Should a newb jump straignt into developing two way pickslanting?

Playing Technique
#1

About 6 weeks ago I was not a pickslanter whatsoever, so this has been a dramatic adjustment for me.

In hopes of developing myself as efficiently as possible, I decided to tackle two way pickslanting straightaway. I’ve made some progress, but it’s been a daunting task.

In your experience, do you think it’s better to tackle downward pickslanting, then upward pickslanting, then integrating both eventually?

Or should you just go for it and work through the two way pickslanting to proficiency?

  • Start with DWPS or UWPS
  • Just go for mastering TWPS

0 voters

Show results
2 Likes
#2

The actual concept of TWPS I was able to grasp within the first few minutes of seeing CTC on youtube. I could do it very slowly, but was not able to keep up when I got faster. The problem however, was not my pickslanting. I did not have a set picking mechanic that I wanted to use. I think the first thing to do is to seriously and critically look at your hand sync and motion mechanic. Unless you have both of those perfect on a single string, it isn’t even worth confusing your arms with slanting yet. I practiced the yngwie sixes lick everyday for a month until I was happy. After that everything else came pretty easily. From there it took about a 1 month and a half to get crosspicking.

2 Likes
#3

In general, one-way licks are so simple that I would imagine that everyone would do that first. This also helps you understand how the basic movements work. Specifically this is where pretty much everyone should start right now:

https://troygrady.com/channels/talking-the-code/introduction-to-picking-motion/

Just remember this is not the technique Olympics. There is no need to learn all these things unless you want learning to be your hobby, like martial arts. Which I have no problem with. But I’m just saying, that’s not what most players do. There is just a need to play music you like.

When it comes to the movements themselves, try them all and use whatever works best. And try not to be prejudicial about it, which can be a mental exercise unto itself. You might not want to “be” an elbow player, for example, or use a certain type of pick grip, but if it works best right out of the box, pursue it. Anything you can learn becomes the gateway drug to learning other things.

8 Likes
#4

I look at anything Troy teaches as a solution. So then the question becomes “What problem do I want a solution to?”. Like Troy said, if you want to learn just for learning’s sake, jump in. But a fix for a problem is the way I look at this stuff. Learning to upward pick slant exclusively is like learning to be left-handed: a nice little thing to have but I’m not gonna build my world around it.

6 Likes
#5

I’ve been thinking of that, and have not put much time in straight uwps, though I do want to master twps as I believe it will open up a lot of musical expression in my lead playing and facilitate speed.

I am partial to dwps descending 6’s, and that’s the clearest use of dwps in my playing right now. I suppose I will spend a lot of time on dwps and keep working on twps and see how it evolves.

1 Like
#6

Aspiring for mastery is a nobel cause, but it can be misleading and even become a neurosis. My own playing made huge leaps forward-in terms of technique, vocabulary, overall musicality-when I started asking myself the question, yes…but what if I want to play that part-lick, phrase, whatever-in a gig starting in a couple of hours? What’s the easiest, more natural way for me to do so? It really is liberating.
So, for me, stick with what you can do best-for now. Experience your evolution as a player, enjoy it and put aside all the little things that your brain say are important-there will be time to persuit those at a later date. Listen carefully what your own body tells you and don’t add the extra weight of what you wish you were able to do. In one of our lessons, David Fiuczynski told me “check your mind at the door” which is really the best piece of advice I got on this-or any other-subject.

2 Likes
#7

I agree it would be liberating to simply do what works easiest, the only issue with this is that means I cannot play descending 3nps scales! That would leave a huge gap in my ability to express myself musically.

Both economy and twps descending are coming along, but it just kind of seems really slow (I’ve only been practicing them for about 6 weeks). I almost feel like I should not give up and that in two to 3 more months I will actually have it if I persevere.

#8

You should definitely stick with what you do then, if you feel it’s working-I would never suggest otherwise. I have similar issues with ascending 3nps scales-descending I can do easily-and keep on working on them daily, and with promising results I’m happy to report. But, again the big question: what if I have to play a fast ascending scale run NOW? Remember, from the listener’s prespective-audience or fellow musicians-our little technical kinks are not important.What is important is:can you deliver? Here and now? If one is already out gigging-and especially if one makes a living that way-then one has to have ways to handle things like that, here and now.
So, while I keep practicing my ascending 3pns scales, I make sure I can play fast scales the way that works for me, which is using one way pick slanitng-preferably UP-using 4nps. :slight_smile:

1 Like
#9

Hasn’t hurt Eric Johnson or Yngwie or Marty Friedman or Nuno Bettencourt, or even John McLaughlin who probably could do it but almost never does. I think we need really need to ask ourselves, why do we need to play a particular thing? Are these things really that original, or just cliches that have become perfunctory?

6 Likes
#10

Nuno is a dwps? I always thought he could do two way and play anything…

#11

What does “play anything” really mean? I can play almost anything with all these techniques. I don’t know what Nuno does or doesn’t do other than the obvious supination of his forearm. But I do know you rarely hear him play a descending scale with all the notes picked, so I don’t think the ability to do that, whether or not he has it, is any kind of great handicap.

That’s all I’m saying - the ability to play certain rudiments with such and such picking technique really isn’t a handicap to any of the great players. They came up with awesome riffs using the techniques they had and with the limits of the instrument in mind. Hell, almost nobody really writes in a vacuum choosing notes from thin air. Transcribe any Bach violin sonata for guitar and it’s obvious from the fingerboard shapes and open string bariolage he was a violinist writing for violinists.

2 Likes
#12

That’s an interesting point, I had no idea. I just figure what goes up must come down.

#13

Long sections of uninterrupted scale playing just aren’t that common in guitar music. That was the whole subject of an animation we did in the Batio feature in a video store with instructional videos. I think there is this collective delusion that it is more common than it is, and that more people can do it than really can with “just practice”. Since neither is true, then the obvious question is, why does it matter?

The answer here if you’re a songwriter or improv type player is to try and be creative with whatever you have. Every technique is like a new pedal, an opportunity for cool stuff. But not having that pedal isn’t hurting you unless you lack for ideas in general.

1 Like
#14

Indeed. So many guitar players are distinctive enough that I can often name the player just by listening to a solo. I suspect that this uniqueness comes from their unique (and probably unconscious) mechanical solutions to picking problems. If this is true, then many of my favorite players might become less distinctive if they were to become familiar with the full complement of picking mechanics.

Generally speaking, creativity is correlated more with limitations than with freedom.

3 Likes
#15

Sure, it’s not common because it’s boring. That being said, if you can rip across an entire ascending scale, you can craft a portion of that scale into a larger, more expressive compilation of chunks that build into something far more interesting.

That’s really my goal for mastering scales ascending and descending. I can play expressive, slow to moderate speed riffs already. I’m just looking to add some flash and speed here and there.

#16

That’s a really interesting idea. You may be right.

I want speed and technical prowess, but I don’t want to be that guy that mechanically ascends and descends, totally void of musicality and feel. Those guys are out there and they make me feel a little dead inside as I listen.

Maybe the trademark style of the greats comes where the technical aspects fall short, and people just have to be who they are instead of a lifeless set of motions running at breakneck speed.

1 Like
#17

In what sense do you mean that? I certainly don’t think that the most creative writers are the ones with the most limited vocabularies and I don’t think the most creative musicians are the ones with the least technical ability with which to express themselves.

The most glaring example I can think of which proves that statement wrong is: The musicians with the least talent are not the most creative. I’m using the word talent in the sense of being born with the ability to become great at something. That doesn’t mean dedication and practice aren’t required; it means that with dedication and practice, their God given talent allows them to reach levels of greatness which the average person could never achieve no matter how hard they worked at it.

In sports, talent and genetic potential are often used synonymously. if two baseball players both realize their genetic potentials, the one with the greater genetic potential, or “talent” will be the better of the two. Nobody with an average of God given talent or an average amount of genetic potential will ever be able to hit a baseball as well as Ted Williams or Babe Ruth could. Ted Williams worked relentlessly to achieve his goal of becoming the best hitter that ever lived. In 1941 he batted .406 for the season and to this day, 77 years later, no baseball player has ever hit .400 or above for a season average. He studied the art of hitting a baseball. ted Williams wrote “The Science Of Hitting” which many players read and still read as if it were the bible of hitting. In that book he approached learning and explaining the art and the science of hitting in a similar way to how you, @Troy, have approached “cracking the code” of picking. Despite his incredible natural ability, Williams, unlike most “naturals” could tell you exactly how he did what he did. Babe Ruth, a hitter with probably greater talent or natural ability than Ted Williams probably couldn’t have told anyone how he hit a baseball the way he did. It was just a gift.

Ted Williams had tremendous gifts too, such as incredible eyesight. he could read the label on a record while it was playing. Despite his natural gifts or talents, he relentlessly pursued studying the science of hitting a baseball which he claimed was the single most difficult thing to do in sports, citing the fact that if a player gets 3 hits out of ten times at bat on average, he’s considered an excellent hitter. A basketball player who sinks only 3 out of 10 baskets attempted or a quarterback who completes only 3 out of every ten passes attempted would be fired.

My point in bringing up baseball in comparison is to bring up something where excellence can easily be defined by several obvious and objective criteria. Music can be judged by objective criteria as well, since anything which exists i reality can be judged by objective criteria, but only to a certain extent. There are many qualities of music which are subjective in nature, yet just like baseball, excellence (which includes the ability to be creative in songwriting and improvisation) is attainable only to those who along with dedication and practice, have great talent or natural ability. The most creative musicians are the ones with the least limitations imposed upon them by their level of natural ability or genetic potential. Having greater God given talent and having greater technical skill allow for greater ability to create; in fact their creativity is only limited by their level of their talent to come up with ideas and the technical facility with which to execute those ideas whether that means having the vocal range to hit the notes required by their creative ideas, or having the necessary level of picking technique to execute a rapid, complex passage of notes a guitarist is inspired to play in an improvised solo.

#18

@Troy, Howver, there is a caveat to the above post and that is: A very talented and creative guitarist, can often still thrive even if incredible physical limitations are imposed upon him by, for example, an accident. Tony Iommi lost the tips of two of his fingers in a machine shop accident and thought his career was over. His boss then told him the story of the great gypsy guitarist, Django Reinhardt who had become an great guitarist despite a terribly disfigured fretboard hand.

That inspired Iommi to come up with some extremely creative solutions, refusing to allow his career to be ended by the physical limitation which the accident had imposed upon him. he designed thimbles for the two maimed fingers, and came up with ideas to make it easier to play with his injury such as using lighter than average gauge strings and tuning down to reduce string tension. Tuning down was responsible in part for the very heavy Black Sabbath sound.

We have no way of knowing how good he and Black Sabbath in general would have become had he not suffered the disfiguring injury. It’s possible that he might not have come up with such unique sounds which became the hallmark of Black Sabbath’s music. it’s also possible that he would have come up with a different but equally creative sound had he not suffered the injury. The only thing regarding that we know for sure is that a guitarist with a creative mind and lots of dedication refused to keep physical limitations from putting an end to his drive to create something so great it that turned out to be the prototype for a whole new genre of rock 'n roll.

#19

@Acecrusher

I didn’t say lack of talent leads to excellence, which seems to be what you want to disagree with. I said limitations correlate with creativity. Instead of ‘limitations’, I probably should have said constraints.

I only meant that when a person is given a problem to solve with absolutely no constraints on how he or she solves it, that solution will often be less creative than when the same person is given the same problem with constraints that prevent them from using the obvious approach.

Baseball is not a reasonable parallel. There are no points for creativity in baseball.

2 Likes
#20

Totally! Any time we have to do some kind of soundtrack piece with weird timing or strange instrumentation, it leads to interesting results. Telling me I can write anything I want, any style, any instrument, any length - total paralysis.

3 Likes