Road to DWPS master ! (from scratch)

Hi everybody, (it’s my last topic for today don’t worry :slight_smile:)

I have discovered CTC few weeks ago, and I have understood that I have to forget my current picking motion :sweat_smile:

My picking motion:

So I’m trying to learn DWPS, and I would like to have your opinion about it, to verify if I’m not going on the wrong way.

At the moment it is very very very slow (as slow as my previous motion :joy:) (I’m not even on the road to DWPS master, just lost somewhere in the forest :rofl:) and I’m limited by my hands synchronization.

My DWPS:

I was looking for a video giving advice for a clean DWPS motion (talking about choices to do with anchoring, rotational forearm, wrist deviation, etc…), but I haven’t found anything. As there are a lot of videos, maybe I just haven’t seen it. Is there a video on this topic?

Thank you in advance for helping me in my very very long journey :slight_smile:

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the best first step is to get REALLY good at single string licks. Do yourself a favor, spend about a month getting really good at stuff like the Yngwie 6 note lick on one string

If you watch the Volcano seminar you see that Troy starts with the Yngwie 6 note lick


Also, maybe others can make comments, but I think your original picking motion is already dwps lol. The 2nd one you showed is just MORE dwps. I dont think your original motion looks too bad

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Honestly, your first picking motion looks better than the second. It appears to be a mild DWPS or possibly neutral.

The DWPS you are using in the second video is so extreme that it will cause hang ups IMO.

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Don’t be so sure that you need to abandon your current picking motion. There are many different ways to accomplish the “escaped upstrokes” that are the hallmark of what often gets referred to in these parts as “DWPS”.

I haven’t looked at all your posts, but if you haven’t already, be sure to check out the “getting started” material. In particular, learn about the different main types of picking motions, and find one that allows you to do fast and smooth picking of a single note (the example in your first video looked pretty smooth to me). By all means, try out a few different motions to see what feels best to you, but it’s entirely possible that you already have proficiency with a movement that can made to give you escaped upstrokes with a minor adjustment of pick grip, hand position, arm position, or even just awareness of where you want the pick to go.

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There are 2 reasons why I think that my first motion is bad:

  • I’m always trapped between the strings on upstrokes and down strokes so I have to do a string hopping each time I need to change string
  • I think that it is only deviation, there is no rotation at all, and I’m wondering if I can really go fast with only deviation

At the moment it was desired to have a motion with a very high range just to be familiar with the forearm rotation, is it a bad thing?

I have watched all the getting started and almost all the Malmsteen section :slight_smile: As there are a lot of information, maybe it would be nice to watch the videos again.
This is where I am stuck, I understand all the wrist and forearm motions, but I feel very slow an inefficient on all the motions :sweat_smile: that is why I was looking for some advice on how to build an efficient motion (and not only understand it) if you understand what I mean :slight_smile:

Thank you for your help and your answers, I already know that your help will be very useful !

Yngwies style has a lot of moving pieces. And he had a lot of finger movement before the car wreck in 1987. At times it looks like a lot of rotation but then sometimes it looks like small thumb movements etc.

Paul Gilbert seems to mostly use wrist.

Looks to me like your first example would escape on upstrokes. if not, it aint far from it. Maybe a slight adjustment rather than a complete overhaul

one thing I do see on your first example. I dont know if ive seen it before lol. in slow motion, it seems when you hit the string that the string actually diverts the pick. Which seems weird to me, almost like you are either picking too deep into the string and/or holding the pick too loose.

Maybe someone else can comment on it. Maybe you could try to pick a little more shallow? I dont think the string is supposed to divert the pick like that but I could be totally tripping

If you want I can do another video :slight_smile:

It is right that I hold the pick very lightly, if I try to hold it stronger, immediately there is a lot of tension in my forearm

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