Tension in the upper arm when maintaining speed

Technique Critique
#1

Heya!

So, I’m in this annual phase where I drive myself crazy with practicing and picking instead of actually working on music.

I try to focus on my wrist technique and synchronization, especially since the latter has always been my pet peeve.

If I look back a couple of years I have probably improved overall but now that I’m focusing again a bit on getting accuracy under speed I notice a couple of things. One of my main issues is that I tense up when trying to maintain a higher tempo for a longer time. Repeated bursts with a quick break in between are no issues but maintaining for example 12bpm 16th triplets for longer phrases is an issue.

I quickly recorded two videos demonstrating it, both going from 96bpm to 120bpm (16th triplets).

Besides me feeling the tension (in the upper arm but also the shoulder) I think you can also see it, at least I think so (and I feel like it’s starting from the upper arm, biceps, etc):

pickingstuff
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Also it looks like the elbow wants to engage a bit?

Generally this issue is better one some days than on others but usually I can only even attempt to somewhat do it OK after some warm up, so definitely not cold.

What I’m currently trying to do is to stop when I feel the tension, shake it off and start again, but no clue if that’s even the right approach or if I should rethink something else from ground up.

Cheers!

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#2

If you watch Paul Gilbert, even at his best back in the day, that muscle (brachioradialis) flexes whenever he picks fast - not that the elbow is moving, but maybe it acts as a stabilizer (just randomly guessing). You’ll also see Anton Oparin activate it. So, I wouldn’t say it’s “wrong” or anything.

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#3

I’m struggling to see anything wrong with your technique.

About the muscle getting engaged at higher speeds and the elbow trying to move a little, I must ask:

  1. Does it hurt so you have to stop to avoid injury or are you following an arbitrary notion of how fast picking should feel?

  2. What’s wrong with allowing some elbow to be part of the equation? Countless professionals (probably subconsciously) rely on some elbow at higher speeds for an extra boost and I don’t see any negatives in doing it. If memory serves me well, Andy Wood, one of the most admired modern pickers, seems to add some elbow for the faster stuff and it doesn’t seem to bother his playing at all.

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#4

Thanks to both of you for your replies!

My issue is that I cannot maintain that for a longer time. The duration in the clips is probably the max and that’s also only after longer warmup with some added luck. Also the synchronization falls apart, so I’m wondering if I’m doing something completely wrong or it’s just a matter of keep going.

/edi: partly the reason why I thought again about the tension and so on is because I rewatched some of Kevin’s old videos (example below is 200bpm 16th) and there for example at least I don’t see much (if any) brachioradialis engagement. But also he’s one the the absolut top players out there, so… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Maybe it’s a red herring and I should focus on something else, but hence this thread :smiley:

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#5

That’s an awesome wrist motion there - I’d only heard his name in passing before, but never actually listened to him or saw any video. Do you know if he is still this “wristy”? I ask because I have seen other famous players who looked like only the hand moved and everything else was practically asleep when they were younger, but that became less so as they aged.

Anyway, this is something I’ve chased sporadically for just about the entire time I’ve played (which is a long time haha). I don’t really know how you do it, whether it requires a very specific way of moving or a very specific way of practice. I wish I did.

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#6

KH is an insanely good guitarist.

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#7

Yeah you can check out his more recent videos on YouTube. I feel like he’s gotten even better. He’s the guy who started the whole “Necrophagist but 20% faster” thing which is an insane thing to say alone :smiley:

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#8

He seems to be using subtle elbow motion to generate speed.

I kinda find it challenging to elbow-pick without some sort of tension.

#9

Your picking looks and sounds great from my side. Keep in mind (assuming your top speed is around 120bpm) that there will be tension (and potentially some forearm/elbow movement) especially near your top speed.

As others have noted, even very ‘wristy’ players often have some sort of combined movement with the elbow at higher tempos. Troy discusses this specifically in the Obsidian seminar. My understanding of things is that generally the elbow movement is a byproduct of the wrist movement, or a ‘helper’ motion that is largely unconscious.

I think you have a great foundation so instead of micromanaging what your upper arm/forearm might be doing maybe focus on pushing your speed limit with burst work, and also some specific endurance practice.

As an example, maybe do this same 6 note pattern at 140bpm or higher. Don’t go for perfection, just try and get a few repetitions and push your limits. I find just going way past your maximum tempo is crucial for increasing speed. Secondly, you could do some stamina work whereby you keep the same pattern and try and play it for 2+ minutes straight at say 100bpm. Do maybe a couple of sets of this.

Within a week or so, go back to your current tempo of say 120bpm and reassess.

Hope that helps!

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#10

That sounds reassuring, thanks :slight_smile:

I’d not want to micromanage but rather figure out if the stamina reason comes from unnecessary muscle activation or whether what I’m doing generally seems fine and it’s only a matter of continuing with it.

Because speedwise I can do it for a shorter amount of time. Well, actually at least in the video it was even for a longer period than I thought but it’s not yet there where I could do that reliably. I can also go faster in bursts, 140bpm 16th triplets is also doable but then only for a beat or two. I have actually sometimes double-checked by recording the DI and slow down the recording or count the pickstrokes in the DI to ensure I’m actually doing that tempo, so at least on that end I know where I am :sweat_smile:

But yeah that there’s always some tension near the limit and that I gotta increase the limit then makes sense so I will try pushing the speed a bit and see how it goes. Thanks!

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#11

apologies, my answer skipped over the tension aspect of your original post, but the ideas presented should help with that. The general idea is that the more you increase your baseline tempo, the easier slower tempos will be and the less tension you should have.

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#12

This detail alone leads me to think you might benefit from going back to the very fundamentals of tremolo picking because an efficient motion should not require more than a couple of minutes to dial in your attack (and perhaps even less than that).

The good news is that, in my opinion, you are very well positioned because your picking motion looks like a textbook example of efficiency, however, there might be a temporary catch that I’ll try to explain the way it feels in my hands which might be totally wrong but it kinda makes sense for my own purposes: your hands and your brain already know how to play fast but the order to execute the picking motion fades away as it travels from your brain to your hand, which probably leads you to overcompensate by tensing more than you should. Please note that there will be a level of tension when playing fast but there is a sweet spot that allows you to play fast without feeling like your arm is going to fly away.

The synchronicity seminar sounds like a great workout plan for this kind of stuff.

PS: Don’t reject some elbow motion if it comes naturally. Embrace it! :smiley:

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#13

To add some additional infos, I’m talking about 15-20min warmup. I generally need warmup to play anything somewhat fast and precise. Also on the left hand. Just take the guitar and instantly go never ever worked for me in any regard besides rhythm playing.

#14

Warming up is fine. I do it as it feels nice. However, I spent decades with the feeling that I could perform technical stuff only after warming up because my hands would not respond well otherwise but imagine my surprise when I discovered my technique could use some fine-tuning and my old warmup requirement went away in a matter of days.

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#15

I’ll get there one of these days! lmao

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#16

Yeah well I guess the problem is to know which fine-tuning :laughing:

Problem is: I feel like my fastest, most effortless tremolo is pretty worthless for anything else but single string tremolo because I have to lift my wrist off the bridge into the air so muting is impossible (I know Troy’s “no muting no problem” video about this but relying on other things to not have noise is a nogo for me) and also it’s mostly a trapped motion. So yeah I can use it for some Black Metal stuff, but unless I would be able to do it with the wrist on the bridge I see no way of using this for regular picking.

I think I really gotta take some days off playing because I’ve been grinding lately and the balance between frustration and positive results is off right now :smiley:

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#17

What to fine tune? That sounds like a great start.