I haven’t gone through all the videos yet, but do you ever discuss how to approach having to change positions with EDC? I think in your video discussing fours, you just stayed on the same frets going across the neck, but it would be cool to see what changes one has to make with EDC when having to change fret numbers or finger position, especially with reverse cycles. Let me know if that doesn’t make sense and I can clarify further?
In the 13th video titled “Transitions and Turnarounds” he covers that. I just found this out the other day, but with a youtube playlist you can click the icon in the upper right hand corner and it shows you the titles of each video in the playlist. I’m such a newb lol. Either way, have a look through the titles as it may give you some cherry picking immediate answers if you’re already pretty familiar with the concept of EDC.
Hi @carranoj25. If you mean shifting position between iterations of a pattern based on a particular EDC, you just shift your hand as you normally would. It absolutely requires practice to begin making such a position shift, but it’s not really all that much of a tripping point if you’re used to position shifts generally.
If you mean swtiching between the different EDCs, I cover that in the video mentioned by @joebegly. You use the same idea of incorporating a slide to give you more time to execute the position shift, even without changing cycle direction.
YES! Tom! Finally! Can’t wait to go through these!
1 Like
I’ll have to watch the videos again, but I think it’s my problem because I was expecting something different I think. At the moment, I would condense this whole topic as “fretting efficiency” by giving your fingers enough of a break between fretting actions by utilizing all fingers at your disposal, I just assumed everyone already did that? Or again, maybe I’m not understanding the topic and there’s something else that I’m missing. For those that learn by knowing what the wrong thing is and avoiding it, perhaps a quick video in which you play a riff with inefficient fingerings, then again with EDC.
This reminds me of the fret hand version of what bassists that use 3 fingers would map out for the picking hand to maximize speed / minimize fatigue.
I’m trying to find the portion that explains why you don’t opt for 134 /431 fingerings as well.
Regardless, I appreciate the content and your willingness to discuss it.
It’s not about using all fingers at your disposal. If it were, I’d be advocating using combinations of all four fingers.
As for giving fingers time between fretting actions, that’s really only part of it.
I think I see what you’re missing.
The point of EDCs isn’t that you take some lick you want to play, but may be fingering inefficiently and then try apply EDCs to that lick. That’s not the point, it’s not what I’m trying to communicate. Yes, there are certainly optimizations and improvements to make in how we choose to fret certain sequences, and perhaps I’ll write about that and give some guiding framewark for that in future. However, EDCs are not a recipe you follow that will boost your current vocabulary to Shawn Lane type speeds.
The point is that there are exactly two inequivalent fretting cycles which are maximally efficient in general. Exactly two, the forward cycle and the reverse cycle. The point is that Shawn Lane’s fastest playing is fundamentally based upon these two cycles and efficient transitions and turnarounds between them. The point is that all of Shawn Lane’s fastest playing is entirely composed of licks, patterns and melodic lines which are based upon these two fundamental frettign cycles and efficient transitions and turnarounds between them. Almost all of his fast vocabularly was based upon two coordinations. The point is that Shawn Lane was so fast because his vocabularly was constructed according to these principles.
What I’m trying to do, is give you the tools to begin developing your own vocabularly of licks and patterns which can be played at Shawn Lane type speeds. The point of learning and understanding these ideas is not to play like Shawn Lane, just as the point of learning and understanding USX is not to play like Yngwie Malmsteen.
Maybe I’m not communicating this correctly.
Video 14, “Why not other combinations?”
I’ve seen you playing, you’ve got some real skill. I’d love for you to “get” what I’m trying to communicate to you, I’d love to see what you can make of it.
1 Like
I think this drove the point home for me, not sure if you just phrased it in a way that more clearly stated the intent for me.
Huge oversight on my part, not sure why that didn’t load on my playlist.
Thank you for that, I’ll try to better understand these concepts and try to come up with something!
2 Likes
Tom, I watched most of the videos and found them convincing and thorough - thanks for sharing all this awesome work. If you want to improve the presentation, I suggest changing the bottom-up format to a top-down approach where you lead with a couple characteristic examples of Shawn Lane’s playing and explain afterwards - that might better capture the viewer’s attention. I feel like the first video could get the main message across while being relatively short (maybe not 5 mins, but still) - you can then refer to other videos for more explanation, math principles (least common multiples, etc.), and more examples.
Here’s a rough outline I imagine for an intro video - I know this misses many points but let me know if I misunderstood the core idea.
- Hi I’m Tom - since I was a teenager I’ve been fascinated by Shawn Lane’s playing (Show a clip of Shawn Lane shredding)
- After spending years studying Shawn Lane’s playing in detail, I found that his fastest playing, surprisingly uses just 2 fretting sequences that I call Efficient Digital Cycles. EDCs, ingeniously combined with smart picking strategies (refer to CTC, and for brevity maybe do not discuss picking in the rest of the video) might be key to how Shawn achieved such blistering speeds.
- To understand EDCs, let’s take a look at these two of Shawn’s phrases (show 2 clips of Shawn Lane shredding using the same EDC). They sound completely different melodically (can skip details of note groupings and notes on rate - again for brevity), but guess what (zoom into his fingers with slowed-down clips): the finger sequence is the same: 1-2-4 1-2-4… This sequence is the “forward” EDC.
- Although some notes fall on different strings and the sequence starts on different fingers, the sequence repeats throughout. This is the core of the EDC concept, and is used by Shawn to create a vast vocabulary of melodically and rhythmically interesting yet fast phrases that are streamlined for the fretting hand.
- This also appears in reverse in Shawn’s playing (similarly show and analyze two different melodic patterns with the “reverse” EDC).
- These two cycles, “forward” and “reverse”, are efficient because each finger is only used once every 3 notes. Other finger combinations (e.g. 1-2-1, 2-1-2 …) would reuse a finger more frequently than these two EDCs, limiting the max speed the pattern can be played.
- Caveats: what about 1-3-4 and 4-3-1 cycles? Or why not use 4 fingers if we are to maximize the time/number of notes between each finger use? Check out this other video where I discuss the anatomy of the fretting hand and Shawn’s posture that explain why he doesn’t use these sequences.
- If you found this video interesting also check out these other videos for more examples of EDCs in Shawn’s playing and analysis of how you could use them in your playing.
5 Likes
I want a second pinky to play 145, damn
@Tom_Gilroy haven’t had a chance to check out that particular video yet but this is what I was gonna guess, the shared / overlapping connective tissue in the ring and pinky.
2 Likes
Haha, oops! Fixed 
1 Like
Thank you, I’m very glad that they were of interest to you.
This is an excellent idea. The bottom-up structure is what I’m most comfortable with because of my academic and professional training, but I see that it requires a sizeable investment of time and attention from a viewer. This appraoch gets the viewers interested early and may convince them that the content is worth their time and attention.
Thank you so much for taking the time to put that together. It absolutely gets the “big idea” across quickly without the viewer getting drowned in the details.
Yes, I think you’ve understood the core idea and the impact of that idea.
My plan was never for this to be the final version of this video series (it an unlisted playlist of unlisted videos, the CTC forum is my test audience). Mostly, I wanted to test the structure of the presentation, and start getting myself acclimated to being in front of the camera. I do intend to record this with some better scripting and editing, and with higher production values.
I think the video that you gave the outline for could be the key ingrediant that helps to draw attention to my longer for presentation. I could see it being shared on guitar forums, social media pages, etc.
Again, thank you so much.
1 Like
Great feedback from @spirogyro 
For what it’s worth, even in an academic setting I’m trying to do a bit more of the top-down approach [“at the end of this lesson you will know XYZ”, “this lecture is very technical and seemingly abstract but stick with it because you will gain new powers” etc. etc. ]. I think it just grabs a wider percentage of the audience in most situations.
Additionally, there may be benefits to the learning process if the student has a clear idea of the end goal. In the past (in fact it still happens) I had so many students asking me “why do we have to learn all this stuff? what’s the application?”. If you answer these questions before they can ask them, saves you work
3 Likes
Hi @Tom_Gilroy - I was going to keep watching (I’m halfway) but the video seems unavailable - is this on purpose (e.g. you plan to post an update) - or something else happened?
Great stuff so far
I don’t know what’s causing that @tommo. The videos are unlisted but they should be visible to anybody with the links.
Is it just later videos or is the whole playlist unavailable?
Almost through all the videos and I think this is interesting stuff. I still don’t fully grasp the concept but I get some of the ideas. I think what could be really helpful (at least to me and hopefully to others haha) would be to take a common challenging lick that many people learn to play a “wrong” way or without EDC and show us how you would use EDC to play the lick, but not just use Shawn Lane Power of Ten licks although those cover a wide array of challenging licks.
This is what I see:
This is what happens when I click (same result if I try to open it via youtube in a separate window):
I guess the issue is, it’s not global. Not all challenging licks could be “converted” to an EDC. Plus, this may be veering from the point, which Tom addressed earlier in this thread:
Then I guess I missed the mark lmaooo. Just kidding. I understand the Main point of all this is that SLane constucted his fastest playing based on these principles. But I think there is room in all this to expand and learn how to maybe apply this to licks that are challenging to someone, subjectively of course.
Right, I definitely see how that could be beneficial. I’m also not able to view the playlist so I can’t provide a direct reference. Did you see the section where Tom actually demonstrated several patterns? It was near the end of the playlist. They weren’t just the Lane patterns either. In theory you could take some of these and do the inverse of what you’re suggesting - play these patterns with some other set of fingerings and compare that to what’s demonstrated. Maybe the same net result?
Which video are you talking about specifically? I went through most but definitely need to go through again with fresh ears/eyes to hear for more details