, and how to maximize it. Sometimes just knowing you’re doing a thing makes it easier to get better at it. Like, oh, that’s why I do that, ok, cool.

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#42

I’ve been working on the motion the past couple of days and this is the perfect way of describing what it felt like when it occasionally would feel effortless!

If anyone has worked on SWYBRYD before and used Marshall’s approach to playing the Paul Gilbert/Al Di Meola lick which he now more commonly plays like this:

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It felt similar to the rolling motion the plucked note gives you when you really get that lick cooking :smiley:

So far with my attempts at trying to mimic this motion I can now play USX pentatonic stuff comfortably at 160bpm 16th notes, whereas before I was stuck around 140-145bpm and it felt a lot more taxing, really happy with that!

Trying to work on Preston’s speeds which I think is somewhere around 185bpm+ (sometimes maybe approaching 200bpm+? hard to tell), normally I just stick a click on a let it suck at the given speed for a while before my hand adjusts but I’m having trouble moving my wrist that fast!

#43

Here’s an example of 160bpm 16th notes pentatonics:

Is the motion ballpark?

This speed is pretty comfortable but I’ll slip and lose the motion now and again which throws it off. I’ve given 185bpm a go and I can actually do it in short bursts but not consistently

#44

I dunno Joe, I tried using a trailing edge hockey stick while trying for USX 8-2 and I had to use what looked like and felt like my normal rotational motion to do it… but it did look more bouncy, like an in and out movement particularly when placing my hand on the bridge. So it didn’t feel like I was making a different motion to how I would normally as I felt like I was using the same muscles just from a different angle. The hand and arm position though position though relative to the guitar, trailing edge grip etc… certainly made it look different when looking at it head on.

That said, trying to hold my hand that way was not super comfortable.

Reverse Dart Thrower vs Dart thrower; Is there a playbook?
#45

8-2 does DSX though. And neither 10-4 nor 8-2 would involve rotational mechanic. Not saying you can’t do blends of course. I thought we were talking about the pure motion.

Also thinking back to what I said about 10-4 and 8-2 being totally different motions. I might have been wrong to say that. But I might be misunderstanding what constitutes a different motion. I was thinking since they have opposite trajectory they had to be. Since I can easily do 8-2 and have never been able to do 10-4, that made me think they were different motions. Now whether they use the same exact muscles, that I don’t know.

#46

They don’t.

You have one antagonistic group which does dart-thrower, and another which does reverse dart-thrower. Both groups have secondary function in rotation also.

If you follow the trajectory defined by one antagonistic group, the other group can remain relaxed while performing the movement. Also, since there’s no need to coordinate two groups simultaneously, the movements can be done extremely rapidly.

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#47

Thanks Tom. I was thinking of tagging you in but thought better of it. Mainly because I was thinking about tagging you in a brand new thread that I may or may not create haha I don’t want to overuse your expertise. Thanks for the comment on the different muscle groups, very helpful

#48

The only way I can even remotely pick with that trailing edge grip wile trying for a downstroke that will bury into the body is following that path a bit. But again I may not be following what you guys mean.

You’re right. I was more talking about the practical application of somebody trying to do this, which for me is likely a blend.

I likely am as well, or just misunderstanding the whole clock concept. For me if I’m taking things too literally, when I pick normally, my hand looks like it is doing an 11-7 or a 1-5 depending on which way you are looking at it. The only way I can even do an 10-4 movement across the strings is if I’m using some form of finger movement that goes diagonally like that. Possibly just my misunderstanding of the reference.

I think you are just going to have to make a video to demonstrate this.

#49

For clarity on the “clock face” model of wrist motion:

NB the clock is totally relative to arm position. That’s the power of this. If you rotate your arm, the clock rotates with it. So if you move your hand in the thumb-side direction, this wrist motion is always “9:00”, even if your arm is pointed straight up in the air.

We sometimes refer to dart / reverse dart as “8 to 2” or “10 to 4” just to draw the line with two points, i.e. a diameter, across the circle. But as a shorthand we will often just say “2:00” or “10:00”.

FYI on the Calculus AP test, I drew polar bears on the polar graph. This is my way of making amends!

#50

Re: Shawn Lane specifically, Shawn’s arm position is roughly similar to this diagram, i.e. flat-ish on the guitar, similar to resting flat on the table top. You can see that making the 10:00 motion using this arm position would be USX, just as it appears in the GIF.

However, the pick attack would be garage-spikey without a trailing edge grip. So if you just do what I’m doing in the GIF with a Benson / Jorge Strunz / Lane-style grip, you’re basically doing the motion. Now just fiddle with it on an actual guitar, treating the strings like the tabletop as a hint.

Finally, I will say that for both dart and reverse dart, the more vertical motions like 1:00 and 11:00 feel faster to me. These are almost vertical, like knocking on a door, but not quite. Every time I try to do the slightly flatter “sideways” variants, I tend to gravitate back up to the more vertical versions once I get moving. This means I need to tilt the arm position a little more (i.e. either pronate it or supinate it) to have a usable pick attack, so I don’t feel like I’m just tapping straight down at the guitar body.

Tom can perhaps weigh in on whether this is idiosyncratic or if there is perhaps some rationale for the more vertical movements being even less restricted.

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#51

I have a feeling that the paths defined by both antagonistic groups are not perpendicular to each other, with both pathways being more vertical. So more upper case X than multiplication symbol ×.

My experience is similar, more verticality in the movements appear at speed.

Edit: Also, dart-thrower is super duper garage spikey to me without the reverse grip.

@joebegly, don’t hesitate to ask for my thoughts on anything!

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#52

What do you think of Bill’s motion? The arm position suggests this is dart thrower but I always like a second opinion.

Bill has a slight DWPS orientation plus a light attack with flop, which would explain why it’s not spikey. If you allow the thumb to roll around the side of the index finger you can get the pickslant even with a pronated arm position so long as the pronation is small.

Molly Tuttle looks like this occasionally. This is an exaggerated example from in between phrases but just to make it clearer what I mean by this:

#53

This explains why, if you’re going to quote someone’s mistake, to take a screenshot rather than rely on their post as a source.

#54

I wouldn’t reverse any darts in a pub environment unless your friends are standing to your left!

#55

Wait a minute I am really confused. I though 8 - 2 was reverse dart and 10 - 4 was dart thrower???

#56

Oh jesus I flubbed the directions. Ha. New version coming up. Edit: fixed!

#57

thank fuck for that, I thought I’d completely lost my marbles

I was sitting here trying to mime throwing a dart with both motions and getting extremely confused

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#58

I was trying to quote the clock picture but I think that proves what I said above? How can one player be just reverse dart thrower?

#59

McLaughlin or Andy James are as close as we’ve seen to “only reverse dart”. If you use their arm position, reverse dart will be downstroke escape, and then you just play lines which are only downstroke escape.

If you mean, how can a person do both upstroke and downstrokes escape with only reverse dart thrower, then no, you can’t. Not without introducing another motion to help you get the other escape, like another wrist motion, or forearm, fingers, etc.

#60

Sorry just seeing this now. Yes, you can check out the “identifying your motions” section of the Primer. The whole wrist thing is a useful watch, but if you just want “reverse dart wrist”, you can check out the Di Meola video: