X-picking practice results

Technique Critique
#1

I’ve been working on TWPS and X-picking for a little while now and here is what I have now :

So first the TWPS, it feels kinda smooth when listening to it afterwards but when I play it, sometimes there is a little bit of resistance at some point. I suspect that I might just be that I have not practiced it enough yet, but at the same time I also feel like I’ve been having this problem for quite a while now, maybe few month if we consider that I’ve been working on TWPS for about 6/8 month on a pretty irregular basis.
My second problem with TWPS is that I struggle when reaching lower string and have a softer attack on those. You can see it pretty clearly on this video that I made for the occasion :

My goal with that would be to have a more even attack on every note (which is probably made more difficult with my bad fretting hand technique but that’s another problem), and also to get more comfortable with it. The second goal is to get faster which is probably just a matter of practice. This clip is around 170BPM 16th I would guess, and reaching 180BPM 16th start to be kinda tiring, my absolute max being around 190BPM for a few reps and less accuracy.

Now for the X-picking stuff, I really like the arpeggiated chords so that’s the kind of stuff I’ve been working on. So far X-picking feels kinda good when playing, it’s not too tiring if I don’t go above my comfort speed which is probably around 130/140BPM 16th when properly warmed up. I realized after the X-picking workshop that my movement seemed pretty close to the supinated approach but at the same time it doesn’t look like I’m that supinated. It might be more accurate to say that I’m approaching the X-picking with more of a DWPS trajectory I think. After messing with it a bit, it helped me reduce this slight jumpy feeling that I had. My problem here is mostly the unconsistency of my attack on more complex patterns (I miss a bunch of notes on the roll pattern at the end of the video), and also that as soon as I start using more edge picking it feels less accurate and I feel like I’m loosing control.

My goal with X-picking are to get more precision and more consistency for each pick stroke. The footage here is around 130/140BPM 16th I would guess. I’m also planning on working an more melodic/shred X-picking later, especially the 5th caprice (both vai’s and paganni’s version).

Now for both of those technique I feel like I just need to fine tune it a bit which might just be a matter of practice, so for the time being it will be good to be able to look back at those clips in a few month to see how progress goes.

P.S.: I appoligize for the sketchy quality of those videos and the eventual grammar/vocabulary mistakes.
Thanks for reading :slight_smile:

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#3

Sorry for the delay in seeing this! We try to get to everything but we do occasionally miss stuff.

Short story, this all looks great. If you’re experiencing a lack of consistency on certain notes, I’m not hearing it and I’m really not seeing it either. I think this falls into the category of things only the player can perceive. I’ll dig up old footage of myself narrating some practice, and I’ll watch it and think it’s great. And then earlier me on the tape will say something like “that sucked”. So it’s easy to be hyper aware of what you’re doing at the time to the point where things seems worse then they really are.

If you’re feeling a little awkward on the lower strings, I’d try adjusting the arm an inch or so higher on the guitar body and playing a few things just on the low strings. If it feels less awkward, then that’s a sign that tracking is the issue, and for lines that really do move across all six strings, a slight adjustment as you get to the low strings is probably necessary to keep your wrist in the center of its range of motion.

Definitely. You are supinated. If you do the ski slope test, you should feel those two bones aiming down toward the guitar body. This is true of your scale playing and crosspicking. It’s the same “902” (or thereabouts) family of movements. Did you have to develop the crosspicking patterns over a period of time, or did you watch the broadcast, then pick up the guitar, and just have them? Because we didn’t do that broadcast too long ago and they look pretty developed here.

In particular you’re doing the Andy Wood “pulse roll” pattern, with the little inside picking movement at the top, and it looks like mostly wrist movement to me. Andy does this with a bit of forearm involvement, a la the Antigravity / Pickslanting Primer “down, up, rotate” style of motion. Over time we’re realizing that this little bit of gymnastics may not be strictly necessary. And Andy himself doesn’t even do this all the time. So what you’re doing here looks fine to me.

When you really get these movements smooth, you should be able to crank the speed without feeling any more jumpyness or resistance from the strings. Things might get a little sloppy but that’s actually progress. There was a time when I couldn’t simply “crank” the speed on any motion that looked like this, because I didn’t have the motion at all - I could only stringhop. So in your case, you might try a little of that to see how the movement responds. If it’s smooth but a little sloppy, then you’re probably doing it right.

Nice work!

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#4

Overall… your form looks good, keep it up.

I have a similar issue with edge picking. For me, when I start to go into my ‘edged’ approach… I start swiping more, especially on outside movements. I see nothing wrong with continuing without an edged approach.

A lotta X-pickers can get kinda stuck at the 130ish bpm 16th notes. One thing that helped me is spending a few seconds tremoling… but ensuring you are still double-escaping. Tr y to do this a little faster than what you want to achieve with your 1NPS lines… kinda like revving up your engine a bit. And then try your 1NPS lines.

One last thing… there is no real short cut to learning the tracking accuracy at high speeds. You just have to kinda keep at it until it’s in your muscle memory. It will definitely come with time. I’m still having issues with certain patterns like 3 note rolls, etc, and I’ve been at this for almost 2 years.

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#5

At the time of that broadcast, I had already work on this kind of stuff a bit (I remember at some point 1 or 2 years ago trying to alternate pick some arpegios and practicing that a bit for a week or two). So I had already worked on that kind of patterns a bit and it kinda click with the 902 thing and the “pointing the laser to right and left”. So basically I worked on crosspicking without the knowledge you gave during the live cast, and when I saw the live it kinda clicked and it made everything easier.

Since then I practiced that same concept on more stuff, I’ll try to post videos off cross picking later this week. One change from back then is the way I anchor on the bridge which I adjust to cover more range with wrist deviation only. When it comes to speed, I can reach 140 easily when warmed up properly, and I can play a bit at 155/160 on good days even tho it doesn’t sound clean to me (and I can’t do that for really long). On top of that the faster I go the more tension builds up in my wrist and I experienced some discomfort because of that recently (I’m pretty sure it’s because I should take break regularly instead of pushing the technique for hours). Though, I’ll try and see what happens if I try to crank it up a bit everyday !

That’s exactly what I felt back when I wrote this post, but I feel like I’m starting to get out of that zone at the moment. I will also try to do the tremoloing thing to see if it helps.

Thanks for the advice !

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#6

Yes, I came into a similar issue with anchoring. In general, I’ve found a trade-off. The more you anchor, the more you potentially limit your range. But anchoring can really help with precision as well.

I eventually just stopped anchoring completely, and glide my fingers. So basically, my only points of contact are the finger-tips and the bottom of the forearm that touch the top of the guitar. It was a bit weird at first, but it feels very natural now.

160 is a great speed. Keep it up. I really think there is no limit to how fast we can go with X-picking (within reason). But yeah… it’s frustrating because of the good day bad day thing. But as soon as I feel tension, I stop everything… practicing in that state only makes things worse.

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#7

I’ve been trying to do it this way but I find that as I want to increase the speed I introduce A LOT of tension in the upper arm to keep string tracking on target.

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#8

I definitely remember going through that. Some of that was just kinda figuring out the best ‘equilibrium’ position to rest the upper forearm on the guitar. The last thing you would want to do is constantly have to use exertion to fight against gravity. This is really important if you’ve relied on anchoring in the past to keep your arm in place.

But also, it was a matter of fixing old bad habbits. A lot of us still ‘tense’ up when we mix in our elbow to speed up our picking. That may work for hyper-picking, but it does’t work at all for X-picking… that non-stop tension in your forearm will completely ruin the multi-mechanic finesse of the X-pick.

What I had to do was just kinda try and use the the inertia of the pickstroke to help with the tracking… kinda like throwing a frisbee… and that led to my current form that sorta loosens and tightens and the right time, and doesn’t interefere with the curved articulation of the stroke.

Anyhoo… this probably isn’t something that others here would use… it’s only if you want to continue to persue the non-anchoring method. The learning curve was a bit steep, but it made things easier in the longrun.

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#9

Hi, so this morning I decided to record a bunch of videos to update my Cross Picking data :

Here is some 3 strings arpeggios at 140 bpm

Here is some 5 strings arpeggio at 140 bpm

Here is the first example at 160 bpm

And here are the glass prison shape at 140 bpm and then 160 bpm

That’s quite a lot of video :smile:

Anyway, so my feeling is that around 140 it’s pretty smooth (today it felt especially great) and I can do it without being to tense around the fingers, still a bit tense at the wrist but not to much.

On the other side 160 still feel like it’s falling appart pretty quickly and my wrist tense up even more. I also miss more notes, they are less evenly played and it kinda falls appart after a short amount of time.

I don’t think I’m changing movement from one tempo to another so I’m guessing it might just be that I need to practice a bit more at higher speed. What do you think and what would you recommend ?

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#10

Hey there Troy, an aside… I’d be curious to see a video where you demonstrate a non-exaggerated “string-hopping” approach, TWPS, and X-picking, etc. on the same material. With the magnet built, first thing I’ve looked at is my relaxed, pre-CTC technique, with strict alternate picking–in as much as I’m able to reproduce it now! (Fwiw, I was surprised to see elements of both cross-picking and subtle pick slanting, as well as the amount of air I’m catching on the up portion of the cross-pick.) And back to Lanoit’s thread… :slight_smile:

#11

Not sure what you mean by this - stringhopping is generally exaggerated in appearance. Even though theoretically it should be possible to do it pretty flat, for whatever reason it tends to appear vertical and bouncy. Or at least I can’t do it flat and non-exaggerated-ly!

These are terms we made up. Crosspicking as I use it just means any time you play fully escaped pickstrokes in a sequence. Whereas 2wps means playing sequences of single escaped pickstrokes. So something like a one-note-per-string arpeggio line is by definition only crosspicking. Or you could say it’s “continuous two-way pickslanting”, if you like. I sometimes think it’s helpful to think that way while you’re learning the movement if it helps you to imagine the downstroke as being a distinct movement from the upstroke. That’s the whole “right-stroke”, “left-stroke” thing we talked about in the crosspicking broadcast.

Anyway, one-note-per-string playing is the point where the terminology intersects. So unless you have some specific reason for trying to think of things as one way or another, there is no difference in the movement itself, no other way to play such a line other than continuously escaping pickstrokes.

Apologies for the confusion but we’re learning as we go here.

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Is cross picking different than TWPS?
#12

Well, it was never a problem I identified as such in my playing, so your default example may be exactly what I’m talking about, for comparison against refined crosspicking, of whatever flavor. :slight_smile:

Got it. I think I was relatively successful with “escaping pickstrokes” so seeing a side by side comparison of techniques that have that in common might help me to identify the strengths and limitations of what I’d been doing for years. It’s interesting that there are so many folks that are here for picking styles that are not as conducive to velocity, at least in my experience. I suppose that’s the frontier, not accepting anything as inherently insurmountable.

Anyhow, thanks for your thoughts, Troy. My current assignment from a famous economy picker involves arpeggiation of stuff normally played fingerstyle, so at least for now, I’m returning to my roots, and I look forward to working with the magnet! Always learning!

#13

p.s. Started going back through the vids. The “exaggerated picking” visual was probably taken from the beginning of Volcano. Anyhow, I’d love to see more side by side, split frame analysis/comparison. Thanks again Troy.

#14

I’m pretty sure we’ve done this already. You can check out this chapter from the Albert Lee analysis - split screen and all:

https://troygrady.com/interviews/albert-lee/analysis-chapter-4-the-compound-curve/

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