Trying to play the pop tarts lick

Technique Critique
#1

So I have started developing my alternate picking about 1 year ago and it was(and still is) a very hard thing for me to develop, I changed my picking million times only to get yngwie stuff up to speed.
Here is me trying the old pop tarts lick(clearly I don’t use metronome, so I don’t know how far am I from the original)
And ignore my terrible tone(my amp and guitar worth together about 400 bucks, really want to change them but I don’t have the time to play as a soldier in Israel defence force)
What picking motion do I use?(the same one as yngwie? I know I use DWPS but can’t tell where the motion comes from)

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#2

Nice playing. I think this is mainly a wrist movement. When I do something similar there is also a tiny bit of rotation in the forearm, but it’s mainly the wrist. I think Yngwie has more of a forearm component, but as long as it gets you where you want to go, that’s all that matters. And as you say, the pick is escaping on upstrokes (what CTC used to call “DWPS”).

Another factor re: tone can be the amount of edge picking you are using. I find that for a setup where I use a lot of edge picking, a pick with a sharper point gives a more satisfying tone. A rounder tipped pick can work too, but needs a flatter (in the “edge picking” sense) attack to get a similar tone. Pick material can be a factor too. For fast alternate picking in this style I find I get best results with a pointy pick made from either nylon or ultex.

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#3

Hey @yardenishay, welcome and great playing!

I think this is an excellent starting point for the pop tarts lick, I think you have all the speed you need and the hands seem synchronised most of the time.

One suggestion I’d give is to try and make the rhythm more regular when changing strings. I hear a little pause before each string change, which you should be able to eliminate if you get a smooth USX motion going, where there is basically no difference between the picking motion and the motion for changing strings.

If you feel like you have to do something “extra” for changing strings, then you are doing too much work :slight_smile:

#4

One thing that really helped me nail the Pop Tarts Lick was to chunk the first string into two groups of four notes, then the next string was to chunk that one into one group of six notes.

The final two notes are a chunk of one group of two, with the final note landing on the root.

Basically, I put it to a click and focused on the first string as two beats, four notes each, next string, one beat six notes, and the final beat as two notes, if that makes any sort of sense.

If you consistently use DWPS, then each chunk should start with a downstroke, and end on an upstroke, leading to a USX picking motion.

The lick is specially designed to work with DWPS and the powers it gives you.

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