Seasons Greetings from Winnipeg

Introduce Yourself
#1

Hey folks, happy to be on a new forum. It has been about 7 years since I have joined a forum. I found forums ate my time and energy, which took away from music. On the contrary, this forum, i believe will motivate me to focus getting over bad habits and zero-in on efficiency of different techniques. When I had the opportunity to meet Joe Satriani in asia, I asked him about picking techniques. I never he is known as a legato expert, but I knew his picking was great, too, in spite of not really show-casing his picking most of the time. He told me to just study everyone and all types of picking styles. I thought: Geez thanks for the blank-advice… haha But I really took his advice to heart about 1 year afterwards. I have made great insights, but I still have a few problem areas. I have noticed MOST naturals, like Angelo Batio, YJM, Gilbert, Vai, SRV, Hendrix etc are all tall over 6ft. I am 5 6"… I noticed that the sheer size of the hands of these guys necessitate how they held the pick, and possibly that angle. However, the most important revelation was how the sheer size of their hands, covering all all 6 strings and plenty of overlap, meant for greater efficiency, esp string skipping/ cross picking. Molly Tuttle who figured out and of course, @Troy how to do this, both smaller than the towering YJM etc, they is still much mechanical motion necessitated compared to YJM or Gilbert. (6 3", 6 4")… So that perceived advantage was correct. That said, I have the hands I have, but nobody will deter me! hehe If Molly can do it, I can. Troy’s system seems amazing, and I am looking forward to learning all I can. I feel excited to join a community of like-minded musical monsters. Also please follow me on twitter and instagram - which is just my name…easy to find. Send me a quick note that your from Grady Forum and I will certainly followback!

Rock hard & Stay Strong!

2 Likes
#2

Hi Cary! Thanks for stopping by. I wouldn’t worry too much about hand size, honestly. Molly is in fact pretty tall, and has long fingers, so she might be able to do some things with chord shapes that require a bit of stretch. But plenty of players we’ve interviewed, like Jimmy Bruno, are of a smaller stature and make out just fine. And of course, once you get up past the 8th fret or so, the stretches are all manageable anyway. It’s really not something I ever think about.

2 Likes
#3

Thanks Troy, glad to be here ! Yes, big hands and crazy chord stretches and or thumb use for bass note in a chord ala Hendrix. What I meant to say, is the taller guitarists also hand advantage in sheer size of their hand and wrist across the bridge area while picking. Not a lot of movement is needed for them, they say if they were born 6 inches shorter. Take, my buddy Valentino Francavilla, plays Technical Difficulties like Gilbert, his wrist movements are overt and constant to make the string skips while blazing.

#4

I find hand size is mainly a factor on a handful of “wide stretch” licks from the likes of Eddie Van Halen and George Lynch. And even then, it’s not that the reaches are “impossible” without giant hands, but that it’s can compromise left hand technique to make it more challenging to be fast, fluid, and consistent while incorporating the big stretch.

1 Like
#5

Are you familiar with the work of Andrew Wasson? He’s an “internet famous” guitar teacher based in Winnipeg (https://www.youtube.com/creativeguitarstudio).

And speaking as someone who visited Winnipeg in early February a few times over the years: Brrrr.

1 Like
#6

Another Canuck! I haven’t been to Winnipeg in years. Last couple times was on tour. Played The Zoo and crashed on the floor of War On Music’s store. Fun times!

1 Like
#7

This was quite informational for me - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKsghDh4x-Q
Exactly around 3:10 @Troy lowering the hand ( hard to see pick angle) ala YJM hand position. Immediately, I could you were struggling a little more as I would ( I am guessing your probably around 5 7" to 5 8" ) because cross picking and string crossing with the hand resting a shallow angle is harder… I submit because our hands do cover the strings generously as say YJM using this same hand position. Soon as you hand dominantly covers the strings in a sharper angle, your technique is maximized and it is effortless.

#8

I have see a video of his before, he knows his theory quite well, plays jazz pretty well, too! I never knew he was from the PEG though! cool

#9

Yeah, hand size shouldn’t matter @CARYCHILTON A little girl is doing it. lmao.

#10

ha yeah I saw her long ago. She is the exception, and not going to experience any fatigue or old RSI problems from playing 25 yrs… :wink: My point, and it still stands, is that almost every guitar virtuoso happen to tall men… 6ft, 6 2", 6 4’ ! This little girl has got speed with her electric, probably set super low action, and playing through a high gain solid state amp or a modeler - which is the easiest rig someone could hope for. Ever watch SRV and Satriani jam on rare performance? hehe Anyway, if tiny hands were absolutely no impact on how efficient the pick can move about the strings, then most shredders of the planet earth would be tiny children with that young fresh nervous system and boundless engery no?:joy:

1 Like
#11

The biggest thing that helped me with the Holdsworth style wide chord spreads (check Rick Beato’s video on these if you haven’t) was to stop thinking about it as “stretching” and start thinking about it as “reaching” - it’s about moving your hand and arm to a position that allows for the finger spread, NOT increasing the distance your fingers can “stretch” apart from each other.

#12

Me a virtuoso? Maybe. But I’m 6ft tall with big hands and big feet. So we know what that means at least. lmfao :rofl:
:blonde_woman::bear::girl:

susanlisa
susanlisa960×720 71.6 KB

1 Like
#13

I’m 5’ 3". I own every scale length from 22.5" to 25.5", and I stretch about a fourth on all of them. That’s for the most part as far as it ever occurs to me to go. I don’t even really think about it until I pick up a bass. Now those are some impossible string gauges and fret stretches.

As @Frylock points out, if you want to do these single-string mega stretches like EVH and Shawn Lane, sure, I get it. But if you’ve played 25.5" guitars your whole life, switching to a Les Paul already feels like baby frets. I was really surprised the first time I picked one up, that this is the guitar that giant lumberjack Zakk Wylde plays!

1 Like
#14

Wow, you look taller than me - on camera! hehe well, I am even more impressed that you INDEED CRACKED THE CODE with SCIENCE and due dilligence!!!

The only stretching I was referring to was actually not stretch of the hand at all. I was saying the SIZE of big guy’s PICKING hand& wrist doesn’t move about NEARLY as much as you, or I or anyone around our height. Don’t get me wrong, I see you, myself that little Japanese girl… we pick fast! Sure. I just meant no wonder the science of picking, the pivot and UWPS, DWPS, came more natural to big guitarists like Malmsteen, Vai, etc… Like a student I had last year. He is 6 2, skinny but muscled. Works in construction. His pinky finger is as fat as my thumb! The diameter of his picking hand, can nearly cross all 6 strings at the bridge twice over. He common issue was thinking he needed to reach DOWNWARD to strike the high E while resting his palm mostly on the low E. He did this, because watching me, I had to do this: physically drop my hand a little bit… If he did this, he had gone way past all the strings.

Point of fact, he wasn’t a fast player, he never nervous or muscle fibers for it I guess. But I theorized if he had fast twitch fibers and or fast nerve response, he would progressed in fast alternative at a rate faster I had to. It is just a theory. Small people can obviously shred, too! When I see my hand, or @Troy 's hand, at times, there a lot motion going on in our picking hand … YJM or gilbert etc, even they BLAZE, the picking is barely visibly shaking. I attribute that to possibly having a larger hand?

#15

LMAO !!! Not always true!!! There was small person, who was ‘cocky’ around the girls, and he usually went home with a decent looking gal, at this club I used to go to when I was …clubbin’ age. I used to rip jokes about him, until one time his friend overhead, and said: yeah he is really short, but heavy 160 pounds, and not that good looking, but he makes money and he already has a reputation that none of us got on him… I said, what’s that? He said, nickname in high school was tripod, for a reason. HAHAHAHA

#16

I think you’re noticing the difference between different picking movements, and potentially the pickstroke itself, but not hand size. Yngwie uses a lot of finger movement and players that do this can almost appear to not move at all sometimes. Players who focus on small pickstrokes, can also appear to not move much. My stuff often has a forearm component and can appear aggressive, even when it’s not.

String tracking is the movement across the strings, and if you do that with wrist, it can appear obvious. If you do that by sliding the arm and making small wrist adjustments, you almost won’t notice it at all.

Ultimately I wouldn’t worry about how aggressive the movements look. It’s about how fluid they feel when you do them, and whether or not you can control them.

2 Likes