I’ve been working on the six note pattern and moving it around on a single string but I’m still feeling something not quite clicking between the two hands. It’s almost like there is a stutter between them. I think that wrist extension is the fastest movement for me, but I still find my self slipping into a rotation like movement. Also, I think that from playing with such thick picks my edge picking is not very consistent. I used to economy pick everything so I would just rest stroke my pick through every string in big sweeps. That obviously will not work as well with alternate. Does anyone have advice? Are there any exercises that I can find in interviews or seminars that are also recommended?
The solution here is pretty simple:
Just slow it down.
You want to run before you can walk.
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As a point of order, so does my second kid and it doesn’t seem to impede his ability to get about.
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This actually looks pretty good to me. Your picking hand looks relaxed and I don’t see any stringhopping or awkwardness. If you notice a small amount of forearm movement happening, that is totally fine, and very common. Deviation / rotation blend is probably the most common form of what we sometimes overly loosely call “rotation”. That’s a misnomer — it’s both movements happening simultaneously, in some ratio.
In your case, it’s more deviation than rotation, but again, not a concern. So long as you recognize by sight and by feel the movement you’re making, and reproduce it the same way from rep to rep, and session to session, that’s what matters. It’s the flip flopping between different movements, while sensing they are different in some way that you can’t pinpoint, that causes confusion.
As to the synchronization, we can’t see the fretting hand in this clip, but we can see that the picking speed is pretty constant for most of these repetitions. So I’m going to guess that your fretting hand is to blame here. You might try slowing down a small amount, as @sirferdinand97 suggests, and see what happens. But I wouldn’t throw out fast practice entirely. It is hard to play with realistic / natural form when you slow down, because you haven’t learned the movement yet. Ironically, it is mainly the most experienced players that can play slowly and realistically — because everything is already super memorized for them.
Instead look for practice techniques that allow you to use a reasonable amount of speed. Teemu Mäntysaari recommends doing hands separately, so you can train the left hand to play smoothly and in time. His quote from the interview: “If the hands can’t do it separately, it is unlikely they can do it together.” You can use a metronome for that if you like.
You can also try using bigger accents in the picking hand, to see if it helps the left hand find the sync point. Don’t kill the downbeats, just use a slightly larger accent than normal.
In general this looks good to me as a progress snapshot for a new player where the movements, both left and right hand, are not yet completely memorized. How long have you been playing?
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Frylock and Troy both address some hand synch issues in my own thread which were rather helpful. To summarize:
- Use chunking to help synch your hands at higher speeds
- Make sure the amount of distance the pick travels on either side of the strings is consistent
- If you are lifting the 1st finger up when you are not using it (Al Di Meola style) try keeping the 1st finger down instead
- keep a consistent pick grip while changing positions/strings so that you don’t end up with a “push” where the pick hits the string but doesn’t go through it
If you can apply these things then you’ll notice a good difference. I would also take Mile High Shred’s advice about metronome practice for building speed when you’re ready to build speed
I would suggest practicing some hands-separately a la Teemu to work the hands and isloate problem spots
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I’ve been playing for around 4-5 years but I never put any focus in learning alternate picking or really any picking technique at all until a few months ago so I still consider my self to be a fairly new player. Occasionally if I’m not paying attention I find that lots of the playing I do is legato that I don’t even notice to compromise for my picking hand and if I am picking then the alternation will not be strict i.e. if its something slow and melodic enough i’ll do all downstrokes like Joscho mentioned.
My accuracy and comfort have greatly increased today. I think I just need to let patterns sink in more.
Here is another update video of me playing the extended 6 note pattern.
The movements look fluid and relaxed, which is great. The sync is not quite happening yet, but that’s ok. You’re still new at this, and everything we’re seeing here is to be expected.
What’s important is that you know what to listen for and how to approach this. Keep at this for a few weeks / month and then get back with an update. If you’re honest and critical with what you’re hearing, and whether or not it’s working, you should see some marked improvement.
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