String rebound helping upward escape

Masters in Mechanics
#1

Bear with me here. Wondering if the mods have ever looked into this idea. I’ve got a brilliant drummer friend who talks about the energy he can save in some situations by letting the stick rebound (“rebound” as a noun) off of the drum heads assist his lift post-strike and help him into his next move.

Which gets me thinking if there’s part of the wrist-extension portion of your movement that can receive an assist from the kickback the string might give you post-swipe. I was just watching “Crosspicking With The Wrist”, and I guess this would be the “2” portion of the 9-0-2 pattern after the downstroke, or the “10” portion of the 10-0-3 pattern after the upstroke. Not to “launch” you into space, but maybe help relieve some of the effort you expend on the lift. Hope this makes sense!

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#3

Sorry for the delay! Just seeing this now. The string definitely exerts a force pushing back on the pick, and as a result of this, and the way the pick contacts the string, there is always a net force that makes the pick go over the top of the string, as opposed to underneath it. Here’s our walkthrough of this, credit to @tommo for checking the Physics here:

In fact, this is such a fundamental fact of guitar pick operation that we put an entire chapter on it in the “pick design” section:

In short, there’s not really anything you need to “do” to get this effect, it’s just what happens when you use a pick. You can’t really stop it or turn it off either. It’s already happening on everything you play, whether that’s a single-string tremolo, bluegrass roll patterns, etc.

As for playing crosspicking lines, I wouldn’t worry too much about efficiency. When you use the right motion, you’re avoiding stringhopping, and that’s your biggest efficiency right there. The motion feels like a sideways motion of the wrist, very low to the strings but without hitting (i.e. swiping) the wrong ones.

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