That’s what I was getting at. When ppl reference one or the other my brain is thinking it’s the only one. My brain is wayyyyy too literal for all these terminologies haha
Aha, sorry again, I think I understand what you were asking above. You’re thinking, well if dart goes in one direction, then reverse dart must be the same exact same motion, just coming back to the starting point. Like if we said “forward box” to mean punching toward the opponent, and “reverse punch to mean” is coming back to your guard. Tell me if that’s correct.
But that’s not actually what I meant by these terms. Instead, dart thrower goes forward and backward along one path. That would be like saying “boxing jab”. It includes both directions, the jab toward the opponent and then pulling back. Reverse dart actually follows a different path entirely, but goes forward and backward along that path. That would be like “uppercut”. Goes from down low to up high, then comes back along that path.
In the case of the dart motions, they make an X in the air. A reverse dart thrower player would move back and forth along only one line in the X. The dart thrower would move back and forth along the other line.
Let me know if that’s what you were asking.
Ah okay, that clarifies. Judging by that, I guess I had the movement correct - moving from 10 - 4 not 8 - 2, though still felt rather awkward for me at least.
That’s funny because I was about to say the exact same thing about the trailing edge grip. For the life of me I found it spikey no matter how I tried to move.
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I’ve had the same experience. I’ve been tooling around with it more because of the allure of a really stable form to play Shawn Lane licks, but so far no success. Garage spikes pointing everywhere!
To avoid spikes, the pick must be perpendicular to the direction it is moving. This is what pickslanting achieves — link upthread somewhere.
So for trailing edge, you have rotate the pick in your fingers until it is 90 degrees to whatever diagonal path it is following. Then it will be smooth.
Well the smoothest I got it was holding it with three fingers and quite a bit of edge picking. Pretty much the exact mirror of how I normally hold it, still felt wierd though.
At first before I gave it steep edge picking I had the garage spikes in both directions.
Yeah that makes more sense now thanks
I have hitchhiker’s thumb on my picking hand and still seem to need to use three-finger grip, then I can get enough edge picking – but it’s still sticky. I’ll try to work it into my “practice routine,” but switching pick grips is kind of tricky to do quickly for me!
That’s correct! This is how it works, and what Shawn did. The high degree of edge picking, I mean. I don’t know if he used three fingers. I often do though.
I think it’s dart-thrower, I’ve watched the clip you posted many times now and it seems to be what’s happening.
I think that makes sense, that would help.
Trying it now, I think the standard size pick might help to facilitate this too. I use the EJ Jazz IIIs almost exclusively and dart-thrower from a standard grip feels difficult, even when I try to make these compensations. With standard pick, the adjustments seem easier to make and the movement feels better.
He didn’t. Thumb and index finger only.
Awesome. Next question, what about Guthrie when doing pentas on downstrokes?
No, I’m not so convinced here. Slowing down the video, the downstrokes seem to be escaping with some extension.
Sorry, to be clear, I was referring to the USX version of the line, i.e. where he does DU on every string. I tried to cue it up to that point. He definitely plays pentatonics both ways, but the DU version definitely needs the upstroke to escape somehow. Unless I’m misunderstanding you. I’ll take another look as well.
Edit: The point I cued actually looks like DBX to me in slow motion. So by downstroke extension you mean you think he’s doing 902 there? This is a tricky one. Hockey stick and arm position definitely look like a dart player, not a reverse dart player. Whatever it is, it doesn’t look like stringhopping so it’s gotta be one or the other.
Edit edit: Here’s one bit evidence. Check out what happens at 2:11 when he’s done playing that short hybrid stab note. He lays the arm down flat against the guitar and now the arm position looks different — it appears to supinate more like a Wood / DiMeola arm position. This implies that it wasn’t supinated previously when he was playing, i.e. that it was pronated, and that the motions were dart.
Yep, right after he says “the next one up” and before “the Albert King shape.”
Pentatonic line starting on a downstroke, it looks to be DBX to me. Downstrokes seem to have extension on the escapes, so I think it’s 902.
You might be right, I can’t quite tell. Definitely not as clear cut as Bill for me.
Here’s another piece of evidence. When we film DSX players like Andy, the primary motion looks like single escape. When we force him to go against the primary, by playing a pentatonic line starting on a downstroke, interesting things happen.
In fact, the first thing he does is fight the suggestion and keep starting on an upstroke to favor the primary. He tried this three or four times in our interview, always doing upstroke instead of downstroke. So finally I said, ok, do it by speeding up. This way he could be sure by feel that it was definitely the downstroke version. This clip is the result, and you can watch it in slow motion:
He doesn’t switch to USX like you’d expect, because Andy doesn’t know USX. He uses DBX until it gets too fast. Then he switches to DSX with forearm. Then he stops. Then he starts over again on an upstroke.
This is consistent with all of Andy’s fast playing, which for mixed escape is not actually a mix of DSX and USX, it’s a mix of DSX and DBX. Again, because Andy doesn’t actually know how to do continuous USX motion. Andy, if you are reading this, and I doubt you ever will, you know I love you and that this is just a technical nerd discussion.
Ergo, I think players that do mixed escape have a tendency to mix together a simple primary joint motion like “reverse dart”, in Andy’s case, along with a more complex DBX motion for cases which do not fit the primary. One reason I think they do this is that it requires no change in pickslant or arm position. Reverse dart DSX can be done essentially zero pickslant and so can DBX. Continuous USX requires some small shift in form, hence making it less likely to be learned.
So… taking all this evidence, it would be consistent for Guthrie to have essentially one form that he likes to use and which guides the motions he chooses: a pronated form. Any motions that he can do from that form, with no change in arm position or pickslant/grip, he may be more likely to do.
Hence the suggestion that what we’re seeing here is 10-0-3 for DBX and just 3:00 for DSX, given his pronated form. Accordingly, I think if we filmed him we would see a Bill Hall-style air gap on the pinky side of the hand whenever he’s playing fast. Unless there is muting. That I’d have to think about.
All speculative, but at least evidence-based wild speculation!
It’s a very compelling argument and it’s reminds me of trends I’ve observed in my own playing.
I’m not sure, but I’ll look into some more footage and have a think about it. I’m just not totally sure from that clip alone.
Excellent. Keep me posted!
Are there any good examples of “reverse Andy” players? I.e., continuous USX + DBX, with the ability to alternate pick 1NPS lines with the latter? I can’t think of any off the top of my head (not currently a MIM member though, so there may be some obvious ones I can’t think of).
Albert Lee! Textbook example of this. Need to fix IG embeds but here’s a look:
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