Trouble choosing a reliable picking motion (Forearm / USX / 200 BPM tremolo)

Technique Critique
#1

Hello guys,
I have a question regarding my picking technique. I’ve been trying for a couple of years to develop an efficient and reliable picking motion, but I’m still struggling to find one that really works for me in musical situations.

My goal:
I want to play USX phrases using a forearm + wrist blend (more or less), and be able to tremolo pick 16th notes at around 200 BPM. I don’t need more speed than that.

The problem:

Option 1 – Forearm rotation

This motion looks great and feels effortless. I can do it all day with zero fatigue.
BUT I can’t sync it to a beat or synchronize it with my left hand. The motion always wants to stay at the same speed, around 230 BPM. It feels very strange to use musically — for example, in the middle of a song or while improvising.

When I’m playing live and standing up, it’s extremely hard to access this motion, no matter how much I practice. The motion itself feels very similar to Eddie Van Halen’s tremolo picking, and the speed is basically the same.
It feels almost like a spasm — fast and effortless, but not really under conscious control.
And theres is a jump where i can play at around 120bpm and then jumps direct do 230bpm, anything in the middle it’s possible

Option 2 – Wrist + forearm blend

This motion feels very natural, like I’m just speeding up my regular picking. I can sync it to a click, recall it in the middle of phrases, and use it in real musical contexts without thinking.
However, it fatigues a bit, especially when I speed up, and I can’t go faster than 170–180 BPM 16th notes. No matter how I practice, I can’t reach a clean 200 BPM tremolo with this motion.

My question:
Has anyone dealt with a similar issue? I think players like @Qwertyguitar and @Jackl might use something similar, but in their videos the motion looks very blended, controlled, and musical — and they can clearly use it in real phrases.

Which movement should I pursue?
Is it realistic to push Option 2 to 200 BPM, or is there a way to gain more control over the forearm rotation from Option 1?

Thanks, guys!

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#2

Sounds like you need to try to sync your forearm rotation-see core concepts of Synchronicity for more. For issue standing, have you tried making your guitar is in same position regardless of standing or sitting?

#3

In fact, it doesn’t matter whether I’m standing or sitting. Sometimes I play live while sitting and I still can’t play properly. It feels like, in a musical situation, this movement becomes the opposite of my natural picking motion.

#4

I would stick with CtC’s ethos: take the “easy win” to make progress and keep advancing. I think that’s either going back to tests to find motion or bring sync to forearm tremolo. Have you tried 3s patterns or Yngwie 6s with forearm? Have you really tried to go faster with FW blend? How’s fretting hand? Latest chapters in Synchronicity are all about testing and improving fretting hand.

If you want a certain motion and escape, cool, but make sure you are taking “easy wins,” as Tommo says. Take the easiest way for tremolo, sync, and/or string crossing so you have something instead of nothing. You can return later to learn new motion/escape.

Troy mentions in motions tutorial that you can practice any and all motions, why not. Just do not lose sight of looking for easy wins.

Go forth and shred!

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#5

Something that helped me a lot was to try to slow down a motion that could go very fast, or slow, but didn’t seem to have a “middle ground.”

How I accomplished it was this:

  1. Put on a metronome at a slower speed than you can currently use that motion
  2. Try to use that motion to play a single-note tremolo, in time, with accents

This took many attempts and progress was not linear for me! I’m also not sure that the motion didn’t change somewhat along the way, but that’s okay because what I have now works well for me.

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#6

To Eric’s point, Primer and Synchronicity do state you may need to slow down a bit to place accents and start hand sync chunking

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#7

Thanks @AustinK and @eric_divers I’ll definitely check out Synchronicity.

And yes, I agree that following the easiest motion makes sense. My real issue is this trade-off:

Motion 1: Very fast, smooth, and effortless at high speed, but hard to access in real musical situations and almost impossible for me to sync to a beat.

Motion 2: Very easy to access in musical contexts and to stay locked to the time, but much harder to push beyond ~160 BPM, and almost impossible for me to reach a clean 200 BPM.

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#8

You got speed, now let us get “synchronized!” as Tommo says in intro. Troy has cited in his forum responses that many feel that there is an “uncontrollable element” to elbow motion but, it can be synced (see Vinnie Moore). I’m not an expert but I do not see why your forearm motion can’t be synced. Can you change notes on a single string every measure, every other beat, every beat, every eighth? Start simple with fret hand while you tremolo then slowly, systematically add more difficulty

Any progress is a win, do not forget!

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#9

Yes, I had almost exactly this problem for a while. Personal recommendation, in a vacuum, (only based on my own experience; I do not teach) is to work on making Motion 1 musical rather than to try to force Motion 2 to go faster.

However, the wrinkle is that if you can’t get your wrist-forearm blend to go faster than 160bpm, you’re likely doing wrist-forearm wrong in some way. Could be any number of things (pick attack and slant, anchors, ???), which I’m not really qualified to diagnose.

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#10

I concur with Eric, he is more succinct than me, but I am advocating for same thing-forearm sync is next step. Making musical in different ways will challenge your motor learning and can only help your development. Also, we (I’ll speak for everyone) are here for music not speed picking competitions

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#11

Thanks!!! Anyone else had experience this gap of speed between medium speed to fast?

#12

I had a gap from 105bpm sixteenths (limit of my string hopping motion) to 160bpm (start of quick fast tremolo motion). Prior to becoming an MiM member here, I was able to do tremolo through gap though 140-145 was the still trickly. I should try again now that I have USX and DSX working well

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#13

Yes dude! So cool to see another forearm player!

Option 1 looks exactly like the forearm-wrist motion that I worked out from watching @qwertygitarr and Yngwie. I think I saw @Troy mention that forearm-wrist is a bit of a spectrum, with this version of the motion being a little more forearm-y. For me it excels at single string playing but can feel a little more clunky to start with when adding in downward sweeping because I think in my technique that requires more wrist.

Notably Yngwie used more finger motion for sweeping and then would switch to forearm-wrist for single string playing back in the 80s, today I think he uses forearm-wrist (though I think his is a little more wrist-y) for general playing and then pure forearm for a lot of his single string lines which is a different thing altogether, like EVH’s tremolo motion (@Troy can do this too). I think he uses little bits of finger motion thrown in here and there as well.

Great sign and exactly how mine feels :slight_smile:

This doesn’t surprise me, took me months of slowing morphing this motion to a point where it felt more easily accessible sitting and standing. When I discovered it I could only do it gyspy-style with no muting and slowly made it flatter to the strings over time without losing the forearm component of the motion.

To me your option 2 when you tremolo looks almost identical but obviously noticeably slower. What’s interesting is that when you start adding in the left hand the forearm component drops off a lot, becoming a lot more wrist based - notice the shakiness of the forearm going away.

Personally I’d go stick with option 1 and work through @tommo’s Synchronicity seminar - approaching the 200bpm mark, sync gets a lot harder for me. I intend to pick it up in the future and work on syncing some trailing edge high speed motions.

Hopefully some of my observations are helpful :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

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#14

Thanks, @Jacklr — your perspective is really helpful.
I’ve decided to focus on syncing using Synchronicity and see what happens.

I also have one question for you, since you’ve mastered this motion at a high level:
Are you able to sync this motion at different tempos — for example, 150 BPM, then 170 BPM, 190 BPM, and 200 BPM? I’m asking because, for me, it feels like I only have one fixed speed at the moment.

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#15

Wow! Long time since I’ve been here and it was so cool to see your fantastic forearm motion and hear your thoughts about it. It was like I could have written it myself. In other words, I also have experienced this speed gap where the forearm wants to jump to top speed right away. pWith time the ability to slow down the speed has come somewhat but for that I would probably use your motion nr 2. The thing is that I’m sure you WILL be able to sync with motion nr 1 and it’s an amazing feeling to burn with such an effortless motion.

Firstly I want to say that for me, I had a lot of the left hand licks down with an other motion at high speed first (not as high though). I don’t know it you do as well. If not maybe it is a good thing to go practice the Yngwie 6s, either with your nr 2 picking motion or completely legato. Yngwie 6s has this very pronounced pulse which might be good for syncing. If you feel you have the left hand lick down, then you already have the two ingredients ready so to speak. Then it’s all about trying to match your left hand speed to your set picking speed.

I know it is hard to do accents with rotation but it is possible. So if you can get som accents at every 6th note then that might be easier to sync to the left hand lick.

One other thing, to get the rotation to slow down, I’ve tried different attack angles with the pick to get more friction and this way more control. Also making the motion bigger can slow it down somewhat and give more power as well. And finally to be honest, I’m not really sure when the wrist is activated and not. Maybe my slower speeds are more of a blend just like your motion nr 2. So I think both should be in your arsenal.

Here is a short example where I try to sync short bursts and also later try to slow down. You can see that the motion gets a bit confused at that time. And it probably want to get control and power from the wrist.

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#16

Thanks @qwertygitarr your playing and smoothness are amazing. It’s so good to hear you play those examples.

I’ll definitely practice syncing those Malmsteen-style sixes, and work on slowing things down and incorporating this motion into my playing. By the way, I can tell this motion is really relaxed and easy to play at that speed — no effort at all.

#17

Wow! That is crazy fast! My forearm rotation is nowhere near that quick - any tips? My single string 6’s (sextuplet 16ths) are at about 108…

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#18

I can’t offer any specific advice on the “pure forearm” movement, it’s the only major picking movement that I haven’t trained at all. I think @Jacklr and @qwertygitarr have that covered in any case.

I can do the forearm and wrist movement, and I can get that movement to 210-220 bpm quite comfortably. I think you could get to 200+ bpm with that movement.

I think the problem is a lack of a clear rhythmic pulse. It would help you if you focused on making larger movements and powerful accents.

I’d also suggest that you don’t limit yourself to these movements just yet. Keep experimenting, you might find another motion that works.

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#19

@qwertygitarr hey man, stupid question, but when you are doing your 'thing" there, is that USX? It looks USX to me but I am not 100% lol and I have been wrong before!

#20

@YuriKoch
Thanks yes I was lucky to find the motion just as you have. I’m no expert on the sync process but I sure you will get it eventually. And it’s a great tool to have.

But since you mention the max speed only thing, which is the same as mine, it really is hard to slow down. And I use it for these max speed licks only. For things that are slower I use blends of wrist. So I think you might be better of finding a blend of this and your motion nr 2 for that. But still, it is worth pursuing getting this rotation to sync never the less.

@Scottulus
Sorry I have not done anything to get this motion faster. The speed was there from the beginning. I don’t know anything about different how bodies differ but I think if your motion is MUCH slower then you might be using a different motion. It really is all about shaking your arm as fast as possible, as if you would like to get something scary off your hand.

Yes it is USX. I tried to get DSX as well but can’t seem to get the angle of the motion to work. As soon as my body tries to do DSX or get tense and try to control itself, it goes into wrist motion. And my standard wrist motion is DSX.

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