Great player! I can see that the technique is correct, including what I assume is the intended number of pickstrokes per beat and so on – it’s another obvious reverse dart example. But to your point, with all the crunch I can’t actually hear it.
Edit: for reference I’m referring to this clip, since I relocated these posts from the HM2 discussion:
I’ve slowed down some of Dismembers riffs and they do pretty much stick to even 16th notes, but there’s an odd beat every so often that’s an 8th note triplet. Here’s a good example of what I mean (the guitar is super exposed in the intro)
Also this is maybe off topic and meant for another thread but with all the other joints jiggling around, what is determining a pure RDT motion here? I see motion at the elbow and a little bit at the forearm in some spots as well. I’m assuming it all falls under a USX motion, but. I’m just wondering what makes it pure RDT or if there’s some other blended motion creeping in here and there to help out.
I relocated to a new thread about technique.
Sorry I didn’t mean to suggest that the player’s wrist is the only thing that is moving. I just mean that it is obviously moving, in a large way, on every note. That makes this look like wrist technique to me. I’m summarizing. If you wanted to learn to replicate what this player is doing, you could not do so if you can’t get the wrist move at this speed.
The form supports this. It’s not a coincidence that we see lots of extreme metal players using the “Nuno” form. The only thing that adequately explains this is that they are trying to activate reverse dart wrist motion. Otherwise, there would be no point. If all you needed was fast elbow motion, you wouldn’t need this form at all. You would just look like Karl Sanders with elbow motion. You would not look like Dallas Toler Wade:
That’s 250 sixteenths he’s doing. When the technique is done correctly and cleanly it’s interesting how non-obvious it is that he’s even going that fast.
Thanks, Troy! This clears a lot of confusion up for me. This is probably not a question that is easily answered, but is there a way for someone who does a wrist/forearm blend to transition into a purely wrist based motion? Right now my forearm/wrist blend looks very similar to yours in those tutorials in the primer, but every so often I look down and see the forearm “wiggle” disappear, specifically when I’m on the low E and A strings.
Its something that I’ve been curious about because I feel like my FW tops out between 210-230 for 2-3 bars before I lose the beat depending on the day and I’d love to be able to keep sustained 16ths going for these really stupid fast death metal riffs without me feeling like I need to just say screw it and go unmetered.
Not only is the motion similar, but so is the anchoring of the forearm. It is even clearer that guitars with this shape can provide more “ease” when doing this type of technique.
That’s true! Approach from behind, and flex the wrist to reach the strings. We discussed this.
Was this in response to my post or Joao667’s? This is basically what I’m doing, and I guess that explains why I was noticing the “wiggle” in the forearm go away when I was picking on the low E and A. Is it OK to use a more pure RDT motion on the lower strings and then switch to a Forearm/wrist blend going towards the higher strings? I wasn’t sure if it was inefficient to do this or not, although I do remember you mentioning in the FW tutorials that some takes look more “wrist” and some look more “forearm.”
Or am I just overthinking all of this?
210 to 230 is still very fast. I assume that’s USX? Are you sure it’s really forearm? Most people that tell me they do wrist-forearm, when I look at their technique, the forearm part is so minimal it’s barely there.
Either way I wouldn’t worry too much about what techniques you already know in terms of “transitioning”, per se. Anyone should be able to get some wrist motion happening with intructions and experimentation.
The RDT tutorial in the Primer shows a form with trailing edge grip and produces DSX motion. The tutorial is very detailed:
John Taylor uses a DT form, and Obsidian includes lots of nice closeups of it.
I’ve tried the Dallas form with the flex a few times. I was generally able to get it working, but didn’t spend any time on it. I wasn’t getting any muting, but as Joao points out, you really need a guitar where you can approach from behind the body, like an Explorer. I was just using the Mustang.
Sorry! I was responding to Joao, I didn’t use the reply button. And I didn’t see your response when I was writing mine, crossed in the mail.
You have an Explorer-style body? If so, that seems to be the ticket to getting muting to work while flexed. Otherwise you end up with a Gypsy type form, which can still to the wrist motion, but you might not be able to mute the strings at the same time.
There are a lot of variables, it’s a cool subject that has sort of remained undercover due to the niche nature of the genre. But there are definitely commonalities among all these players. Terrance Hobbs does the flex:
It looks all wrist for lead playing. But I can’t tell if he’s getting muting. Just from general appearance, this looks a little more like a DSX motion, similar to the Primer. But I’m just guessing, we’d need closer video.
Btw I ran into him recently when visiting Teemu at a Megadeth show and got his email. We’ll try to set something up, if he’s interested.
Ok that makes sense! I use Ibanez RGs, although when I stand while playing I can get my forearm to rest in a way that looks similar to Dallas in that video you posted. Yes I do lose muting when the speeds get pretty high, but I’m not trying to get a super staccato approach (that Dismember track is a good indicator of what I’m going for and it doesn’t look like Robert is keeping a heavy mute going).
I’m pretty sure the forearm is getting in there. I followed the FW motion tutorial pretty closely, and I also reference the Joe Stump and Brandon Ellis interview close ups (and @Chris_Brooks ’s Viking Suite tutorial), and from what I can tell I’m getting the same kinda motion I see them getting, except on the E and A, that’s when the forearm component looks like it goes away.
Since 210-230 is still fast, maybe I should work on the “improving endurance” and/or “improving speed” sections from the RDT tutorials?