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

[carranoj25]

Only rabbit hole were in now is trying to convince ourselves if we should buy his product or not haha

[carranoj25]

We can also analyze a still image of the Paul Gilbert wrist dance he shows in the most recent video

[bradejensen]

@Scottulus

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!

I am in no way advertising here, but to clear my own name from this mess. He offers more reasonably priced packages under his YouTube channel details. This is at your own risk, as you could wind up not getting motions needed to play the material you receive in the videos. If he doesn’t offer any refunds you are at your own risk.

[bradejensen]

Quick search on YouTube, and I found this video that might be better to analyze. I noticed the middle finger pluck stuff. Just so you don’t waste your time, you will learn some cool licks and a solo.

Mind Blowing Guitar Solo Anton Oparin wrote for Room 4's song Highlife

Here is a good video of a guy explaining the process. Had to show the two videos to show the software being able to do video. The free alternative I explain below.

Transcribe! The MUST OWN Slow Down Software For Video & Audio - Learn ANY Music The Easy Way!

Transcribing Guthrie Govan - Levi Clay

The free alternative beyond the Transcribe! program used in the video above would be to use audacity’s change tempo effect. audacity is an open source DAW. And use VLC, or whichever video program you choose to slow down the video to accurately figure out fingerings and pickstrokes.

[carranoj25]

Hmm so he used hybrid picking and looked like two string sweeping for a lick in the video?

SLO down videos would def help but idk exactly what to look for since my outside alternate picking is not my strong point.

What did you mean by the waste your time comment can you clarify?

[bradejensen]

@carranoj25

Hmm so he used hybrid picking and looked like two string sweeping for a lick in the video?

SLO down videos would def help but idk exactly what to look for since my outside alternate picking is not my strong point.

This is why you are here at this forum, and this site is great to explain technique, most likely the best I have ever seen, and you already noticed some things in his playing. You just got to kind of learn the whole complete picture of all the techiques so you can then kind of work your way through how he approaches certain scenarios during the solo. This is the site to kind of understand the techniques, doesnt mean you have to learn this solo or that solo or a particular technique, but knowing of them can give you a better footing as to how to approach learning things if you so desire.

@carranoj25

What did you mean by the waste your time comment can you clarify?

You learn something of value is what I mean, some of us well probably all of us only have so much time to devote to music. It is better to come away learning something more complete other than licks, and fragments. That way you see how it works in context, and learn more beyond technique, actual music. So it will teach you technique, but you also don’t miss out on the most important part the music. A painter doesn’t always just try to draw trees over and over. Although it might be fun, but to fully paint the complete picture you gotta add in the rest.

Don’t try to go to deep into this as I do enough already. I only can cover solos that are premade, I dont really improvise. So it is something I struggle with alot trying to not repeat lick over and over. I sorta see it as a habit, although I do think in order to get technique to a high degree it might require it, but if you think about it if you actually utilize the phrases, licks, and fragments with a backing progression. isn’t that better than drilling the lick over and over? it puts the lick in dynamic areas of process amongst the entire music that you know in your mind that you can conjure. so playing the lick around other licks in my mind would benefit much greater as you develop how to get in an out of it to go into something else, it develops the technique that you never practice if you only play the lick over and over to a metronome. this is beyond beginner, although taking 15 minutes each day to drill 6 or 7 licks of speed bump zones in your technique to help gain speed or maintain clean playing definitely cant hurt even for intermediate or professional players.

man i like to rant, furthermore, if you analyze solo after solo, you get a more complete picture of how to write music. but i think this requires each person on their own to transcribe what they love to listen to if they desire to play that style. this can get you further into being able to improvise better the more solos you transcribe, and learn by ear.

[joebegly]

@carranoj25

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,

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

Great observations. I am not certain about point 4 either. I could be way off but I thought part of his dynamics system involves just slightly more pick depth when you need more volume. I can see consistency benefits in this approach because you could keep your force constant whether playing loud or soft. Just that little tweak of depth when needed.

And for point 5 did you mean bridge instead of body? If so it does look like that is how he does it.

[joebegly]

@jptk

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.

Yep excellent point. I always got so confused when I heard Troy refer to these setup as lightly supinated but they are. PROBABLY as lightly supinated as possible before you approach pronation

[jptk]

Yes, I was very confused by it for a long time. Then I looked at my hand and it was something so obvious that I missed. The thumb heel anchor, when holding the pick, sticks out further than the pinky heel anchor. So simply just placing those two anchor points down on the bridge creates that very lightly supinated form.

In actual playing it can vary depending on what you are doing and probably a lot of other factors, but it didn’t click with me until I just looked at my hand

[joebegly]

@carranoj25

Hmm so he used hybrid picking and looked like two string sweeping for a lick in the video?

Right, he sweeps and hybrid picks plenty. I think his whole thing is that he doesn’t want to have rely on those techniques and can use them or not use them at his discretion.

[eric_divers]

Yeah, I can only seem to make that work with USX-only forms, which might just be the structure of my hands.

[joebegly]

Another interesting thing I noticed that I don’t anyone has brought up is his string tracking aproach.

Does Universal Guitar Technique Exist???

Except for the end of the run where he plays on the low E, I don’t see that anchor point float at all. Not for the picking stuff, obviously when he goes into tapping it moves. So it seems like he primarily has a static anchor and tracks using almost only the wrist.

Even when doing string skips:

Does Universal Guitar Technique Exist???

Ok it might float a little when he’s skipping all 6 strings, but still, it’s very small and primarily wrist based tracking. BTW, for anyone who didn’t watch the whole video, for me, this clip where he shows the string skipping is the most amazing part of the whole system.

[carranoj25]

Ok i made a few notes based on the video you linked above:

1. @6:35 AO says the tip of the pick should always be inside the strings whatever that means

2. @6:40 AO says the very tip of the pick is always at the same depth

3. @1:43 AO discusses how your hand should be supported right where you first see the string come out of the bridge and he mentions a russian word which i think is palm muting

[carranoj25]

With that string skipping it seems as if he IS NOT going side to side. There is some angle there lol

[tommo]

@joebegly

Ok it might float a little when he’s skipping all 6 strings

Not at all a knock on Anton’s technique, but the Low E notes sounds more chunky when he does the wide skips - is this because he is also hitting a muted A string? Again the overall effect is amazing, just wondering what kinds of things are possible / margins of erros for those motions

[joebegly]

Right, definitely all sounds legit. I’m not sure where I got the depth thing from. There is a FULL version of that video but it’s all Russian… I’m out because English is my only language and I’m not even very good at it lol! I’ll have to see if I can dig that up because it’s possible the constant depth is a general rule, and it changes only when needed OR I’m just plain wrong, which is highly possible

@carranoj25

he mentions a russian word which i think is palm muting

Glushovka!!! I love the way that word sounds!!! I only know it because in that YouTube video (in the description) where it talks about the piece meal approach, it’s listed and says (muting) by it.

[joebegly]

@tommo

Not at all a knock on Anton’s technique, but the Low E notes sounds more chunky when he does the wide skips - is this because he is also hitting a muted A string?

I think maybe he’s palm muting it a little??? Not sure. I feel you though When people say “I never do this”, I love it when we catch them doing it lol!

EDIT: I watched it again and there might be one place where he hits the A string. Not sure. Also, for anyone else wondering, what we call “swiping” he always refers to it as “touching the string”.

[Prlgmnr]

Going to try and get into the habit of calling it “glushovka” from now on

[Fossegrim]

@eric_divers

Yeah, I can only seem to make that work with USX-only forms, which might just be the structure of my hands.

It’s a combination of your natural picking trajectory and what method you use to do it (rotation, translation etc…) and very slight differences in hand position (pronation, supination etc). If you have a somewhat rotational picking motion, you can go a long way between USX, DSX, and DBX movements with just slight variations of supinated and pronated hand positions and the same exact picking motion. Also keep in mind too, that sometimes what you see, looks more like one or the other due to the differences in physiology I mentioned. A good example is Paul Gilbert, who also mutes with the same part of the hand I referenced and holds his hand anchored just like I described above, but looks like he holds his hand more neutral and in the area Joe posted in order to get that flatter appearance. In some cases it’s an illusion, in Gilbert’s case you can see more exposure of the underside of his wrist which is a more common in supinated hand positions than you might with somebody that really is neutral. And it is small differences that might dictate this.

Also, when you use the part of the hand I referenced, what I call the muting window is much more narrow, and it allows you to mute closer to the bridge more narrowly and across most of the strings which give a tight percussive less completely damped mute. When the hand is tilted so far that you are muting with the portion @joebegly showed, the muting window is now much horizontally wider if we are talking about the string plane, and vertically doesn’t really mute a lot of the strings above what you are playing. This wider horizontal mute shifts the tone of the mute, to a much more muted garbled damped mute if you go too heavy with it, its more conducive to one or two string total dampening. It’s actually more advantageous if you are trying to stop the string from making sound at all, and not so much using it for that tonally percussive light muted sound.

[jptk]

@Fossegrim

When the hand is tilted so far that you are muting with the portion @joebegly showed, the muting window is now much horizontally wider if we are talking about the string plane, and vertically doesn’t really mute a lot of the strings above what you are playing. This wider horizontal mute shifts the tone of the mute, to a much more muted garbled damped mute if you go too heavy with it, its more conducive to one or two string total dampening. It’s actually more advantageous if you are trying to stop the string from making sound at all, and not so much using it for that tonally percussive light muted sound.

True, I only tend to use this setup for chord arpeggiation where I’m actually letting all the strings ring out, so my hand is a little behind the bridge. I shift it forward a slight bit and I can get a nice muted sound, but too far forward and it’s all choked out.

I play lead stuff Malmsteen style, and using the pinky side only to get a more percussive sound. If playing with a more clean sound, I can dial out some of the mute by just moving the hand back a bit, but then need to be conscious of string noise, so need to split the difference somewhere!