Tempo and String-hopping Question

Playing Technique
#13

It’s very difficult to give a general answer.

I think an approach that seems fairly reliable is to always compare the speed of the picking motion under investigation to the speed of a table tapping test that is fairly similar to it.

Are they close enough? You’re good.

Is the picking significantly slower than the tap test? There may be a problem.

Of course you don’t need to play close to your top speed at all times. But you want to know that the motion you are using is at least capable of doing it, even if they playing gets sloppy.

2 Likes
#14

Ahhh copy - so I am thinking then that this pursuit is likely a waste of time then; I am nowhere close to the actual tempo and it is a slow mess, that is taking a very long time to get to where it needs to be.

Oh well, I guess the first clue should have been that it has taken so long to do this. Likely that I am simply incapable of this motion, whatever it is. Or at least incapable of realizing what to do that is close. Haha everyone else gets this in the first week that they do it it seems, so that would be another hint. Well, it is what it is. No big whup.

Thanks for letting me know!

1 Like
#15

Oops, sorry @Scottulus . I realized I never said plainly what @tommo mentioned (I must have just “thought” it or something). I said “capable” at least a couple times but I didn’t go as far as to say “can your motion go the same speed as Morse’s???”

I’ve seen more people take years to not get it still than I’ve seen people take 1 week to get it. I count myself as blessed that I got it in about a week. But, and again I hope this is encouraging, I don’t advertise myself as being able to play Tumeni Notes. Yes, on the good days I can get through the theme and the clean part near or at his speed, but I can’t really keep it going. This means, most likely, I too am “doing it wrong” on some level. I think there are different degrees of DBX for sure. I still say the speed you’re hitting isn’t string hopping. Maybe the thing to do is use that motion on some less adventurous stuff. Tumeni Notes is just Tu hard to be the introduction to this technique.

Part of my progress has been trying different DBX motions. It seemed like each one was a little better than the last. I think my progression went: Molly → Andy Wood → Steve Morse → (set back here) trying to copy Anton → whatever I’m doing now (pretty much Steve Morse motion, but an index pad to pad grip. Again that’s not saying any of these motions are better/worse than the other, it’s my implementation of them that has more vs less success. But do the speed test often. Play something just straight up DSX tremolo around 16ths at 150 bpm and use that as a litmus test for your DBX motion. If it doesn’t feel just as easy, search for another motion, don’t try to make the current one go faster, because it won’t.

This was the turning point for me from becoming someone who enjoyed the movies to becoming a full cliche Star Wars nerd – buying the (non cannon) book on Darth Plagueis. It’s so good. It was then that I fully decided the Jedi were the bad ones and that I’d picked the wrong side lol!

1 Like
#16

Ahhh all good, I can play Tumeni with hybrid picking at a pretty fast clip so I will just invest my energy into that. I tried lol

#17

I can’t recall seeing anyone get this down in a week. Finding a fast single escape tremolo yes, in many cases, but dbx type stuff… most people I’ve seen really struggle trying to get it going.

#18

I was able to find the motion in a week and documented it in my magnet diary thread for DBX.

Also, @cmcgee11235 got a DBX motion extremely quickly and had great progress

BUT…“finding the motion” and “Playing Tumeni Notes just like Steve” are very different things, at least in my experience. Maybe I still haven’t found the right one yet :thinking:

I will say, it’s really hard to get out of the mentality of “oh I just need to work on this more”. That’s the whole reason behind the “start with speed” approach that is so misunderstood. The good motions shouldn’t take long because they are “good”. They may take a while to find though. And I think that’s because we’re too diligent and think we just need more practice. If a motion can barely go 120, nothing’s going to speed it up past that. What we need is to devote that time to finding the right motion, and we’ll know it’s the right one because it will have speed capability almost immediately. So the one week it took me, was because I was constantly changing things until I got the right motion. Often, when I got it, it would disappear and I couldn’t tell what I’d changed to get it or lose it. Troy’s talked about this randomness being totally normal.

1 Like
#19

With something like this, 1nps type lines, I find it extremely difficult to know if a motion that I can do fast, but is essentially missing most of the notes/swiping//strumming, is actually something that can be cleaned up and work…

Maybe I’m not intuitive enough for this type of playing. Anyway, didn’t mean to derail this thread.

1 Like
#20

Not derailing at all :slight_smile: Seems pretty on topic to me. I know exactly what you mean though. How do you learn how to do something that you don’t know how to do yet?

My approach, which worked to some extent, was to use a very “stupid” fretting hand pattern so I could be sure the picking was what I focused on. For me, that was an ascending 4 note arpeggio (broken chord, let ring on clean channel). I tried very hard to only do things that felt “not hard”. For example, I’ve heard plenty of advice to “just learn a forward roll”. Well, I sucked at that, so I abandoned it. That’s when I decided to just work on 4 ascending notes. I found out that I could play the first 2 notes pretty fast. Then I added a third note, then finally all 4 notes. Before I knew what my hands were doing, they had “learned” a motion that could play 4 notes ascending fairly fast. I didn’t try to micromanage anything or “make a curved motion”. I just tried playing those 4 notes fast. I tried lots of different grips and picks and anchors, with lots of various “postures” (how supinated/pronated/flat my hand was)

At some point, I started associating the better feeling/sounding attempts with something I was asking my hands to do. And progress was slow but steady. Within a week, I had this:

Obviously I wasn’t ready to steal gigs from Andy Wood (and I still am not, and I never will be lol). BUT, I’d gotten “the motion” down. That was about a week after I started messing with the whole thing.

What I didn’t try doing was ripping through Tumeni notes though lol!

2 Likes
#21

See now, I am dumb AF and I try crazy stuff like that! :grinning:Honestly, I am quite happy just learning the notes - being able to play them quickly is a bonus, and although I can play it pretty quick I always wanted to play it like Steve Morse does.

Y’know, I thought about it and worst case scenario? I develop either extremely fast string hopping skills or very well honed systematic swiping abilities. I am honestly okay with either.

Still, good to know; I am a string hopper. Worst fears realized! Ahhh it’s not so bad… lol

1 Like
#22

PS, your stuff sounds really awesome, Joe! Well done, man!

1 Like
#23

Thanks dude. I have a ways to go but I have come a ways too and good or bad, there’s rarely a day I don’t enjoy playing. Such a fun instrument we have.

I felt bad after hearing you say you were going to just hybrid pick it. Nothing wrong with that but I believe you can conquer dbx. Just remember…it’s “a trick” we have to teach our hands. If I can “sort of do it” there’s no reason stopping anyone else.

1 Like
#24

Naw, nothing to feel bad about! If anything, it should be me that feels bad for torturing poor Tommo! hahaha poor guy… :grimacing:

I don’t know, dude - I think that your “sort of doing it” sounds pretty awesome. I think you’ll really be doing even more cool stuff with it as time goes.

I’ve been hybrid picking for a while, it comes quite naturally and I can already play Tumeni with it; I also have a fairly tragic “sweep” version.

1 Like
#25

Thanks for that tip. Once I dive into this sort of playing again, which is inevitable, I will remember this approach.

1 Like
#26

@Scottulus 2 comments:

  1. generally speaking, you don’t have a string-hopping problem. You have plenty motions that go fast enough!

  2. I would really like to see / hear your hybrid picked approach to Tumeni. I don’t really see why hybrid picking should be considered a somewhat less desirable skill than “playing all the notes with the pick” :slight_smile:

1 Like
#27

Oh Tommo, I must have misunderstood? I thought your post earlier in this thread meant that I am hopping?

Sure I can put together a clip of hybrid picked Tumeni this weekend. It works, and it’s a very, very powerful tool I wouldn’t trade for anything but there’s a sort of rhythmic peculiarity that comes with multiple finger hybrid picking.

DBX is another colour I’d like to have access to if that makes sense…?

#28

That was why I embarked. For years I was a snob and thought I didn’t need to waste my efforts on a technique I already “had” since I’m a strong fingerstyle player. Fast picked arpeggios? No problem!!! I cannot get the same articulation fingerstyle that I can get crosspicking though, it’s a different color in the palette for sure.

EDIT:

Definitely curious what @tommo replies but as this is a public forum, I’ll add what I think: what you posted was not string hopping but if the absolute fastest you can make it go is a good 40BPM below the target tempo, there is a lack of efficiency in the motion. You may be able to do some crosspicking things with it at lower tempos, but the motion itself is just not maximally efficient. Continuing to practice with it likely won’t speed it up because it’s maxed out. Now, if you told me you can move this particular motion at the target speed but it’s an absolute trainwreck…that’s a different story. That means the motion is good but there are accuracy issues and accuracy issues are a different ball game than a speed limit.

1 Like
#29

@Scottulus sorry I did not mean to confuse you — see what @joebegly just said :slight_smile:

When I said you don’t have a string-hopping problem, I meant that you do have at least some motions that go fast.

I would say someone has a stringhopping problem if they have no way whatsoever of picking fast, even on a single string.

#30

I can do a sloppy version, same motion at 208 (8th triplets) no problem; Then there IS a potential for success with this…

Apologies, I am dense… confused easily. Old age I would suspect…

1 Like
#31

Lots of great advice here!

@Scottulus how do you fare with something like the intro to Technical Difficulties, or even Cult of Personality?

2 Likes
#32

Yeah, a really awesome thread - good info.

Actually, I played both of those tunes quite a bit and never really had a problem with either one. I might have to take another look, there’s always stuff that needs work, polishing etc. But really, once you get past having to practice the crap out of those riffs, it’s not too bad! lol

1 Like