I still wonder if this is ultimately the motion Stochelo Rosenberg uses during the double downs (especially the musically descending minor arpeggio 4 string change, 4 downs in a row ones where it is far more taxing), more of a swipe, feathery brush flick motion as opposed to a turning elevated rotation motion. Just because he does it at such a high rate of speed it just seemed more plausible the swipe motion since it seems to have a more economical and ergonomic pathway. But with that guy who knows its probably turning motion as he is just this force of nature that never stopped. Similar to a Rusty Cooley type, just won’t stop until you reach the maximum.
That’s awesome! It sounds like sextuplets at 160-170 which is sixteenths in the 250-260 range. It’s gotta be a trip trying to play that kind of stuff in a song format. The little breaks in between the tremolo picking are probably key. With a bar or so of slow riffing interspersed, that really helps to keep this going.
When we interviewed Brendon Small, he said Gene Hoglan, his drummer, used to ask him “Just give me one or two beats, or a bar, of break” here and there. Meaning, write the song with these little release valves in there. If you do that, I’ll be good and I do the whole thing.
The attack does sound “trailing edgey” and a lot like the riff examples in the lesson. It would be interesting to see what the technique looks like. Definitely put up some clips if you find anyting!
Edit: This is the only live performance clip of that song I could find. I’m not sure it’s the same technique.
Just looking up some Nile clips. I’m not sure who played on what, the lineup seems to have changed a bunch.
Dallas Toler-Wade, who I gather is not in the band any more, is a very obvious reverse dart player in these two clips, one of which is with Nile:
However here’s another Nile clip where he’s doing a super-obvious version of John Taylors technique, which I currently think is likely to be “dart” not “reverse dart”:
Brian Kingsland who I think is the current lead player / singer looks like “dart” (non-reverse) as well:
This guy on bass, not immediately clear who he is, is actually trailing edge reverse dart. That’s pretty cool — haven’t seen trailing edge bass before but admittedly haven’t looked at lots of bass players:
I’m not immediately seeing any real obvious clips of Karl Sanders’ technique but his overall form makes me think his tremolo is going to be elbow. Maybe you can dig up some better footage. There seems to be lots of it.
And somewhere, @Pepepicks66 is crying his eyes out. He does some awesome trailing edge bass shredding.
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Not the same track , but when Karl plays here, you can see it’s elbow driven. Or at least that’s part of it.
is the down stroke an arc or straight line? meaning is there any pronation or supination motion during the escape stroke. or perhaps when you are doing this tapping motion the string is in the way so your pick gets offset for a moment during the follow through, and resets as it gets to the tap with the wind up of your pick hitting the string during the escape stroke making the motion more straight line.
Are you asking about downpicking / uppicking? I don’t think there is any forearm rotation involved in those with this technique. If it’s there, it’s so slight that I don’t think it’s relevant to learning how to do it. It just feels like rapid tapping.
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When I see it from the video you have it looks like as you say tapping. Because the fleshy part of the thumb doesn’t really pronate or supinate, well at least to the eye anyways. So if there is any it is very little, and likely only due to the string forcing it to. If it does, then the opposing down stroke will reset that motion back to the path of straight trajectory.
Right exactly. Whatever is actually happening, the pick avoids the string when it needs to. Based on the fact that the pick doesn’t appear to rotate, I think it’s wrist. But it doesn’t really matter because we can’t really control things at that kind of level. We just try to go fast and see what it feels like.
Do you see some players are able to twitch turn (supination and pronation) more naturally as opposed to twitch tapping (flexion and extension). I feel like it probably depends to the genetic makeup of the person to how their body will find a more natural way to that rapid twitch sensation. One thing is clear though from what I feel in my own playing is that 3 finger grip is magical. I always brushed it aside. Might be better for beginners that are struggling with grip as it has a better feeling of stability as well as coordination.
Yeah, rest stroking itself wasn’t the problem, it was that I was brute forcing it and really slamming into the string aggressively rather than gently rest stroking. Since I wrote this comment the problem has actually resolved itself. I can play a fairly relaxed and consistent tremolo at about 220bpm now, but 240 is still a bit sticky as the aggressive slamming comes back into play.
You might not really care to know, but i don’t perceive the rest stroke in gypsy jazz to be gentle. In fact there was this section in the song Badinerie I just learned, the Mozes Rosenberg cover, and it has this rapid 4 note part that I literally have to clack the wood(this is what happens during rest strokes on the high e string) just so my wrist can consistently get ready to rapid fire 3 picked notes. It definitely isn’t gentle, and I would love to lessen that, but once I do I lose the consistency as well as the confidence of the motion required for that phrase. It is very difficult to portray why the rest stroke works, but it is a very great tool in burning in subconscious picking articulation motion when playing.
Ok, I’m a really big stupid…
When I received this update last week, I completely skipped watching the YouTube video because I thought it was just gonna be an abbreviated version of some great updates you’d just made on the Primer, which I get to watch in full as a subscriber.
So I immediately jumped right in to rewatching the “Picking Motion Tutorials” again. (yes, I said rewatching again). And every time I watch it I get more and more out of it and it’s always entertaining and enjoyable etc., and I did notice a few small changes here and there, but nothing I thought was completely life-changing. Just figured I was already caught up on the latest data.
Fast forward to today, when I JUST NOW realize that you made a killer YouTube video with all new amazing content and it’s the best ever. DUH! I can’t believe I almost missed this.
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I put a comment in the youtube video saying something similar. All Troy’s stuff is awesome but this one’s just really cool. Probably his scariest playing ever. Synced playing at 250 bpm??? C’mon…that’s north of some of Rusty Cooley’s playing (I think).
The one thing that I really find inspiring, I know I can have my doubts about any of this picking stuff, but when I see Troy on that last speed really giving it his all, that is what these players who frequent this schooling community need to focus on. That do whatever it takes to just do it attitude. He is struggling hard, and overcomes all odds at such an insane tempo. That inspires me to keep playing.
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I find it really impressive in that I wouldn’t have considered Troy to be a METAL!! guy in the sense that to play tempos like this take a ton of dedication, so you kind of have to be a METAL!! guy to get there. I know that’s part of the job, but you don’t often know if you’ll even get there when you start. Lead playing at top speed tempos is easier to me than rhythm. For… reasons… I don’t know. So to do what he does here is freaking nasty!!
Another impressive aspect of this is you can really see the strength of the low E and A strings. Going at it like that, I’m surprised that sucker didn’t fly off and nail him in the eye, lol
Big fan of Karl and Dallas here. I think these are probably the best footage of their techniques https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_Y-4uMqPOQc&pp=ygUSbmFyY290aWMgd2FzdGVsYW5k
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1F681AWzA-w&pp=ygUMS2FybCBzYW5kZXJz
Is there a gradual switch from a spastic twitch motion to a more tensed twitch motion that occurs at some point during the tempo changing. I ask because of the way your palmaris longus tendon with muscle begin to flex upward. Do you feel that at the lowest tempo with the 3 finger grip that it is more of a spastic twitch that would have far greater endurance to last longer? And do you feel any benefit in the highest tempo having any benefit in strengthening that more spastic twitch sensation that has little to no tension compared to your max tempo motion?
Is Dallas using forearm/wrist blend here? It really looks like that sort of setup. I don’t see a huge amount of forearm wiggle, but I wouldn’t expect to at that speed anyway.
No forearm, it’s wrist. Like Chuck Schuldiner, Hobbs et al.
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