Troy Stetina's picking video, what do we think of it under the lense of CtC?

Playing Technique
#1

A video from December 2021, I’m interested to hear what we can learn from it and what under CtC would be considered outdated/not helpful/whatever. I’m new-ish here and can’t yet do this analysis myself.

The bullet points:

  • Fast picking is mostly about using very little of the pick to hit the strings.
  • To develop consistent picking depth, practice playing quietly. The only way to not produce a lot of volume when you pick is if you are on the very tip of the plectrum.
  • It’s a misconception that fast passages are played by attacking the strings hard. Fast passages are actually very quiet. This isn’t in the video, but I take classes with him and he told me that if he turns his volume knob down, he can’t hear anything when he picks a fast passage.

I’m specially interested in the last point, as I feel that the force I use to pick changes the tone.

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#2

Well, first of all - Troy is an excellent teacher and a really great well rounded guitarist. I just want to state that - because it’s super easy it seems to come across as negatively critical of some things when really we’re just talkin’ shop!

OK. My opinion…

I don’t know. I personally have had a lot of viewpoints that have been either reinforced or shattered from Troy’s stuff! The one main takeaway is this; Try it.

You know, trial and error. Try it, test it, use it. If it works for you then ergo it is totally legit and valid for what you do and in that context. There doesn’t seem to be one “magic button” or one “the way” that solves every aspect of what it is we want to achieve for picking, (Certain motions and escapes have different strengths and weaknesses and those strengths and weaknesses seem to lead to stylistic development musically speaking in order to capitalize on those strengths and weaknesses.)

I guess what I’m trying to say is, why not do Troy’s stuff right alongside the other Troy’s side (You can pick who’s who) and simply cherrypick the information that leads to breakthroughs?

Anyways. Both Troys are awesome.

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#3

I’m doing that. Still thought I’d ask.

#4

Hmm, what about Al Dimeola and John mclaughlin… when they play on acoustic, they are LOUD!

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#5

Right? Tough to say. What works for some, maybe not so great for others.

#6

For sure. For heavy distorted playing, you don’t need to pick hard really… but these guys certainly don’t play quiet. So I’d have to disagree with a blanket statement like that .

#7

I like Troy Stetina’s materials, i have several of his books. I spent a good bit of time on his speed mechanics book. He released these videos as a precursor to an expanded Speed Mechanics instructional that he’s about to release. Maybe it’s released already…

Universally, pick depth is recognized as a factor in speed picking.

Not picking hard? Not sure ii would follow that instruction. My old guitar teacher who was blazing fast (Steve Mironovich) always stressed to pick hard and use dynamics.

Maybe Stetina’s technique evolved to this, but I have a hard time believing he started this way. There are just too many super-fast, excellent pickers that would disagree with him on this point that I would disregard this advice.

I had a lesson with Joe Stump last year… he would definitely NOT agree with that.

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#8

It definitely sounds weird to me too, I’ll ask him next time I have a lesson whether picking lightly is a means to an end (using less depth) or if it’s supposed to be like that forever.

#9

Pretty much agree, especially about your fastest playing not being “loud”, probably close to your softer playing. Here’s my latest random rant about it:

Edit: I forgot to mention that I had his “speed mechanics for lead guitar” book back in the day! I think that was the name?

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#10

I would have to say for me, it’s about being relaxed and smooth with flow. Technique changes depending on what you want, there are no silver bullets per se, so I would have to disagree with any blanket statements by anyone involving some particular way to do something.

#11

These may hold true for the specific case of Troy Stetina’s technique, but it suffices to have a look at examples from our forum and/or other Cracking the code material to see that they don’t hold true in general

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#12

Silent picking at your top speeds without being amplified seems like a bit of a stretch but im going to test that

#13

Most great players will learn by feel to use a pick attack which feels smooth. But you have to be careful not to assume that feeling smooth means everything is going to be tiny. The amount of pick hitting the string doesn’t always look “small” when you film it under the camera, and we have lots and lots of video evidence of this at this point.

Just as one of many, many potential examples, here’s 250bpm sixteenth notes with mammoth-sized picking motion, loud attack (even with the amp off), and a seemingly large amount of pick hitting the string:

And yet, when you do this, it feels smooth. Why?

Because picking technique is complicated. There are many combinations of arm positions, joint motions, pick grips and pick attack that will produce smooth, fluid results for a given application. And this is a good thing. Imagine if every fast player had to play super light and quiet. Amazing players like Chris Thile playing high-tension 11 gauge strings on a mandolin are still able to achieve quiet dynamics and loud dynamics while going very fast. If your technique cannot play loud and fast at least for a little while, then it’s not really a complete technique.

TLDR try not to get caught up in “analysis”. If you’re new, this can especially be an unproductive detour. Most of the really good advice we’ve come up with over the years boils down to very simple stuff. If you’re looking for speed, the good news is that (1) you probably already have it, and (2) the joint motion and how you perform it are the number one factors.

Have you taken the table tap tests yet?

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#14

Me personally, when I play fast I pretty much beat the crap out of the strings. I hit hard, and tons of pick is exposed. I’m working on trying to see if 'less" of those things equates to something I like better, but really that’s a “me” thing. I definitely wouldn’t impose those values on other people, because this stuff is complicated and the more I learn, it seems the less I know, and the more I need to learn about this.

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#15

I haven’t, but yesterday I was doing arpeggios picking every note four times and I did that at 195bpm. I wasn’t picking that lightly either. I will take the tests later.

This resonates a lot, since yesterday practicing my arpeggios I moved up from 140 to 175 to 195bpm simply by literally moving the metronome up and then… doing it. This tells me I was overthinking it, and the seemingly impossible speed got my out of my own head.

#16

I agree with a lot of what he’s saying - although I think “light” is relative here. I never pick so light that I can’t here my strings snapping a little bit. I think it’s way more important that the pick attack stay consistent than that it be super light. I can pick pretty fast with a really hard attack - for example:

You hear string snapping through the alternate picked runs pretty clearly.

Wherever I tend to get tension in my playing, more often than not, I’ve noticed is when something is uneven about my picking. Such as, my upstroke vs downstroke is getting caught more in the strings, or when my angle of attack is changing a lot, such as if I’m doing a long run across several strings without making adjustments that keep the pick angle even. This is when you get into maybe thinking about messing with some helper motions on top of your basic picking mechanic.

Little changes like the angle of attack causing more resistance or the string gauges changing can throw things off and make me tense up. I’ve been going back and practicing a fair amount on one string runs on each string and trying to pay attention to - is more tension happening when switching between certain strings? And is my angle of attack to blame because I need to be making some helper motion to smooth it out? Do upstrokes or downstrokes tend to be less smooth than one another on a given string or in general? Really just trying to focus on getting the picking motion to feel smooth on each string, then working in string changes.

A big factor also, is those one string runs help focus on hand synchronization, and take the string changing variable out of the equation. That’s helped me clean up things a lot, and getting in sync also seemed to help my speed - I think I’d subconsciously know I’m a bit out of sync and not want to push faster without realizing the root cause - it wasn’t speed that was holding me back but the hand synchronization was just off enough to throw me off. Maybe even something very minute like hitting a string when it’s not properly fretted yet was making the picking feel uneven and causing tension that way.

That said, when I first started playing I got ahold of one of the Stylus picks and practiced getting control over pick depth a fair amount. I think it was of kind of limited use, but it was so far back it’s difficult to know. Also I think pick depth is a bit relative - one you have a lot of control in terms of finding your comfortable pickslant and angle of attack, you can make very tiny variations in it and really change how much you’re snapping the string even with a pretty shallow pick depth if you have a flat angle of attack.

#17

Solid feedback. I always strive to practice more one string stuff but i always get carried away. I think im going to stick to it more because i do think its very helpful

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#18

Learning some Yngwie stuff is great for single line runs, he’s got a fair amount of left hand permutations going on that make for pretty great hand synch exercises and also sound cool. Also his descending 4s runs that throw in slides are great, practicing keeping picking even with slides in the mix to change things up.

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#19

I think the “shallow pickstrokes” thing can be useful to help you develop the habit of picking with a consistent depth, but once you have the hang of it, it should be possible for many types of phrases to be picked fast with a deeper attack. I suspect Stetina is thinking about universality and the desire to be able to pull off what CTC describes as “DBX” (double escape) phrases. I think DBX phrases are easier to pull off with shallow pickstrokes than deep pickstrokes, though there seem to be folks like Andy Wood who are able to pull off DBX phrases with a strong-sounding attack. Using less “edge picking” will also make the attack sound louder, all other things being equal.

And for single-escape (either upstroke-escape (USX) or downstroke-escape (DSX)) phrases, you can use a whole lot of pick depth and produce a loud tone with pickstrokes that are fast and consistent, but this is probably easier to achieve if you are using a motion that more easily keeps the deep pick attack consistent even while the feeling of “resistance” from the string has increased. Picking motions that are based largely on the flexion/extension of the elbow, or based on rotation of the forearm blended with wrist motion (gypsy jazz style motion), seem to lend themselves to this “powering through the string at depth with speed and smoothness” more than “mostly wrist” type motions.

TLDR: If you are doing USX or DSX phrases using a motion that is predominantly “elbow” or predominantly “forearm rotation”, it should be relatively easy to pick fast and smooth even with a lot of pick depth. A wrist-oriented motion, especially when attempting DBX phrases, will be more difficult with a deep pick attack than a shallow one.

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