Too much information!

Playing Technique
#1

hey all,
I’m new on here so id like to start by saying hi!

i’ve been watching vids about pick slanting and cross picking and sweeping and supination lol…and i’m just confused on where to start. I was hoping to find some information on exercises to practice to gain speed and precision but all these vids are about technique. (which is great by the way!)

I’ve been playing for a while so I’m not a beginner yet through watching the vids i realize i do multiple techniques and they blend into one another. am i supposed to pick one and go with it or does moving in and out of different hand positions alright?

I was never a speed player but I’m hoping to gain a little speed through this site. I know theres a blurry place between teaching me technique and me playing notes that I hear.

QUESTION - is there an efficient order to follow? I feel like its learning how to pick slant then supination then cross picking then sweeping. makes sense?

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#2

I think it would make more sense to start with a song/riff that you want to play but find difficult, and use that as an excuse to improve/learn new picking techniques.

PS: Welcome!! :slight_smile:

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#3

Hey, welcome, thanks for signing up!

Have you taken a look through our “Getting Started” section yet? We made it to address just this kind of question :smiley:

In general choosing one motion that feels comfortable can be a good starting point, but definitely fine to use multiple. This material should hopefully give you a sense of the range of possibilities and help you identify which you may be doing already, and how you can make sure you’re doing them efficiently.

I know it’s quite a bit of stuff to get through so definitely let us know if things are unclear or you have further questions! We’re also working on some new intro tutorial material, to have a more clear and bite-sized path through our stuff.

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#4

if you watch some of the Volcano (Yngwie) seminar it gives you a clue where to start. It starts out learning to play fast one ONE STRING. So thats a good place to start. learn to get the two hands working together to play fast one one string.

Then start working on two strings and when you do that you will find out about crossing strings. Going from one string to another is the hard part to do. Once you start trying to cross to the next string and back etc you will THEN start to worry about what you need to do as far as slanting etc etc

IMO the best way to learn is to take small repeatable patterns and work on them. The WORST way to try to learn is to sit and do whole scales up and down for 3 octaves or whatever. A whole scale is so complex that its just too much to try to learn all at once.

A small scale fragment like this gives u plenty to work on: (16th notes so you count “1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4” etc)

e----8–7--5------------5–7--repeat
b---------------8–6--8----------------

when u get that going you can stretch it out some. This is what I have been using lately to warm up:

e----8–7--5-----------------------------------------5–7 repeat
b---------------8–6--5-------------------5–6--8-----------------
g--------------------------7–5--4–5--7--------------------------

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#5

yes i’ve check out the getting started guide. i was hoping to find more written examples or exercises that could help with connecting the left and right hand. i’m basically doing chromatic scales. i’m looking to know how to pick slant or escape (i think thats what you call it) when dealing with running scales through out the neck. since i play jazz, i’m mostly playing three note per string scales or themes, but short from changing my wrist position from flat when going down the scale and angled when going up a scale, i’m not sure what else can be done. but i find my wrist moving way too much since i’m improvising, my wrist feels like its always one note away from the direction i’m going. kind of like a dog chasing a rabbit. if the rabbit veers left the dog has to compensate. lol
i recently watched the cross picking video and that seems to help and is addressing most of my problems. but one problem that still eludes me is, depending on if i down stroke a note or upstroke a note, the whole rest of the line or idea depends on it. i think its not a problem that can be fixed by anyone other than me. i have to learn how to see and hear what im doing, and react accordingly.

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#6

yeah that makes sense. ill work on that.
the problem is i know the scales like the back of my hand (pun intended) but knowing how to connect two patterns together throughout the neck is where you can start combining forms and ideas and my pick gets caught. i’m not a 4 per note kind a player.
definitely need to work on the one string approach though.
thanks!

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#8

Sorry for the confusion!

When you play lines that move from one string to another, not all picking motions will work. The pick escaping, as you’ve correctly pointed out, is what determines which motion you can use. This is where the Pickslanting Primer and the Seminars come in. They deal extensively with the escape concept and showing you how to arrange simple phrases that properly escape.

We set up the “Getting Started” guide to provide some background on the physical motions themselves - wrist, elbow, forearm, and so on. The “Intro to Picking Motion” is the best lesson to watch for that:

Choose a picking motion in that lesson. Once you do that, head to the Pickslanting Primer and start with either “Downward Pickslanting” section or the “Upward Pickslanting” section depending on the picking motion you chose in step 1!

In the future, the Pickslanting Primer will contain all these steps so you will only have to watch the Primer and nothing else. We’re filming that material now but we’re a couple months out from getting that up there.

In the mean time, this is your best course of action to quickly get familiar with how to choose a motion and then choose phrases that fit that motion.

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