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
I don’t remember and I can’t see the playlist to find the title. When Youtube starts behaving again I’ll find it.
Hi @tommo,
I created a hyperlink, this seems to be an issue with the embedding.
Can anybody confirm to me if this has fixed the issue?
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Working for me with the direct link, thanks!
It’s the 12th video that outlines some patterns that are a happy path for both hands. So, maybe try some of the as described, then try with different fingerings and see if you feel the difference and see the benefit?
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@Tom_Gilroy I ended up writing some riffs with the forward / backward concept, definitely feel fluid and sound-wise resonate with Shawn Lane.
Personally the only thing that I can’t break from is throwing in some alternating fingers (e.g. 1212 cycles or 1313, 3434) since I like the “trill” sound every once in a while. Also, I might be an outlier with this, but 134 / 431 doesn’t feel any more foreign to me than 124 /421. I might try to come up with something as fast as I can play to see if the 134 “bottleneck” becomes more apparent.
Awesome! I’d love to hear more about how you get on incorporating these ideas into your playing. I’ve mapped out a number of EDC based patterns, some are “pick perfect” and should, in principle, be maximally efficient for both hands. With others, I can’t find all-picked solutions which are efficient and I incorporate hammers (ascending, descending and from nowhere).
What’s really amazing to me is how quickly I seem to be able to learn these new patterns. With the patterns I’ve practiced (not as many as I’ve mapped out), once I have the pattern chunked in symmetric position, I’m able to begin playing that pattern at similar speeds to the other EDC patterns I have previously developed without much difficulty.
I think I’m past “proof of concept” in my own playing, but I’m very interested to hear how trying to incorporate these ideas works for others.
I can play some of these patterns at my top speed with (1 3 4), but my extensors don’t like it. After a few reps I begin to feel some strain. Perhaps others won’t experience this, but I definitely feel it. It seems to be unavoidable for me, with my hands, in the fretting posture that I use to play these patterns at my highest speeds. My posture is similar to Shawn’s and my hands are quite similar in size and proportions, and I find it very interesting that Shawn also avoided (3 4) transitions in his playing. I’d be interested to hear if the bottleneck begins to manifest for others as they develop the fretting hand speed that EDC based patterns allow for.
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Would love to see the riffs that incorporate the concept too! Can you post them?
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@Tom_Gilroy @carranoj25 Here’s the second one I came up with that was more “speed focused”. The first, while I dig it, sounds cool but is slower since it’s got more jumping around on strings.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CNsq_1VAuyh/?igshid=10d7e19yc2jqf
The more I mess with it the more I think you struck gold with the EDC concepts. Really gives that Shawn Lane sound while being surprisingly easy to play, distilling most of the REH Lane material into EDC. I tend to avoid writing sixes riffs because I think they’re overdone, so I would just default to long scales to play fast stuff; this is a great way to not be linear while staying away from sixes. I tried to find you on Instagram to give you credit but couldn’t, I still mentioned you and the forum regardless!
Breakdown of this riff: I’ve been trying to come up patterns that fit in a 4-fret position (one finger per fret). So it’s a 4-5-4-5 style descent, but the last pattern omits the middle finger and just jumps to the last note, becoming 4-5-4-4. Picking is DBX I believe.
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@Pepepicks66 you rock! BUT…these aren’t EDC’s in your link https://www.instagram.com/p/CNsq_1VAuyh/?igshid=10d7e19yc2jqf lol
Still, great playing though.
I know you said you don’t feel a limitation when you combine the ring and pinky fingers. If you were to play the riff with only fingers 1, 2 and 3, do you think you could go faster?
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@joebegly I had mentioned to @Tom_Gilroy that 134 fingerings feel fine for me personally, and the speed limit to the riff I posted I’m pretty sure is the string changes for me. I could try to rewrite it to not be in the 4-fret box I mentioned and use 123 instead, would you like to try the riff out and see if the fingering is the limitation?
So…I am HORRIBLE with 1 3 4. So much so that I think I might have something wrong with my left hand. I tried for years to ‘fix’ it but gave up because there was no benefit for me. There was nothing (I was interested in playing, anyway) where I couldn’t re-finger to either 1 2 3 or 1 2 4 and it felt comfortable. One of the reasons Tom’s work has resonated with me is that I didn’t feel so bad about myself for sucking with 1 3 4 so much lol
I’ll give your riff a try. Immediately, the thing that jumps out to me is the ability to add some economy picking, which speed it up a lot for me. It will have to start on an upstroke for that, sort of like the Lane 4-note-5-note grouping lick.
EDIT: and sorry, I think during your edits I have references to 2 different videos of yours. The one I’m specifically talking about the economy picking is https://www.instagram.com/p/CNsq_1VAuyh/?igshid=10d7e19yc2jqf
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@joebegly from the players I’ve seen / met, 134 is definitely unusual, and pinky use in general is quite low. I do appreciate that @Tom_Gilroy mentions why he omitted 134 and steers his videos towards 124 and 123, since that would likely be beneficial to most guitarists.
If you stray from straight alternate picking, the limitation might become fingering, but that would take someone that’s actually good at economy / adding in hammer-ons to find out (not me lol).
Right, agreed. For years I was a guitar teacher (scary though, I know) and when I started showing people 3 nps patterns, it was always interesting what people gravitated towards. There were some who would prefer 1 3 4.
Not to speak directly for him, but my understanding of Tom’s work is due to anatomical reasons, at the absolute fastest speeds possible 1 3 4 will not cut it for long durations. There are some outliers, like Paul Gilbert (and maybe YOU too 
) BUT Paul Gilbert was not as fast as Shawn Lane’s top speeds.
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Hi @Pepepicks66, I think you have much more potential for left hand speed that you haven’t yet realised (in both sense of the word).
Your fretting posture is angled, which helps facilitate (3 4) combinations. I’ve mentioned this in other threads and in some other videos. This posture has some downsides, but it may explain why (3 4) feels more comfortable for you at this time.
Most of the Shawn Lane patterns I discussed are most comfortable for me with what I call a parallel posture, as it allows for you to move the hand as a unit. However, (3 4) combinations are much less comfortable in that posture.
My belief is that for the majority of us, (1 3 4) will be significantly less comfortable in a parallel fretting posture than other combinations for purely anatomical reasons, being the strong dependences between these fingers and the length differential. The degree to which this may affect us may be variable, but I definitely feel it and Shawn had a definite, conscious preference for avoiding (3 4) combinations.
If I adopt a parallel posture and move my fingers as fast as I possibly can, (1 3 4) or (4 3 1) cycles strain my extensors after a few repetitions, but I can burn through the other cycles all day and feel no discomfort. If @Pepepicks66 were to adopt a parallel posture and up his fretting speed, he may well begin to feel the same strain that I feel.
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These videos were very useful to me! Thanks a ton
A big part of my guitar playing development has been people saying, “Don’t use your pinky for that” and me ignoring them with excellent results
Your videos convinced me that I’ve taken my pinky stubbornness too far! I’ve been going through and replacing 134’s with 123’s wherever possible in my scale and arpeggio fingerings and feeling a lot more control.
I’ve been doing the scale section of Frank Gambale’s Chops Builder as a daily exercise the last few months because it is so completely exhausting for my hand. I’ve been slowly getting more and more endurance. Your videos made me realize that the 134s are the entire reason my hand is getting so tired. Now, it’s gone from a grueling endurance exercise to a super peaceful meditative exercise in literally a day! (I understand that going up and down a scale isn’t exactly what you’re talking about in the videos, but your observations are still super relevant)
Also, I’m glad that you mentioned that moving through sequences of thirds is so efficient for the left hand. I’ve always been able to fly through those until I get to the transition from the g to the b string and then I sometimes fumble. I’m realizing I’m less solid there because that’s where my fingering system becomes slightly less efficient. I’m coming up with new fingerings that are much stronger
When you’re trying to sequence third’s diatonically up on the higher strings do you stick to 3nps or do you drop a note on the g or b string to make the pattern in one position? I’m coming up with pretty good solutions to keep it 3nps, but this is the first time I’ve noticed the more conventional “one position” scale layout having an advantage