N=1 here, but I find thinking of there being a pair of “extra efficient” motions extremely helpful. Performing “dishwater flinger” is easier to consistently replicate for me than “do the 2 o’clock motion,” even if the motion is the same.
Ah yes, sorry I misunderstood. I remember seeing the hyper wrist picking on instagram and also I watched the interview where you demonstrated the extremely fast all upstrokes.
I find it really interesting, that what might look like “unconventional “ setups , can lead to results we might not be able to achieve in a more “conventional “ way. I know those are loaded terms haha
It exists, but baring various heritable diseases, I’m not sure guitar playing is one of the fields it’s highly relevant.
Not ever being a great darts player, I’m going to have to read up to see if I both understand correctly and conceptually the implications of all these movements and actions as it pertains to guitar playing especially what has come up in this thread regarding antagonistic pairs. But because I’m using my own poor skills as a dart thrower as a reference point to this analogy above it just reads like various forms extension and flexion to me.
I believe Anton has great technique in what he does because he put in a hell of a lot of hours of practice in when he was very young which set him up for life, and he’s kept it up. So it’s more about that than physics and biology or whatever. You can’t get super speed without lots of hardcore practice and it’s really hard to achieve that if you’re getting on a bit, have a job and family etc (like me).
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It sounds like you’re assuming that alternate picking an arpeggio requires physical exertion, and that’s why speed limits are lower than banging out a tremolo. That’s not really the case. It’s just an accuracy thing. You can go as fast as you want, as relaxed as you want, if you are willing to let accuracy slide. In fact, you should be willing to do this. That is the very first step.
There’s no click here but this is probably in the 180 ballpark, give or take:
Could I go faster? No doubt. Would I miss notes? Probably. But not completely. To get better at the faster speeds you have to go for it and let mistakes happen at first. There’s another Instagram clip from some point last year where I did exactly that, on purpose, on a little bit of the Glass Prison arpeggios. The point was to demonstrate that this is how the trial and error process starts. Even if you have good or perhaps even great instructions, you still have to do it. Until they invent the “I know kung fu!” tech from the Matrix, there will always be a gap between what the instructions tell you to do, and you actually doing it and recognizing by sound and feel that you have, in fact, done it. And that gap is bridged by trial and error.
How much time have you spent with any of the mixed escape advice in the Primer, the three forms and trying them out, and have you assembled the large basket of phrases to work on I’ve been telling others to do here on the forum? I know I’m like a broken record about this, but I think you will continue to feel a little bit mystified by this type of playing until you find time to do the (fun, experimental) work of it. Easier said than done with all our schedules, trust me, I know.
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Wow, awesome playing and explanation. Just to clarify I don’t think it takes any extra exertion. I know it’s about control and accuracy. It just seems like like it’s a way more finesse technique than single escape stuff, and there aren’t tons of people I’ve seen do it at 180. I’m not surprised you’re one of them though 
I am about 2 1/2 months in on the DBX journey. I’d never even tried anything like cross picking before, because I’m a good fingerstyle player and I could do most fast arpeggio stuff I wanted at decent speeds. I’ve recently got this itch to embark though. From some cool threads around here that inspired me, and also because of Anton’s awesome playing.
Still getting used to used to it. When it’s really on, I can do 16ths around 140. It’s never a problem in the 120 - 130 range though. I’ll post a whole thread about it when I get time, just to make sure I’m not doing it wrong. I’ve been known to brute force things and not realize there’s inefficiency in my playing, as I’m sure you recall from my Petrucci chromatic attempt But yes I’ve tried to carefully follow all the advice on here. Lots of different patterns, changing stuff like picks and grip. The one that clicked earliest for me was the wrist based one. I tried going ‘fast’ from the beginning and trying to figure out a motion that didn’t burn out in the 120 bpm range. I tried a setup exactly like you did here, and it sort of came together within a week or 2
I know you don’t like to comment without seeing video I’ll make that other thread at some point, I promise. I feel like 120 - 140 16ths is good progress for a couple months though, right?
I found the Anton video where he analyzes some popular guitarists playing technique pretty offensive.
I’m not really a Guthrie fan though I like a couple of his songs like Waves and also Last Orders (which has no real shredding in it save for a few seconds) from the Aristocrats but talking about him like he is such an inferior player or picker because his hands may not always be in perfect sync based on what Anton thinks is correct picking just sounds like Jealousy and putting someone down. Playing that lick quite un-musically over and over like that means something. Let’s hear you play the whole song and how that sounds. He says he won’t be able to improve it’s a shame it’s been too long or words to that effect. Please.
And I’m not really a MAB fan either, but he sound pretty fast and clean here.
Anton often sounds robotic to me. His picking strokes all sound the same which is pretty heavily accented. He vibrato sounds downright tweedly at times, always has, he’s no Yngwie Malmsteen that’s for sure, let alone someone with really good vibrato, forget about virtuoso level.
And what has he done? Does he have any good original work? He’s a pick technician. I was impressed when he was younger and he did that Paul Gilbert lick with one hand. He does have immense skill in certain spheres but I don’t know to me he doesn’t always come off sounding very musical.
And you run into this a lot. Take the guitar out of it. But those who think because they have some skill in an area or because something works very well for them that it is always the right way for everyone. And this is backed up with so called selected and suggested scientific evidence so it has to be right. He’s got the secret answer it just costs this. There are some people for whatever reason there may be … anatomical differences or neurological differences and this and that, who cannot do some perfect universal system. What he does may not work for someone else. This is a basic truth. What works for one may not for another. And we sometimes/often think we know something until we learn later that we didn’t have it quite right.
Anyway, I don’t think he is all that. I’d rather listen to some of the stuff Marty Friedman plays over what he does any day even if he bangs into other strings or his wrist is deviated.
Hi @tomsters , welcome to the forum and thanks for stopping by!
Not sure if you are aware since you are new, but we had a lot of trouble here with these kinds of conversations where people started talking about the person rather than the techniques / music etc.
Sorry if this sounds a bit censor-y but can I kindly ask you to edit away from your post comments about the guy’s personality, and only comment on the guitar stuff?
For the record: it’s totally ok to talk about aspects you like / don’t like about someone’s technique, provided it’s done respecfully. But after a few years of moderation we learned that it’s best not to start a debate about the person, it’s a slippery slope that tends to derail the conversation in non-constructive directions.
Thanks for the understanding, and I hope you do stick around
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You must read all the comments first before posting something like this.
You totaly missed the point of Anton’s vid.
He respects all those players (they are in his top list) and his vid has nothing to do with their musicality.
It’s all just about picking technique, and he shows that those different techniques also have their limitations.
Anton shows with his own hands (not just words) that he can play anything those top players are doing in a even cleaner way with his technique; you can’t argue with that!
If you like his playing or not is completely irrelevant.
Anton found a way of which he believes is a universal one and has an academy where you can learn his way.
You can’t say that it won’t work for everyone because it may well do so.
His example in the beginning of the vid, where he shows all the different physics of those top swimmers using all the exact same technique to get the best results, was an eyeopener for me.
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Wow! Nice job Troy! It was really nice one and a half seconds in 170bpm pure 1nps which is simply stunning for a guitar player. I’m still struggling with 120, hope that one day I’ll be struggling with 150bpm. You touched unwanted strings 4-5 times, but i don’t think it makes much difference for usual listener who’s not crazy about clean playing. Anyways people who are not musicians don’t care
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Look folks, we’ve been up and down this topic a million times and I have been super transparent with you all about the challenges of running a forum. I’m going to be transparent again.
This post is the exactly type we struggle with. In order to not bog down this thread, I’ve created a new one with some thoughts. Go here to check it out and help us run the forum better:
@tomsters sorry to call you out here. You are not aware of the history and walked into this one. I’m redirecting to the other thread on this.
Thank you!
Has anyone had luck with keeping the wrist + forearm loose utilising the antagonist relationship as discussed in the video and demonstrated by PG?
As @Troy has mentioned, perhaps what we’re seeing in AO and PG is related to their long arms/big hands. Would a shorter arm/smaller hand even look like this with the same motion?
When I do this with a relaxed arm, the wrist and forearm do appear to work together in an opposing/antagonistic way. Is this really different or advantageous to keeping the forearm more stiff, and isolating the movement to the wrist alone like in the table top (lottery scratchy) example?
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The discussion about antagonistic muscle activation was related to something that occurs internally when you use deviation wrist motion, which is a particular direction of the wrist joint. Meaning, it’s something that happens when you try to move the wrist sideways. It’s not something you can “do” or “not do” with other motions, and it can’t be avoided by being “loose”. Even if this is happening, it’s not entirely clear what practical effect this has on what most people want to play, since there are many examples of players using this motion (Molly Tuttle) who are very good at the kind of “hard” phrases people like to fuss over.
More generally, I know I’m guilty of the anatomical nerdery but that type of discussion on here is just a window into how we develop teaching methods. It’s really not something most people should worry about when trying to learn picking technique.
The real goal is always to arrive at advice which is simple and easy to implement — tap on a table, go fast, try this phrase, etc. With that in mind, if you haven’t yet experimented with the three wrist forms in the Primer, and going fast on the kinds of phrases you want to play, then everything else is a distant second place in terms of worrying about it. There are only so many ways to anchor on a guitar and only so many ways to move. All these wrist techniques (with or without various extra stuff like forearm motion) all start with those forms and all start with going fast to get in the ballpark quickly.
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Listen to his playing here where he does the Paganini Caprice with a clean sound. Great dynamics from very soft to harder picking.
And here’s some own material. Everything played with great feel, far from what you call “Robotic”.
Awesome playing by Anton as usual!
Let’s avoid the confrontational tone please!
Tomsters walked into this conversation without knowing about the s£%^$-storm that affected it (and the website has currently some problems with hyperlinks, so that it can be difficult to navigate long threads). He has been very understanding of the situation after that post (see the moderation discussion in “site feedback”).
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You should as well. It only takes a few minutes to scan the thread I created on our challenges with tamping down negative energy here on the forum. As others smarter than me have pointed out, it’s really about tone and intent, and realizing that others will have opinions you may not share, and not taking it personally. The flag button is there for anything really crosses a line and we will be responsive as always.
Now I will apologize for sounding snippy. But we have spent a huge amount of energy on this topic of the past week or so.
Thanks.
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A post was merged into an existing topic: Critiquing techniques vs critiquing people: what speech is permissible?
Ladies and gentlemen, that’s me again. I’ve been in Anton’s school for quite a big time in the past and I think I have to disagree with some statements in this thread.
Troy said “Meaning, it’s something that happens when you try to move the wrist sideways. It’s not something you can “do” or “not do” with other motions, and it can’t be avoided by being “loose”. Even if this is happening, it’s not entirely clear what practical effect this has on what most people want to play, since there are many examples of players using this motion (Molly Tuttle) who are very good at the kind of “hard” phrases people like to fuss over.”
It wasn’t said on correct motions, it was about positions when the energy from compression can be used for the next motion and the more you tense muscles, the less energy from that physical effect you can use. Just physics. And Anton was working on unblocking that area in the forearm since everyone’s right hand is tensed neutrally. All beginners are tensed. I saw it millions of times in his school.
It wasn’t about playing “hard” phrases, it was about stamina. Want to play hard phrases not for 1-2 seconds, but minutes? + clean + fast? You can’t do it when you’re tired, am i right? I think so. That’s the way to go. So we can see what it is for. It’s very clear.
Troy also said there’s no really helpful information in his video, it’s just a video to talk about? I’m sorry, but it is either jealousy or intentional disinformation, I didn’t think Troy would say something that weird, even one part of explanation in which positions you can achieve better stamina and why is already much more helpful for guitar players than most instructional videos on YouTube.
So I think it’s totally wrong to call it not helpful and even abusive to Anton’s teaching, since none of forum members can play like him. Still. We can bla bla bla even more, he’s still gonna be the only one who’s proving his words with playing.
Also Troy’s is pretty confident in “start fast” statements, you people go and try to find him saying “i think so” when Troy recommends someone to do so, exactly, there’s no doubt in that, Anton says the opposite. But still Troy says we can’t really know what Anton’s antagonistic muscle thing does. Confident in his own thing, not sure in Anton’s statements. Interesting, isn’t it? 
Even knowing that Anton’s synchronization, speed+accuracy is matchless. There’s no other who can do things he can with that accuracy. I haven’t seen any guitar player like him.
I think this forum needs a lot more words like “i think so”, instead of “you should do it this way”. Maybe even Anton should
say it more often (I think so), but he can show it unlike any of us here. So I guess he has a right to do so being the only one who proves things. His technique is perfect. Until any of us perfect in all aspects, we can’t say any statement is true. This will make this forum more kind and respectful place if all of us will start our messages from “i think so”.
But still all we have here is strange. Ok.
Last thing I should say.
I think so lol
I don’t think there is quite the degree of opposition here that you think there is.
Troy says there is no point doing the work on slow accuracy until you know you have a motion that works at speed.
Anton wants you to do the work on slow accuracy with a motion that he already knows works at speed.
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