'Prime the pump' on the picking hand (struggle to start fast phrases)

Playing Technique
#1

Watched the Joe Stump interview today - awesome guy. One of the interesting parts was where he talks about shaking/wiggling/tensing his fretting hand before a fast phrase, to help blitz through it. @Troy described it well as ‘priming the pump’. This has led me to ask whether anyone uses a similar thing for the picking hand? I struggle sometimes with the first few notes of a fast phrase (say 3nps across a few strings). However, if I’m already playing at speed (or if I tremolo before the lick) I can get through the lick no problem.

Is it that I’m not actually going straight into a good picking motion when doing a ‘cold start’ as opposed to a ‘rolling’ one?

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#2

This may be a bit of evidence that there is some signal that gets a particular memorized motion going which may be easier to send if other motions are already happening. And for sure, the more skilled you are a doing a movement, the better able you are to start and stop it on a dime, without playing something fast right before it, and without loss of accuracy once it begins.

Honestly I think in Joe’s case the reason some of this may bubble up to the surface visibly is that he has a fair amount of nervous energy. As others have (hopefully lovingly) pointed out, he plays and talks a mile a minute and sometimes phrases get derailed. I sympathize. My inner monologue is always also ready to burst forth, and I struggle to contain all the words and fidgety movements. In short, I have zero chill. In interviews it’s me constantly telling myself, don’t interrupt, don’t interrupt…

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#3

Sometimes I wonder whether I am anticipating the lick too much, feeding my brain with negative or distracting thoughts/feelings instead of just playing the damn thing. It could be causing a minute physical tension or hesitation… I think I need some zen guitar practice… there is no spoon…

#4

There is actually a study where they showed that the mental state of the test animal (a chimp or monkey) before performing a task predicted whether they’d do it correctly. They had them hooked up to a measuring device, EEG machine, something like that. And they had to tap on a screen to get a treat. The researchers could predict just by the split-second pre-task output whether the movement would be accurate or not.

In short, yes, probably an effect of some kind there. How you control that, I don’t know.

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#5

Hmmm, I feel like I suffer from this too… you know, it’s like “time for a fast bit” but it takes a second for the brain to process and relay that information or something. Maybe it’s something that has to be practiced?

lol Troy and team’s insights really, really have me rethinking this whole thing…