The curse of the string hopper!

Technique Critique
#1

Hi, Mike here from Stoke in England. I thought my string hopping was on the way out, having been using the upward pick slant which seems to reduce it.It kicks in somewhere north of the 90 bpm mark ( this vid shows 90 which is ok, then 120 which is clearly not !) However, I have been trying to do some Zakk Wylde type pentatonic licks, as shown, and they just don’t sound right starting on an upstroke. Besides which, the curse of stringhoppypox affects every aspect of picking, even with an upward pick slant so I feel I need to defeat this demon once and for all. Any help much appreciated !

#2

Hi @Rampo,

Forget the zakk wylde for the moment - how fast and fluid can you go with a tremolo? Just banging away on one note?

#3

Without a metronome going I might add…

#4

Hi Mike! Yep, that’s stringhopping. It’s a type of inefficient joint motion. “Pickslanting” is just whatever the pick looks like when you hold it. It doesn’t tell you much about what’s going to happen when you start moving. So trying to hold the pick in such a way that it appears “slanted” isn’t the solution, and starting on upstrokes or downstroke isn’t the solution either. The solution is, you need a better picking motion! The one you’re using, stringhopping, doesn’t work.

@PickingApprentice has it right, taking the tremolo test is probably the simplest answer. But before you do that, have you watched the latest update to the Primer yet? It is tailor made for your situation. You can test your speed, try out different joint motions to find ones that work, and watch case studies of players dealing with stringhopping issues to see how they fixed them:

If you want to take a spin through those chapters, that would probably be the fastest route to solving your current issue. It would also be valuable feedback for us because we want to make sure we are really helping solve problems like yours as quickly as possible. The sooner you can get a good motion going, the sooner you can get on to the business of making music.

Let us know how you make out1

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#5

I’ve just been through them . Currently at work but looking forward to doing an unmetronomed tremelo video later on today !

#6

So, here’s my first go at it, can’t do it for long, but there are little bursts of something to work with I hope !

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#7

Hi Mike! This looks 1000% percent better. No hopping here at all, as far as I can tell. Are you holding back at all on this test in terms of speed, or is this what it looks like going all out, as fast as you can go? I only ask because we’re just looking for all out here.

Did you take the table tap tests and what tempo numbers did you reach on those? If you didn’t take them, please do, because that helps evaluate what speeds we should be seeing on a guitar.

#8

Hi Troy, I forgot to note down my speeds when I did this the other day, though I went to the end of the line with all I think. So just rechecked. The door knock is about 240, the EVH pen swish is 230, the ADM pick lottery card scratch 220, and the elbow picking 250 . So I guess there is a little bit more under the bonnet when it comes to tremelo picking, though the problem with actually playing a gtr is that there is a tendency for my wrist to extend away from the strings as I play, which is probably where the whole instability thing comes from. I maybe need stronger flexors ?!

#9

Sorry didn’t see this until now. Nice numbers! Those are faster than mine. So all your parts are in working order.

No, this has nothing to do with strength, or building up wrist flexors. It’s unlikely that whatever you’re noticing with your hand has anything to do with making you slow either. This is just a matter of performing the motion on a guitar the same way you do on the table. It simply requires experimentation and trial and error.

When you’re playing the instrument, if something doesn’t feel right, don’t assume it will automatically get better or you need more “reps”. Try to change something about your form, or your relaxtion, until it feels smoother. Even if you can only figure out how to get to 80% of your table speeds, that’s still a lot of speed. So you have plenty of room for error here.

#10

Thanks Troy. The othe motion is the wrist rotation , which is the kind of thing one needs for funk playing, which I do quite a bit of. I can rotate with a pick on a table top about 220 , so there is plenty of underlying speed. The problem is that the buffeting of the strings causes the motion to go off the rails, and then I think that the stringhopping is my default getting it back on track motion. Though as you say, the more I focus on relaxation, the more I can continue.