Apologies if this duplicates anything. I’ve been working on a dbx technique and have noticed one interesting detail. Imagine a very simple string crossing scenario where you have to play one note on the open B string and one note on the adjacent open E string. There are two alternatives: (1) downstroke on the B followed by upstroke on the E; (2) downstroke on the E followed by upstroke on the B. As I examined my motion I saw that in example (1) I could play back and forth, B E B E B E etc., at almost my full tremolo speed. Example (2) was very different, slower and clumsy. In fact, I could see full-out stringhopping in (2) but smooth movement in (1). Keep in mind that I’m working on a double escape technique. In slowing down the motion and visualizing it, you can see that in both examples the pick has to make a figure-8 pattern, but in opposite directions. In (1) the downstroke moves through the B string, passes over the E, then the upstroke goes through the E and passes over the B. In (2) the downstroke goes through the E, then the upstroke goes up over the E and through the B. So (1) produces a figure-8 that, seen from the bridge side, makes a clockwise circle around the E string and counter-clockwise around the B, while (2) is the reverse. (1) is for some reason much easier for me. If I can make (2) just as smooth, I may be able to solve stringhopping. Does this make sense to you?
The idea of a figure 8 motion sounds like a lot extra than what is required to actually double escape, to me a simple shallow back and forth “u” like a pendulum swing would do it so long as you had the correct hand placement to the strings and dont have your hand tilted in any extreme direction. This would require just a bit of rotation.
Because at the change of direction you also have to grab the string, the “U” is actually an 8.
I get what you are saying, but I think that’s over thinking it, or more importantly unnecessary to conciously think of it that way
If you start consciously making a looping motion it starts to imply string hopping or has the potential to because now you are starting to include various degrees of wrist extension in order to clear the string to practice a looping motion. If it helps to think of it that way, by all means, but I’m not sure I would try to practice it that way. Also inside picking motion should largely be the same as your outside picking but with just a shorter range of motion, which may make more difficult at first.
One thing to add is that even players that are prolific double escape players at slower and moderate fast tempos will tend to swipe at really really high speeds. This may be somewhat unavoidable and would be willing to bet most players do this to various degrees, so I wouldn’t be too concerned with actually clearing the string more than I would making the phrase sound good.
It’s not a matter of consciously making the motion. You’re making the motion whether you’re aware of it or not. I happened to notice that one direction was much easier and smoother than the other. I think this is probably universal, so I’m presenting it as something that might be useful. I’m going to see if I can smooth out the more difficult direction.
Steve Morse said in a video, which I cannot find now, that he found the inside picking more difficult, at least in what he was demonstrating, because you are moving the pick away from the string you are to hit next.
You’re technically doing that every time you’re alternate picking on a single string, you have to stop the pick stroke at some point and reverse the pick direction. It’s probably getting over the string you just hit and then digging in low enough to hit the adjacent string that is the tricky part for most, and most don’t even bother doing that at high speeds.
It’s why it’s easier for most people to do inside picking like that using a diagonal trajectory going away from the body on a down stroke, or just don’t bother and swipe. If you are used to picking just the top half of the string, the swiping isn’t very obvious.
My point is - not necessarily, a lot of what you think you are doing gets completely abandoned once those tempos creep up. And I don’t think it’s universal at all thus the very existence of CTC. someone who plays primarily with a DSX and can utilize forearm/elbow probably has an easier time with inside picking.
True. I’m just repeating something I recall him saying in a video about a particular pattern.
Also another big reason I can see is that anytime you have inside picking, it requires a descending up stroke, which tend to be harder in general for predominantly wrist players as it more often than not requires some form of elbow movement, even if subtle, that they may not be used to. One of the reasons also descending economy picking is hard for a lot of people too.
Stringhopping is a learned behavior. It takes root very quickly because it’s easy to figure out and it works, i.e. feels smoother than hitting wrong strings. So there’s a lot of positive reinforcement there, especially on inside picking phrases where swiping feels more obviously sticky than it does during outside picking.
In other words, the reason this is happening is because you’ve learned to bounce your hand up and down during some phrases and not others. It doesn’t matter whether it’s inside our outside picking, it’s just a motion you’re doing. The only way to stop doing it is to stop bouncing the hand.
The best approach is to go fast while trying to not do anything specific to get over the string. If you hear wrong notes, or you feel the pick hitting strings it shouldn’t hit, let that happen. If you try to “not hit” the strings, you’ll go back to stringhopping. You have to get used to doing a different motion than you normally do, and mistakes are one really obvious way you can verify you are actually making a change to a more efficient motion. At some level the goal is to learn to do the correct motion, it’s just less likely to feel really obvious the way that stringhopping does.
The end result will vary based on your choice of joint motions, but ultimately you’re looking for something that has no tension, feels smooth, gets the notes (mostly) correct, and degrades gracefully as you go faster. Meaning there should not be a hard speed limit where all the notes are correct but you can’t go any faster. Instead, you want a motion that goes as fast as your joints can go, but just gets gradually less accurate as you do.
As @fossegrim says, try no to dwell on the mechanical stuff and what path the pick is tracing in the air. The way to learn this is by feel and sound, across a wide variety of picking patterns, on different strings, at different speeds. Don’t just do the two strings going back and forth like an exercise, or the “Paul Gilbert Lick”. Try to play a wide variety of phrases that have bits of this stuff in there, getting a litle better at each of them slowly over time.
Interesting, and thanks, everybody, for your input. I hear you using different terminology to say something similar to what I’m saying. “Anytime you have inside picking, it requires a descending up stroke” is (I think) another way of describing the counter-clockwise half of the figure 8 I mentioned in my original post. Which does seem to be more difficult for most players than the reverse.
Thanks. My current practice, similar to what you suggest in your last paragraph, is to play all kinds of things (etudes, bebop heads, scales, arpeggios) and focus on my right hand and how it’s moving. I find that I can keep it quiet if I pay attention, and then everything improves.
Not so much because it’s counterclockwise or opposite nature, but more so that this type of string tracking (inside picking) or this oppositenesses may require a slight adjustment in motion or different joints than might be comfortable at first.
You can get the same awkwardness with descending upstroke directional picking (sweeping, economy) which by nature doesn’t require avoiding strings at all. A downward pick slanting USX wrist player might particularly, because it can require almost the exact opposite of that to do (upward pick slanting DSX with a little bit of elbow for descending tracking)
That’s very interesting. I also began practicing upward sweeps because I realized that this would be an essential part of dbx, and I was very uncomfortable with it. I think that if a player could make upward sweeps absolutely as easy and smooth as downward, they’d be well on the way to a good dbx.