Tommo's first crosspick attempt - am I hopping?

Technique Critique
#1

I apologise in advance for the poor video and lighting quality, but I had a brief moment last night where I though some sort of crosspicking may be happening and wanted to capture it there and then.

These are 16th notes at 120bpm across 3 strings. It felt reasonably comfortable, I didn’t feel like I was playing Master of Puppets :wink: and could stay in time relatively easily. This was encouraging, however I was not able to bring this to 130bpm, which smells a bit of hopping :sweat_smile: . I am also aware that the attack is not fully consistent (some notes are louder, some are almost hinted at) - but I am less concerned about that at this stage.

Again, I know the video is poor and only the contours of the movements are reasonably clear (certainly not the individual pickstrokes), but I am happy to hear any feedback you people may be able to give based on this video. If I can recreate this with better lighting in the next few days, I’ll post that as well.

PS: I also have recorded the amplified audio, but did not manage to sync it properly yet. Could it be helpful if I posted that as well?

3 Likes
#2

Nice playing, Tommo!

I can’t add too much, unfortunately, as I am pretty much at the same point as you. I think feeling comfortable with a pattern like that at 120 bpm 16th notes is a great start. This is the equivalent of what Troy does in his Two-minute tutorial towards the end (~160 bpm triplets) - which is also the pattern I have been practicing.

I think the next step might be to practice more patterns. For you that could be thinking in triplets like what Troy demonstrates, and for me it could be practicing the pattern you are demonstrating here :smiley: Moving the emphasized notes around is a suggestion I’ve seen countless times, and something I have felt has improved my technique in for instance DWPS.

2 Likes
#3

Thank you for the nice feedback! This 120bpm thing happened yesterday but hopefully I will be able to recreate it in the next few days and apply it to more patterns.

The only thing that worries me is that 120bpm seems a typical speed barrier for string-hopping. So I am hoping that I am not hopping (:sweat_smile:) while believing to crosspick

2 Likes
#4

Sounds and looks great to me! Seems like you are using mostly wrist flexion, extension, and deviation. Just curious, but if you try to push the tempo, do you notice any sort of tension or burning in your wrist or forearm? If so, maybe that could help point you to a sightly different mechanic to try out.

It’s a neat observation that many forummers have found that they can stringhop up to a tempo of sixteenth notes at 120-130 BPM in a given lick or pattern (this applies to me as well on a good day!). And to play the lick faster, some sort of pickslanting or crosspicking system becomes necessary. I’ve been curious about that specific tempo range for stringhopping. Like, why that tempo range, and is there something biomechanically relevant to it?

2 Likes
#5

Thanks for the compliment! Actually the problem seems more that I can’t coordinate the movement at that speed. So at the moment I don’t knwo if it is a hopping problem, or just an initial learning stage for the movement. I’ll let you know after a few more tries!

1 Like
#6

Well, as string hopping means a wrist flexion movement at two times the frequency of the picking movement, this leads to the equivalent of 16ths at 240 bpm using wrist flexion. It’s obvious why the limit is somewhere in that area. At least IMHO.

Tom

2 Likes
#7

That makes a lot of sense - nice point!

#8

I think I have a similar issue - at the faster tempos in crosspicking (for me that would be like sixteenth notes at 130+), my coordination falls apart and the pick’s path looks like a mess. By contrast, when I play the Yngwie 6-note pattern, the pick path and overall mechanic still seem intact even when I get to faster tempos.

1 Like
#9

I’m kind of here too, and I suspect it’s some sort of a string-tracking problem more than it is anything else - the cross-picking mechanic I seem to be doing holds together relatively well on single-string stuff and 3+ note a string scale patterns, but extended string changes on 2-note-a-string or single-note-per-string patterns start to cause me problems. I suspect the answer here is just more practice, as the picking itself seems ok, it’s the forearm movements too keep my pick over the appropriate string that I seem to struggle with (and to be fair this isn’t something I’ve practiced a ton before).

1 Like