So I’m running up against the brick wall of my picking speed it seems and whenever i try to push through, I’m just getting more and more tension build up in my right shoulder/tricep. I know Troy talks about how the idea of tension-free movements is a bit of a fallacy in picking technique, but I feel like I’m hitting a ceiling that I should be able to bust out of. I’ve included a video of the bark at the moon sixes pattern, which is the pattern I have the fastest for sure. My sixteenth note triplets are capping out around 100bpm or slightly above that, but the actual track is 140ish, and it does not feel attainable with my current technique given the amount of tension I’m running up against at these speeds. And even just picking a single note, I have about the same limit as this lick, so I think the issue is in my actual picking speed/technique, not a left hand thing or synchronization thing.
How do you guys think I should approach building up the speed past my current limits? And if you have any strategies for busting muscle tension, I’d love to hear them because this is something I’ve always struggled with. I spent so much time in my formative years trying to play rhythm guitar like hetfield or willie adler of LoG that I wonder if the tension habits I baked into my playing then are causing my problems now.
Can you also post a video that is more zoomed out — and shows your
whole upper-body posture (especially shoulders and neck).
I’ve taken roughly two years of private Alexander technique lessons and
may have some suggestions once I see the way you are holding yourself
when you play.
I doubt it. The motion you’re using here really doesn’t look anything like what those guys do. And tension complaints aside for a moment, it actually looks pretty good.
Specifically, you’re making a USX motion here. This motion only works for lines where string changes occur during an upstroke. That won’t work with this phrase, because the B string transition back to the E string happens on a downstroke. That’s why you’re getting hung on the B string and things go out of sync.
What you’re doing is actually pretty interesting. Your picking hand “knows” that this motion can only make upstroke string changes, so it actually plays an additional pickstroke on the B string. If you turn the sound off and watch only the picking, you’ll see this.
You also add one legato note at the beginning of the pattern to force the upstroke in the first repetition. Every subsequent repetion starts on an upstroke automatically because you’re sliding up from the previous position. So you can do those all picked, and you don’t need to add the legato note. Are you doing all this on purpose? It’s not wrong - it’s 100% correct.
Have you watched any of the stuff explaining the USX / DSX difference? I’m not saying this is the reason you’re having tension, but when your hands are confused about what they’re supposed to be doing, and there are extra notes that you’re not aware of, it’s not going to give you that smooth feeling of knowing exactly where everything is supposed to be at all moments.
You can totally mod this phrase to be USX-compatible. You can add an extra note on the B string and pick it intentionally, for example. Don’t worry about the meter, it’s just a picking exercise. You would keep the pulloff on the first rep. That’s correct.
Anyway this all looks good and the bits that are locked up sound good. A little more awareness of what’s supposed to be happening might help you relax a little more.
Thanks for the in depth response! And looking at the footage, I agree that it at least looks pretty tidy, and not like a rhythm guitar type of attack.
The way I’ve been thinking about the picking of this passage, is as a downward pickslanting/USX thing for sure. That first legato note is very intentional to set up the run so that for the whole lick every string change is on a downstroke (except like you said, when the position shifts happen those start on upstrokes, but they’re on the same string). I’m trying to play the lick completely picked aside from that one pull off at the beginning. The lick is six notes on each string, and by starting the phrase on an upstroke (or a downstoke + legato note) I think it works properly as a USX lick. Unless I’m wrong about what Jake actually is playing on the record (my ears aren’t very good at hearing high speed yet) and he’s doing fives?
I’m not quite sure what you mean that I’m playing an additional pickstroke on the B string, but that may be from “swiping” the B string on my way to the E string on the change.
It’s been a while since I’ve gone through the primer, and I think you’ve added new content since then, so I’m going to start going through the USX/DSX stuff again.
But to get back to the muscle tension, in terms of raising your raw picking speed even on a single note, what strategies would you employ to try to bust through the ceiling?
Thanks for taking a look! Honestly I spend the vast majority of my practice time playing standing up instead of sitting, because I feel like my body is just much better aligned when I’m standing and the guitar is in front of me instead of to my side, but this seated posture with the strandberg seems to work just as well. But here’s a short vid of me maxing out my single string speed, as well as the same lick with a lower gain tone, which reveals a bit more sloppiness. There are two telling things of the tension in my shoulder here I think:
the “false start” before I start playing the lick. This happens to me somewhat frequently when I’m pushing my technique and my tricep/shoulder tenses up in anticipation of a hard passage, which is obviously the opposite of what I want.
when I knock the pickup selectorat the end of the lick. So even though my movements look fairly tidy and controlled, this shows some amount of inconsistency or something that I’m changing in my playing at the end of the lick.
I can see right away that you are sitting in a position that is collapsing your
chest and neck quite a bit. This can greatly impact how your shoulders feel.
Do you play standing up too?
If you play sitting a lot, I would move forward on your chain until your tailbone
is seated right on the edge of the chair. You want to roll your pelvis / hip joints
clockwise towards the floor which will help with some of compression.
Let me know if this makes sense. I can take a few photos later if needed.
Thanks bud, I usually do practice standing, and I totally know what you mean regarding rolling the pelvis/hips. When I’m standing my head/neck is definitely standing straighter on top of my spinal column, but I know that I carry a lot of tension in my chest, deltoids and upper back, which keeps my RMT in business it’s an ongoing battle…
You’re only fretting five notes on the B string, but you’re picking six. In the new clip you’ve uploaded, you can hear the additional pickstroke. If you have a three-note-per-string fingering, and you go, for example, pinky, middle, index, middle, pinky, that’s five notes, not six. So this phrase won’t work with USX the way you’ve arranged it. But your picking hand has already figured this out!
Two things. First, I’m not sure that raw physical speed capability is really the issue here, per se. Can you try the table tap test? What’s the max metronome tempo where you can you tap two bars of eighth notes with your wrist? That’s roughly equivalent to alternate picking two bars of sixteenth notes at the same tempo. Reason being most people tap with a flexion-extension “door knocking” type wrist motion. If you were to use a similar flexion-extension motion for picking, your technique would look like EVH. Not totally identical to the table tapping motion, but close enough for a ballpark test. If the tap number is substantially higher than your picking speed, that tells me that speed isn’t really the issue, just something about what you’re doing with the motion.
It also tells me you might try a middle-finger grip and an EVH picking motion, because you might be able to do it right away. Seriously, no joke, if you get that result, try that motion!
I never worked on single-note tremolo. When it came to picking, all the early coordination building was even-numbered synchronized patterns. It’s hard to gauge the speed of a single note just being played repeatedly. But it’s really easy to hear the first note of a repeating phrase and focus on that. That becomes your tempo, and it’s easy to hear because that first note only comes around once every six notes, or four notes, etc. So it’s much “slower” than a tremolo, which is a just a blur - sonically and physically.
So I think no matter what else you do, a simple first step would be to iron out the numbers of notes per string so they really are even. You can mod the sixes phrase as we discussed by adding another note on the B string. But that’s still going to be an unusual grouping and I’m not sure where you’d visualize the landmarks.
An even simpler phrase you could try would be four frets on each string. You could do something like 4321 on the E, then 4321 on the B, then shift up one fret and go 1234 on the B then 1234 on the E. And so on. This way, your downstrokes are always the first note, and that first note falls squarely on a beat. Much more straightforward.
Doesn’t matter if you use a metronome. I never did. I actually find them distracting when I’m trying to focus on what something feels like. And you do want to feel that first note physically, and see if you can get that first note each group happening faster. That’s your tempo. Just ignore the other notes and try to go fast so that first note comes around sooner.
Any other even-numbered pattern can work for this, be it single string or multi string. And the modded sixes pattern too, although the landmarks may land in unusual places.
Ah I see what the confusion is here. On the B string, there is a repeated note, so the fingering of the pattern is always pinky-ring/middle-index-index-ring/middle-pinky. (the index finger note is hit twice every time). I’m pretty sure that’s what Jake is playing in the solo, unless he’s only doing five notes on the B string…
I’m also working up the Yngwie sixes pattern, but I haven’t got it nearly as fast, and maybe I’m finding it harder because unlike the Jake E. Lee sixes, there is no “rest note” where my left hand gets to chill out for a split second.
Doing the table tap test, I start to seize up in the same muscle groups at eighth notes around 190-200 bpm, so I think I am hitting the ceiling of what my current speed ceiling with this technique, no?
And I totally agree re: single note tremolo. It’s not a thing I work on, just a kind of check and see how fast I can make it go.
If you want to know how to play faster than 200bpm, well, you’re talking to guy who only does 210 on a good day and for a bar or so at most! So I’m out of tips for you. I’m perfectly happy with that though. Lots of music below those speeds. I just want to be smooth at all those tempos, and as long as you’re doing the motions correctly, the smoothness comes from coordination / memorization, not so much (for me) from increasing physical athletic capability.
Re: the repated note, I see what you’re saying. But I wouldn’t read too closely into the Jake thing. I love his playing, but when it comes to that line specifically, I can barely make out what’s being played there. So I don’t know how intentional or consistent any of that really was. I think of it more like an effect.
Practically speaking, from a chunking perspective, a repeated note is more challenging to hit with consistent synchronization than individually fretted notes. I would try something simpler like the chromatic pattern. With four notes, the fingers get reused less anyway so if you want an energy savings, that may also provide some.
You really want to hear and feel those hands lock up. For me, that was a coordination booster, which again, is a relaxtion booster, which is a speed booster, provided you’re doing the motions right.
100% agree with you about not focusing on the athleticism of music, that’s never been my goal, but watching your playing in the CtC videos, you absolutely burn up all of the patterns that are presented! 200 bpm would be awesome, but I’m definitely a ways away from being able to play sixteenths at 200 with any pattern. Even with a 1-2-3-4 chromatic pattern, the wheels start to come off the wagon a bit after 160bpm. That being said, I’m totally fine with 160bpm sixteenths being the upper limit of what I’m capable of, I just need to continue finessing my mechanics so I can actually play real musical lines at high tempos, not just chromatic exercises.
The value of chunking is definitely immeasurable, and know exactly what you mean by hearing and feeling the hands lock together. The day that clicks is a big day for every guitarist! Zakk’s pentatonic run in the No More Tears solo was the first chunking part I was ever able to mentally break down like that, and it made a big difference in terms of the speed I could play it (though I’m still not quite at 100% speed with it)
Anyways thanks for all the insight and great content Troy, it has definitely helped my picking game a tonne up until now in terms of sorting out my USX technique, and I’m sure it will continue to as I try to get my USX and 2-way pickslanting together with the antigravity seminar. (upward pickslanting still feels like signing my name with my left hand, but it’s still early…)
Variations of this phrase pop up all the time in Technique Critique posts: “everything falls apart”. What do you mean by wheels coming off the wagon? Can you film this so we can take a look? These clips here look and sound good, it’s just the hand sync that’s off. If you can put up a clip on a simpler pattern, where the sync is easier, that would be cool to check out.
Maybe I’m an optimist but when I watch these clips, most of the time I think they look and sound good as long as the fundmentals are on the right track. I don’t obsess over wrong notes or things that don’t quite feel smooth because I know I’ll figure it out eventually. To me that’s the progress zone. If I can’t get to the “it’s a little bit wrong” zone, then I don’t even know what to figure out!
Around 160 bpm is where my bigger muscle groups really start to tense up and the synchronization starts to get messy. Here’s a clip of the chromatic 1-2-3-4, which I think looks okay. Around the 11 second mark I try to push faster and that’s where I’m getting that muscle tension and it no longer feels smooth. But again, I’ve never been able to play any musical passages with string changes anywhere near that speed. So the priority is for sure ironing out my mechanics so I can actually use that speed, moreso than increasing it for the sole purpose of playing the last lick in the bark at the moon solo.
This looks great! But it cut to slow just when it was getting good!
Kidding aside the normal speed is most helpful for evaluating smoothness. Slow is good for things like seeing if the string changes are clean / escaping. So if you can play these examples twice and use slow for the second attempt that would be great.
Again, I must be getting old but this seems pretty fast to me. And it’s nicely synchronized. Is it escaping? If so, try using it for the two string version at that speed where it still feels smooth and non-tensiony. Do you get any noise at the string changes? If not, awesome.
If the string changes are working, I’d take this motion and just do vocabulary with it, like longer melodic lines that are all upstroke string changes. The first half of this is all USX, which I came up with intentionally, just to have something longer to play that’s pure alternate:
I would approach this casually by working on a wide variety of vocabulary more so than mechanics, and seeing if things don’t start to feel smoother and more relaxed in the 3- to 6-month time frame. You’re making a mental note to pursue smoothness but the method is to just notice when it’s happening and do more of it. Sometimes it can be phrase-specific, like it seems to be with this fours pattern, which seems more together than the Jake pattern. When you encounter that, maybe try and take that picking pattern that seems to be clicking and do more of it with different fretting.
it’s an ongoing battle…