The worst guitar advice ever: “small movements are fast”

Playing Technique
#29

Thanks for the insights, Troy!

Can you give me a hint, what ECR, FCR, PT and BRD mean (figured TRI out on my own :wink:
Ironically again one can interpret this as “small movements are fast” and fall into the coincidence/causality trap. It’s probably more like “very fast movements are small” as you stated.

At least we can say “very large movements are slow”.
Is the hyperpicking data available in a better resolution? In the picture above the waveform is almost invisible but this seems to be more due to the axis scaling caused by the larger movements.

Thomas

#30

Very fast movements that change direction rapidly are small

#31

What is very large? What is slow? I mean, Eddie Van Halen’s tremolo motion produces motions that look giant to me, well over 200bpm. And I think of that as very fast. The whole motion “size” thing has very little practical relevance to me as something to think about since it’s so arbitrary, and something that results from a range of choices rather than something I can really control directly anyway.

1 Like
#32

I’ve become reasonably good with the Van Halen tremolo, with the plectrum held at the top and with the middle finger, and it is easier to get that first contact on the string played that way, even though you’d think not.

#33

Ok, that’s a different motion. But regarding just one specific motion, with increasing frequency either the acceleration has to rise, meaning more force (or in case of VHs tremolo technique torque) or the amplitude needs to be lower (smaller motion). That’s just physics. And as force is limited, along with increasing frequency there needs to be a decline in amplitude (motion width) at some point.

A different aspect in my opinion with larger movements is, that the pick hits the string with greater velocity, so the duration of contact is smaller which should produce a cleaner pick attack.
Meaning a small pick travel distance at speeds far from maximum is probably disadvantageous.

Tom

#34

Yes, totally. I think these things just get taken way out of context to where the entire conversation always gets reduced to small is faster, and “doing small” is the way to be faster. After all, just because Eddie’s motion “looks” large doesn’t mean the range of motion at the forearm joint is actually large — his wrist is flexed, after all. If it were straight, he’d get a much smaller radius pick travel with the same exact joint motion.

From what I’ve seen so far, hyperpicking just seems to generate that kind of ratio of frequency to force, i.e. resulting in a smaller motion. Why? I don’t know. But players who can do it describe it differently than other picking motions, variously as a “spasm” or “vibration”, or if you’re @milehighshred, a “jiggle”. No picking motion that I personally know how to do looks or feels anything like that. Even when I do elbow motion, which hyperpicking nominally seems to be, I don’t get a hyperpicking-style feel or motion:

That’s about as fast as I can pick, and thinking “small” doesn’t make the motion any smaller or any faster. To get to that speed, I have to apply power, and this is just what it ends up looking like. It’s clear to me that what I’m doing here is not mechanically the same as hyperpicking, even though there’s motion at the elbow joint. If that’s true, I actually think that’s pretty cool. Are there are different muscle chains you can use to move the elbow? Who knew.

So basically I think that these motions may each work somewhat differently at a neuro / muscular / mechanical level, and that doing them well might require thinking about and focusing on a different feel for each of them to get the best results.

1 Like
Muscles engaged/stressed for different motion mechanics?
#35

Yes, the middle finger grip isn’t nearly as weird as you’d think. And the EVH technique is a fun way to try it out without worrying about any heavy commitment to doing anything else with it! It’s like learning the moonwalk.

#36

How much force or torque are we talking about, though? Your statement is correct in the abstract, but the mass in question is small. If we aren’t anywhere near our force limit, then increasing the force required to switch directions doesn’t limit our speed.

The bottleneck for speed in alternate picking doesn’t appear to be force. In my personal experience, it seems to be switching speed. Small movements in my picking aren’t any faster than big ones.

#37

Interesting point.
The mass in question is not just the pick, but milehighshreds forearm plus hand. And to me it looks like a lot of mass. There definitely is a force limit to speed as the clipping of the activationsensors also indicate. If there is another limit at a lower speed is unknown.

No, but at some point there has to be a fast movements are smaller than slow ones but we don’t know the transition speed.

The maximum Switching frequency is a valid point. And I guess “neuron firing frequency” might be something that can be improved by practice, but I don’t know to what extent.
Maybe that is what differentiates hyperpicking form “regular” picking. It might not be pick-pick-pick-pick-… or even ChunkOfPicks-ChunkOfPicks-ChunkOfPicks-… but just “shake arm”.

Very interesting, but I think also very irrelevant to actual music-making :wink:

Thomas

#38

I’m not sure I follow the part about clipping the sensors or the lower speed limit.

Obviously there is a limit on how much force you can apply. The question is how close we are to that limit when we pick as fast as we can with a more-or-less empty hand. We can disagree on what constitutes a lot of mass, but if I approach my force limit, I would expect fatigue, muscle burn, etc. I experience none of those things. I can pick at my upper limit pretty much infinitely without getting tired or sore. Meanwhile, my maximum tremolo speed does not seem to depend on my amplitude, at least up to a few inches. I conclude that the amount of force required to do this is not especially high compared to my limit, and not likely to be the limiting factor in my picking speed.

But this is all probably mechanic-dependent, and may not hold true for everyone. I also don’t pick as fast as milehighshred, so there’s that.

Edit: Having thought about it overnight, I think I understand what you mean about the lower speed limit now. This post is my argument in its favor.

#39

I have currently convinced myself that (1) hyperpicking is some kind of resonant effect and it is magical and beyond my current comprehension, and (2) regular picking is limited by neurological factors, where speed comes from simple motions and not having needless antagonistic muscular conflict. “Flip time” is likely the rate-limiting concern.

I am convinced that the “small motion” camp is well intentioned but missing the important factors.

#40

I use small motions and I can pick 16th note patterns across 2 - 3 strings at 160 -170 bpm and move them about, in a musical sense.

I thought about being economical while learning ( i’m still learning ) but didn’t put any specific limits to it.

I do find technique becomes more forgiving when you get the motions correct, and you get better at it - same as anything else.

#41

I’m not really a speedster, but when it comes to playing >200 bpm, I try to get the maximum linear movement with the minimal muscle movement. So I tend to rely on elbow + a raised wrist, so that the forearm rotation has the most effect on the linear speed of the pick.

This is pretty similar to MAB’s form, but I still do have remnants of my slower form, and I don’t lock my fingers.

#42

That’s about as fast as i can go.

I still believe some people have this extra thing going on ( whatever that is) to make these ultra fast motions.
How hard we “nomal” humans try, we will never get this ultra high speed going on.

A friend of mine can do this ultra fast motion pushing u button.
We tested this with pushing the button on an old sampler. He could do it ultra fast, and how hard i tried (even after practicing for months) i just could not come even close to his speed.
Also on the guitar on a single string with no left hand fingerings he can reach speeds almost twice as fast as me.

Inplay for over 30 years now and my max speed on a single string is the same as when i started. Only thing that has developed is keeping time and crossing strings faster.

#43

What you say makes perfect sense. The interesting question is if your friend, if hooked up to instrumentation, looks “different” that you, and if that difference can be learned or is intrinsic to his musculature or nervous system.

I recall in one Olympics there was a sprinter so fast off the blocks (reacting to the gunshot) that they thought that he was cheating, so they tested, and he was just faster.

#44

A metronome at 200bpm gives 13.3 sixteenth notes per second, so the upper bound on flip time is 75ms, not a lot of time.

#45

200 ist my max on a single string, if I am warmed up.
I can’t do it long though. The movements are very small with very little force using a downward pickslant.
So I do believe smaller motions are necessary to reach these kind of speeds where you also still can control the time. Also I use very little force.

#46

Yeah, that is the question. Can one learn to find the pathways to get those ultra fast movements.
I would have to say no, because I tried and tried and tried… with 0 result.
And my friend could not teach me. He just doesn’t know what he is doing different. To him it is just the same as I do, making fast movements.

#47

Look here from 1:22.
My friend can almost reach that same speed.
How he does it he just can’t explain.

#48

Whew…hey ya’ll, im Dutch. ya know ive been watching Troys stuff on youtube for a couple yrs. now and really have gotton a great deal from his lessons, so I finally decided to join the group and check it out…Whoa, lmao…looks like im way outta my league. 200 bpm 16ths. thats awesome stuff but seriously Im thinkin I havnt used my dictionary this much in yrs. lol. is this thread like the normal way of talking on here? no not that its bad at all, heck I even learned a bunch of new words…lol. anyhow, thanx for the insights I get from all of your comments I can use them. just wanted to introduce myself, I probley wont comment often but im listening…have a Great new year and agine, thanx…Dutch.

2 Likes