Don’t think “music” or “picking technique”. Don’t worry about keeping an even rate, or staying relaxed. Don’t think about form too much, but don’t tap with a finger movement or alternate fingers.
Just mash your spacebar as fast as you can for 10 seconds. Imagine it’s a competition and that you’ll win a million dollars if you can set the highest score.
Repeat this test about 5-6 times. Don’t be afraid to try different approaches. Post your results here, and try again a few more times over the next few days.
I’ve got some video but I’m having problems uploading it. The video is a .mov file. What do I convert it to and where do I go to convert it (I do have VideoPad though).
I’m having problems. Google won’t log me in. They asked me for my phone number and now they are saying that the phone number I entered is not the one I provided at an earlier date.
You see I think I already have a YouTube account because when I uploaded some videos for Chris Brooks to watch I probably would have had to make an account. But I don’t remember the password and now they are saying that my phone number does not match the one I provided to them.
I wonder if I should just try to make a brand new account.
And they are also asking for something strange. It’s called a Huawei Honor View 10. What the hell is that? They are telling me get my Huawei Honor View 10 and open the settings app.
I do not own any cell phones of any kind.
I think I’m getting a little further but now they want to send me a code but I think they think I have a cell phone which I don’t. They want to send me an SMS with a six digit confirmation code.
The playing in the clip sounds fine for that speed, but you’re not going to be able to get that any (or much) faster because it’s “string hopping”. At least for the most part. It’s very ‘bouncy’ looking.
Now interestingly, from about the 15 second mark to about 30 seconds, you use a different motion. It’s still the same speed (I think) BUT it looks like it’s possible to get it faster because it’s an inherently more efficient motion than the bouncy stuff. You’re just moving the pick away from the guitar on the down stroke, then back toward the guitar on the upstroke. That is a textbook downstroke escape (DSX) motion. So, one set of muscles initiates the down stroke, another set initiates the upstroke. Each set of antagonistic muscles gets a chance to rest while the other is doing its job. Since the tempo is about the same and it looks like you’re doing about half the work, that should be an indicator it’s worth pursuing, while the bouncy thing just is never going to get any faster.
I think given that more efficient motion, you could probably easily do one like this, it’s similar to a ‘scratch off’
That should be easily transferable to a guitar, you might have to mess with the grip/slant/edge picking until it feels smooth but that would give you plenty of speed.
Yes I deliberately did two different motions. The first motion was using my wrist. The second motion where I stopped for a second or two and showed you moving my pick real slowly, that was my attempt at doing an elbow motion.
I did suspect that I was doing string hopping. And I don’t know if there is a way to stop that.
I guess I will continue with trying to develop my elbow motion. I noticed that when I use the elbow it feels like there is more potential for speed. It almost feels easier. But right now it feels and sounds kind of rough and not very smooth.
I have a very fundamental question for you: at this moment, is there a preferred path that you would like your pick to move through? Please forgive my ugly art, but here are two example motions, where (1) the circles represent your strings [as viewed by the nut or bridge], (2) the dotted picks represent a pick at its extremes of motion, and (3) the dotted line represents the tip of the pick as it traces out over its motion.
When you play, what shape do you think the tip of your pick is tracing out?
This video explains string hopping. You can fix it, for sure.
I would suggest you not mess around with entirely different motions. String hopping is incredibly common. There is also that says you’ll be more efficient with a different motion.
The truth is that the motion your using isn’t ‘bad’ - its only inefficient. You’re closer to what you’re after than you think. I speak from recent (and ongoing) experience.
There are some simple things you can do to remedy this. Scrapping what you’re doing isn’t necessarily it.
Others on here are far better equipped to talk you through this. Hopefully they’ll chime in soon.
I think this is step 2. Step 1 is to find a motion, ANY motion, that’s fast/efficient. Often, what we want isn’t immediately attainable. I’ve learned several motions at this point and I believe I can do them because Troy and Tommo coached me into finding the first motion that I could move efficiently. It felt unlike anything I’d ever done. It turns out that wasn’t the motion I wanted, but it helped me find the others because it was a litmus test.
Just double checking this came out the way it was intended. I’ve never heard Troy say that people shouldn’t scrap their string hopping motion. Unless maybe you’re referring to what he was doing that seemed like it could work, the part I’d referenced from 0:15 - 0:30 in his video. That’s closer to a flex/ext motion, like the door-knocking motion in the CtC episode video you linked. That CtC video is great, but could cause some confusion for @357mag, because the path it shows to success is pertaining to EJ’s technique (USX). The motion 357 showed that had any potential, to me, is DSX.
I honestly think the best path to success for you @357mag is to have some private lessons with someone on here that can coach you, in real time, on your playing to help you zero in on the right motions. I only say that because you’ve been at this a while and you still seem ‘stuck’, but it’s clear that you’ve got the potential to play the correct motion. Just like Tom pointed out, there’s no physical reason you can’t play fast. You just need some guidance on how to apply the motion to the guitar. I think the feedback loop of posting a video is far too long and a real time lesson would do you a world of good.
I made backing tracks for Burn at several tempos: 63%, 65%, 67%, 69%, and 70%. I’ve had some success playing the solo at around 63%. My goal for this solo is to play it at either 69% or 70% of the original tempo.
My goal is not to try to play the thing at Blackmore’s original tempo. That would be unrealistic.
I am going to focus on playing the G-string lick using elbow motion. I have watched many videos and it appears people are either using wrist motion or elbow-forearm motion. But I’ve noticed that when I use elbow motion it feels like it has more potential for speed than string-hopping my wrist.
As far as having a preferred motion I know if have tried downward pickslanting with an upwards escape. I even practiced that slowly, but it seems that it’s so easy to start doing string hopping once you start speeding up.
I have not really tried upwards pickslanting with a downwards escape. Except for tremolo picking.
As was said above, a one-on-one lesson with one of the guys here will almost certainly do more than any amount of video watching/doing it alone.
I speak from experience on this. For years I messed around with watching videos and thought I understood. Even looking at my own playing videos - I could see what was wrong, but never knew how to fix it.
One session with an instructor proved the old saying:
“You don’t know what you don’t know.”
Elbow is a fine choice. It’s a simple joint so the likelihood of doing it ‘wrong’ should be lower. I think where I see people get into to trouble with it is that they tend to go brute force and really tense up with it. The motion should be similar to what happens if you were to pound your chest lightly to aid with coughing, or video arcade game “smash the button” quickly.
The portion of your clip that I mentioned had some potential (0:15 - 0:30) may have had some elbow component. Remember, it’s a ‘foot in the door’ that you’re looking for. Once you feel a fast motion that is also smooth and controlled, you’ll have more of a chance to reference that feeling and learn other motions if you’d like.
I’d recommend going for evenness too. Elbow is a ‘powerful’ joint so it’s easy to accidentally overshoot the down stroke. While we don’t need to focus on making small motions, you want to make sure that each stroke is the same length. Otherwise you’re going to get an automatic ‘swing feel’ which you probably don’t want when you’re learning a motion.
@Bill_hall is an awesome elbow player. He posted this recently. I’ve queued up some of the faster parts but if you slow it down you can see a part where he plays what appears to be trapped and sort of ‘ping-pongs’ between the E and G strings while playing fast notes on the b string. That’s not a bad little exercise for you on your “Burn” practice because it should help keep the rhythm even since it ensure the down/up strokes are the exact same size.
Last night I practiced the Blackmore lick both slowly and then faster. I tried to really feel that the motion was coming from the elbow. I noticed that it’s pretty easy for the wrist to want to get involved though.
I added two fretted notes here and there also.
But the problem is going to be getting it faster.
I noticed when I go faster my left hand finger doesn’t release from the fretted note fast enough. The finger needs to get off quickly, and my finger tends to be a little lazy in getting off right away.
And then as I go faster the pick still gets a little stuck on the string from time to time.
