Switching motion mechanics

[lars]

Does anyone have any experiences / tips to share when it comes to switching motion mechanics?

I know Troy takes a ‘let a million flowers bloom’ approach, but I’m getting the sense that some picking styles are easier to learn than others.

I initially started out in the Vinnie Moore style, but struggled with tension (at speeds above 120 BPM) and a lack of precision. I figured maybe I could get rid of the tension and increase my precision with practice, but that picking style seems fundamentally limited in terms of precision (because the elbow is so far away from the pick) that I opted to change styles.

I tried to emulate Marshall Harrison, Guthrie Govan etc and pick more from the wrist. My problem now is still one of tension (at 126+ bmp) and that my picking switches over to the old motion mechanic sometimes. I try to be mindful of this, but after over 6 months of practice (200-250 hours!) I’m getting frustrated.

How can I get completely rid of the old motion mechanic? I’m seriously considering trying the rotational motion mechanic now, just because I’d actually be able to find teachers using that style and because it seems harder to jump between that and the old elbow movements

[Frylock]

This doesn’t help you, but as someone coming from the rotational mechanic, I’ve found it fairly easy to establish rudimentary competency with other mechanics.

I haven’t taught anyone in a long time, but if I was starting someone today, I’d definitely try to encourage them to start out with forearm-rotation dwps, because I think that’s the quickest way to make progress with alternate picking.

I think “from the wrist” is a dangerously oversimplified way of thinking about motion mechanic, because there are a lot of different ways to do it. I think there’s a stealth “wrist flexion/extension” component to a lot of the people who at a glance seem to be “wrist deviation” pickers.

The smoothest “wristish” technique for me is a compound movement that’s almost like crosspicking, similar to what Ardeshir Farah does:
https://troygrady.com/interviews/strunz-farah/analysis-chapter-3-ardeshirs-upward-pickslant/

[DGG]

For me the main issue was motor interference because I used to play UWPS using wrist deviation and a good amount of thumb muting (thumb resting on lower strings) so my thumb was also my anchoring point. When I started learning DWPS when trying to built speed I was always falling back to UWPS I think due to the wrist deviation movement so I decided to built DWPS with arm rotation. My breakthrough happened after watching Teemu’s interview picking Rhoads and pentatonic examples. Now that I feel comfortable with DWPS to some extend, a new challenge has arisen since I use different motions for DWPS and UWPS but my end goal is to perfect 2WPS. Switching hand positions seems not to be the main issue but switching between arm/wrist movements so I will start experimenting with DWPS wrist deviation and UWPS arm rotation (opposite to what I do now, however wrist deviation DWPS feels easier than arm rotation UWPS).

Another part of my breakthrough was practicing without even thinking in my fretting hand. Honestly I not even had a guitar because I was traveling and the only thing I had was a Shred Neck (cut guitar arm gadget). I picked only between 2 strings (2 note per string pattern) for many hours. I used initially some sort of burst approach 4 pick motions and break, 4 pick motions and break (4 pick motions = 2 per string). Then I added an additional movement (not pick motion) which was get to next string to get ready for the next pick motion (that was my break for this new pattern). And I also separated higher to lower and lower to higher string changes. One thing I did not do was practicing super slow, do not get me wrong I did practice slow but not like quarter notes at 40 bpm. Honestly the burst practice seemed to work the best. And from that I built to more picking motion patterns between two adjacent string (8 motions for example 2 per string or 4 per string). One day I just picked up my metronome app and I was able to play sixteenth notes at 120 almost effortless between to adjacent strings 2 nite per string (I said notes here but it was just a series of pick movements such as having all strings muted with the left hand and just execute the right hand movements - still on the shred neck) and eventually I built up speed up to 150 bpm but only for short sequences.

I am not saying this will work for everybody but in my case this is the way I was able to break a solid 15 years UWPS mechanics in a 30 day period.

Off course the next step was translating all that shred neck practice to the actual guitar. At the beginning I thought I had lost my time and effort but after a couple days I started getting use to the guitar string tension (main issue was that the shred neck picking space is too close to the end so string tension is quite high and I was using to much strength for the actual requirements for the guitar).

One thing I still struggle with DWPS is playing in the 1st string because I got used to use the next higher string when playing in any given string as the reference point to stop (when I do a downstroke it ends with the pick touching the next higher string) and since there is no higher string when playing in the 1st I have no reference point to stop and loose some control. Currently I do not use my other right hand fingers for anchoring as Troy does for example so I am also evaluating if that could help me to improve this.

[Frylock]

I’m a big advocate of letting one or more fingers glide along the pickguard area as a tactile reference. The only time I don’t is when I mess around with elbow-driven uwps.

[Judmeister]

Well try to do the old mechanic but in only smaller segments of time. Start slow then increase by 2 BPM for each pass through. If you use the elbow are you primary Up then cause that is what I use and get the most speed from? Im not much from solidly anchoring the hand perse but thats cause im an upward pick slanter and it would not be to practical to do unless your MAB that is. The thing about tension is that it creeps in but maybe your lines are to long to start out with. Start at 16s at 50 BPM and do only like 4 the quarter note rest in between up to 120. Then go back to 50 and maybe do 8 16 notes in a row. and so on and so on. For this part just focus on your picking hand so use chromatic type fingering or just one note on the fretting hand see how that goes. I also use wrist deviation but when i want sonic speed in turns to elbow and wirst which i can do but my fretting hand cant keep up so. I go in between hands to get them to sync.