Should I change my picking technique?

Technique Critique
#1

Hello, I used to post here a long time ago. My problem was in my picking hand, I couldn’t pick fast due to stringhopping issue which prevented me to play a simple tremolo faster than 110bpm 16ths for more than 10 years, I tried to slow down, learn the wrist motion which is seen as the most efficient type of picking motion, gradually increased the speed by practicing with a metronome but unfortunately it was a waste of time.

I took lessons from 3 guitar instructors (including Anton Oparin) and I couldn’t even least a simple tremolo picking despite practicing for over 2 years religiously, I used to play from the elbow before quite well but they insisted on learning the wrist motion because it’s easier and faster. They even said that my wrist motion was correct at slow tempos and they told me to stay at those tempos for longer in order to ingrain it in my muscle memory, but as soon as I reached 110bpm 16ths everything fell apart, for some reason my hand refused to adapt to wrist motion and reverted to stringhopping.

The only advice that helped me was the one that Troy Grady suggested (to whom I’m very grateful) - find a motion that works at fast tempos and the only one that works so far is the elbow motion with my fingers anchored.

Here’s my current progress.

Does it sound sloppy? Sorry for the poor lightning and bad angle, I hope that it’s possible to see anything. It’s one of my better attempts. I can rerecord with better lightning/angle if necessary.

It doesn’t feel comfortable or stable but it’s the only way I can do it, it propably even looks too tense and erratic and yes it’s very inconsistent to the point that it takes several attempts to play a single phrase, even playing a tremolo is quite tedious, I can only last 15 seconds max, unfortunately I forgot how I used to play from the elbow 12 years ago. I’m wondering if I should adapt to the current technique, practice more or does it look too broken and inefficient.

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#2

I think I’d say to work with what you’ve got in the videos. It sounds really good to my ears. There’s literally nothing wrong with elbow technique.

Instructors that tell you that you have to use one particular technique and that it’s better than all the rest are… suspect, in my opinion. I do not trust them.

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#3

Thank you for the reply, glad to hear it’s not as bad as I thought, I’ll try to work with it, at least I’m not practicing wrist picking at 80-100bpm/16ths for like 2-3 years like I did before. I wish I never took any of those lessons because not only it wasted my time (I’m especially dissapointed in Oparin’s guitar course because it turned out to be another run of the mill guitar instruction ala “start out slow, gradually build up the speed, only use your wrist, hold your pick this way, just move your pick straight” etc, I saw many other students stuck at playing tremolo at slow tempo for months due to unmet requirements in terms of hand position/motion) but I even forgot how I used to play from the elbow and back then it felt way easier because I wasn’t conscious about my actions and I didn’t feel anxiety about doing something wrong which still has a paralyzing effect on me.

I personally do think that not everyone has the ability to learn a certain motion even if they devote their whole life to it due to different body size, proportions, nervous system attributes etc. I’m simply not to built to learn the wrist motion ala Gilbert so I need to try something different.

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#4

I disagree with this! HOWEVER, I don’t think there’s any reason to force yourself to learn something that doesn’t feel right when you already have something that’s working. Now, how to build endurance (which is a matter of optimizing your technique, not building muscular endurance!) is something I don’t have a prescription for. Others may have better advice on this. But you sound quite good to me.

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#5

It looks and sounds great but what you say here worries me a little. It should feel easy and be consistent, I’ve never been able to get elbow going for the same reasons!

Have you gone through the picking tutorials in the primer? I’m not sure if they were around 8 years ago so it might be worth checking it out:

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#6

I think the tabletop tests are probably your best starting point. They’ll answer this question for you.

But I agree your elbow technique sounds great.

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#7

Yeah, tap tests to tutorials to sync to identifying escape to string changes

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#8

You might be right, I’ll try to work on what I currently have, thank you for your advice and support.

Thank you, it’s quite encouraging to read, I’ll try to do my best, although those years of not being able to pick a single string properly did a number on my psyche.

Not yet, but I’ll think about aquiring a membership, after all I have nothing to lose and no nowhere to hurry after all these wasted years. Troy Grady’s method seems to be the closest to the truth from what I see.

Thank you, I can wave my wrist sideways pretty fast, the problem is that it doesn’t work if I’m trying to do it when trying to hit a string with a pick, I can’t find any reliable anchor point with my forearm, even pressing the palm against the bridge doesn’t help, whenever I pick it either gets stuck or misses the string even when playing a tremolo.

Here’s a better shot of my picking.

It’s hard to explain how I feel but as you can see it’s a bit inconsistent because even with the elbow motion I struggle to find a reliable anchor point despite anchoring with my fingers (for some reason it feels worse if my forearm rests on the body), my hand is rather twitching than freely swinging, sometimes it feels so disorienting that I need to touch the string with a pick, make some single strokes to be sure that I’m in the right place, then I need to “catch the flow” which takes some time but it might fall apart at any moment and I might might miss the string or even pick the air.

It might sound ridiculous but right now I can’t even replicate what I did in the previous video. It feels like walking on a tightrope. I’ll try to mitigate with some practice hours to see if it things stabilize and if I can gain more stamina, I also think it’s due to my anxiety that was caused by aforemention factors.

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#9

as new player that looked and sounded pretty impressive to me. I wished I was there lol.

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#10

“Comparison is the theft of joy.”
-Someone smarter than me

As a long time lurker here and almost three weeks into my MiM membership, get the subscription and review Primer.

From there your talks will be Complete tap tests, bring to guitar, review tutorials, then go through Synchronicity seminar/chunking, next id escape motion, then develop picking strategies and review seminars that look like a good template for you with which to start developing your shred. Of course use the Technique Critique with CtC as needed/desired

I’m working on chunking and benchmarks in synchronicity now. Of course your mileage may very.

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#11

Thank you but trust me the amount of effort I need to apply is rather tremendous/inadequate and I lost too much time and there’s no guarantee that I’ll be able to maintain and improve what I’ve just learned. My right hand feels like a malfunctioning engine that is leaking oil and consuming too much fuel, it barely works. I barely even practice the guitar, I took a very long break after being discouraged by having no progress even when trying to learn the most basic and simple stuff. although my legato technique was pretty good.

Too bad there’s no way to transfer your tactile sensations to other people via cable or something, that would be especially useful for musical instructors because at least they will feel the physical condition of their students and provide suitable strategy individually or maybe it will even scare them away due to never experiencing such different feelings.

Thank you for your recommendation, I’ll see what I can do, I need to mentally prepare myself as a student which might sound weird but I need to wear off the previous negative experience.

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#12

You can always apply for the scholarship

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#13

I slowed your vids down to 25% on youtube and to my ears the playing is beautifully accurate. You are blazing Paul Gilbert licks WAYYYYYYYY better than I can with a far higher accuracy!

Is it that you don’t feel comfortable playing elbow and want to play more wrist style?

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#14

AustiK, I’ll try, I just need some time to prepare for it.

Thank you, actually I was imitating Batio, I like his style more he seems to prefer playing four note groupings with lots of various sequences, while Gilbert prefers sixes and has insane dynamic control, muting, huge picking range (like string skipping from 1st to 6th string) which is too much for me to handle.

My biggest concern is stamina (after 15 sec I start to miss the string even when doing tremolo as if my arm graduary slips away) and stability of my hand setup, the whole construction doesn’t feel stable.

I just did another recording with a decent angle.

And I just noticed that I raise my forearm when I try to pick faster which is one of the reasons why it’s slipping away, it doesn’t happen when I play a bit slower (like 140bpm 16ths) and I’m struggling with find a motion that helps to transition between medium and fast tempos (it’s hard to use the elbow at slower speeds). I’ll try to slow down a little bit without descending into stringhopping territory. As a chronic stringhopper I can definitely tell that the maximum stringhopping speed would be around 105-110bpm 16ths, at 130bpm it’s becoming impossible to play with stringhopping so I’ll also practice at this tempo (130-140bpm) while still trying to maintain my fastest speed.

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#15

Everybody’s different. Picking from the elbow is fine, and do you really have a choice, after trying wrist motion for years with poor results? You sound great.

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#16

Yes I totally agree, thank you, it’s not normal when such basic things require years to learn at such pace with no output. I also think it sounds acceptable, probably because I used to play legato and arpeggios a lot when I couldn’t even play a tremolo (if you wish you can look through my older posts and there should be a video of me playing legato and sweeping arpeggios). I make sure that the left hand alone is able to handle phrases which should strenghten it up and make syncing easier which’d be my personal advice to everyone who’s still stuggling with picking, at least you will have a good legato technique and something to play.

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