So how does A.O. do it?!?!

I have to admit that I’m most interested in how he manages to do wrist 2BX lines with palm muting, which isn’t something I’ve seen completely explained yet.

Well that I actually know a little bit about. Not necessarily the way he does it, but a way to do it. The orientation of the forearm is pretty flat and the point of contact with the strings where the palm is muting is more nuetral:

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Yes, that makes sense, but it seems very difficult to do unless the forearm’s almost parallel to the strings – and AO doesn’t do that, and it feels really weird to me!

It does also seem like his edge of thumb (the edge closer to the guitar neck) is almost perpendicular to the strings. I also noticed that in the guitarenthusiasts (CtC member) video demos, although his is much more perpendicular.

I also agree with your sentiments about taking his demos and analysis with a grain of salt because we really dont know whats going on with fatigue and what not since hes def trying to sell a product which is not a knock on him at all, thats more on us to proceed with whatever caution we deem is necessary. However, i still hold the opinion that hes doing something a little more productive with his hands that we are trying to figure out

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Yeah I agree, sorry for the tangent :slight_smile: It’s been working well for me in my cross picking endeavors. I just remembered this video. It’s short, and it’s queued up to where he talks about palm muting:

So, is this the same setup he uses when he does DBX? I don’t know. I thought the whole point of his system was that he has a setup that works for pretty much everything, with small modifications here and there. I’m sure that’s a huge oversimplification, but that’s why we’re here, right? :slight_smile:

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I just watched the video sections and i can see how when he demonstrates Guthries way he uses more wrist deviation as opposed to his way which seems more like hes totally resetting his hand when he jumps back to the low E (although still it is a relatively small motion lol)

I have seen Cesario do a 2 hour long live stream once. Song after song, and then telling us if we give 20 bucks in superchat he would play any Yngwie song. ROFL! It was the most impressive thing I have ever seen. So it is going to be hard to impress me after witnessing that, the bad thing is he had to remove all his live streamed concerts. Probably pissed off Yngwie. :smiley:

You know, I think he’s a fast picker and he sounds great. Awesome. I also thought his instructional video was cool… same as Troy’s stuff - very cool. Makes sense. Wrist deviation, 3 finger pick grip, and looks like a 9/2 clock setup? Andy Wood-ish or Troy-ish.

The problem? lol Even though I can see it and understand it I can’t seem to do it. Duhhhhrrr Does it make sense to throw 300 plus bucks at his course when I have already bought every guitar video in regards to picking on the planet? lol No… Because the problem is me! hahaha Great stuff, thanks for sharing guys!

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Is there a particular limitation in muting that is common with DBX or mixed escapes.

It seems to be something that’s particular to me, lol.

Everybody’s physiology is a little bit different so pure visual reference points and queues are maybe not always the most reliable if you are trying to copy from a clip or what not, and it for sure won’t guarantee that will work for you, but for me personally I use the hypothenar region of the palm even extending this to the side of my pinky if I have to. That area of the palm is my main anchor point on the guitar (strings).

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Sure it does if you think he’s got something else to offer that will make you better lol

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Not sure at this point; I think I might actually be stupid when it comes to picking technique. It sure is fun to watch folks who can t=do it and do it well, though!

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You, my friend, just have a bad case of imposter syndrome. Or maybe I just don’t know what good playing is lol! You’re always posting videos of your playing saying how much it sucks but it always sounds killer to me :slight_smile: I think you’re a fantastic player and your songs are cool too.

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lol aww man - I am a big fake; I just find ways to kind of sound like I can pick for like 2-3 seconds at a time! haha I do my best, but holy cow are there ever a lot of insanely good players on this site (yourself included). Thanks so much for the kind words; I’ll keep working at it and see if something sticks hahaha

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Just watched this, interesting video. AO mentions multiple times that it’s important that just the tip of the pick travels in a straight line across the strings or during string changes and even demonstrates his wrist going side to side in a straight line. He also mentions that your hand should rest on the point of the guitar body where you first start to see the string. Did I hear him explain that properly? Lol. I find it hard to believe he’s moving his pick in a straight line. There’s gotta be some trajectory

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I was just about to post that same video, I think there’s enough in there to get started with his technique.

He’s very specific about only moving from side to side at the wrist, in which case the way to change escapes can only be by slightly rotating the whole apparatus to change the direction of the stroke for an escaped downstroke (I think this can be seen in a more exaggerated way in some of the videos of his students playing).

I tooled about with this yesterday and definitely got good results with clarity/articulation and accuracy, though I have to concentrate fairly hard to not go back into the habit of swiping ascending outside changes.

It definitely allowed me to do a couple of things that my existing technique could not but I’m not ready to call it universal - the gains you get in accuracy and sync from completely eliminating any movement of the pick in the fingers come with a corresponding loss of the tonal variation you get by moving the pick in the fingers. Maybe I just need to work out how to do it but I couldn’t get super smooth tremolo picking with this motion.

I also at first struggled with dynamic control but that got better over time.

I’d definitely like to see more about how he approaches the one note per string stuff and an explanation of what he meant by Gilbert doing a “wrist dance” but I’m not dropping 300 quid on it.

It definitely brought to light how much difficulty I was causing myself by slightly changing the approach to each different string, and also reinforced just how much my left hand needs to improve.

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That’s the palm resting point I’ve been using when practicing dbx too. Although it can alter slightly especially as I use a very small amount of forearm rotation on the upstrokes.
It would be easy to think of that as a “flat” setup, but if you look down, you can see a small amount of the underarm exposed, so I think that falls into the “lightly supinated” form.

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I think this is going better than the previous thread, phew :slight_smile:

Maybe I don’t need to do this, but here’s a polite reminder that we should keep the discussion strictly technical and avoid the rabbit holes of the other thread. We can do this :smiley: :+1:

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Same observations about the side to side only motions. And in the most recent video he references a “jar opening” motion. Which is side to side. I haven’t tried that in the guitar yet but I can easily do it with just my hand. It’s more ulnar deviation approach for sure. So far our clues are:

  1. Jar opening side to side motion (ulnar deviation)
  2. Making the string move out of the way from the pick and not vice versa
  3. Hold pick at the top bony aspect of thumb and reinforce index finger with middle finger

And these last two I’m unsure if I heard properly so feel free to correct,

  1. Use only the tip of the pick to move the string
  2. Rest your hand on the body of the guitar where you first see the string exposed
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