(Unknown and Less Known) Monster Cats Observation Lab

Playing Technique
#1

How about sharing videos of cats who have monster picking chops from around the world?

Ideally ones where because of the camera angle we can try to steal technical stuff from them or better understand how they do things “in the wild”.

Pick playing non guitarists are welcome too of course.

Like this guy, Michael Paouris from Greece (he also plays gypsy jazz guitar and has performed with Al DiMeola and Stochelo Rosenberg):

Interesting angle starts around 01:50, on Bozouki this time. Sorry about the low res quality but I couldn’t find as good an angle in HD.

My Observations: He’s a DWPS, I can only see the 2WPS rotation on slow to moderate tempos, super stable arm while picking on one string (unsure about how to achieve that), notice how the fingers that aren’t holding the pick tense or relax in relation to the phrase, very solid attack as the instrument is acoustic and has pairs of strings.

3 Likes
#2

I’ll reply with my favorite example, which I’ve posted elsewhere but this is as good a place as any:

Vogg of Decapitated has crazy good 2WPS. Start at 1:45 or so:

1 Like
#3

He does so NOT play the same way fast as he does slow hehehe.

Tons of deviation and finger motion even while playing slow, and wrist rotation (plus some elbow I guess) when going into hyper speed, love the 0 to 100 explosiveness he’s demonstrating.

1 Like
#4

This is a great topic! Over the years we’ve seen tons of really good suggestions / videos of a wide range of under the radar players with incredible chops. Probably far more than we’ll be able to hook up with for an official Cracking the Code interview in one lifetime…but many suggestions do turn into interviews when things click in place, and either way it’s always fun to learn about new talent. Keep 'em coming!

@eric_divers I edited your post to make the video embed work — for future reference, it just needs to be a YouTube link on a line by itself, and with a line skipped to make it its own paragraph, like so:

Vogg of Decapitated has crazy good 2WPS. Start at 1:45 or so:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6ufcxEEMu8
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#5

Awesome, thanks! (Post must be at least 20 characters :wink: )

1 Like
#6

Danny Tunker:

His technique is unreal. Tons of combined alternate and sweep picking, and his tone is so consistent you can barely hear the difference between the picked, legato and tapped notes.

2 Likes
#7

Danny Tunker is a monster. His picking is completely effortless, and he acts like Spawn of Possession songs are boring – watch his playthrough of Lash by Lash, which has (I think?) 220bpm sixteenths tremolo picking in weird patterns.

#8

Here’s one of my favorites, Charles Altura (USA). He’s Chick Corea’s guitar player and has also played with some of the best in Jazz Fusion and Progressive Metal, as well as being a session guy.

My Observations: from what I can tell, he’s using a thumb and middle finger grip, a pretty neutral pickslant with slight UPS (notice the “freeing” on some downstrokes), tons of legato and I’m pretty sure the fast scale run around 3:08 is economy picked since the pick seems to stay “buried” in the plane of the strings the whole time.

PS: Two little things about the post:

  1. Please try to find clips that have the “down the neck” angle or as close to it as possible so we can all comment on what we can see/notice on it
  2. Please DO share your “Observations” about the player’s technique. Don’t worry about being wrong, this is all about learning together

Here’s a more Prog/Shred clip of the guy (terrible video quality, but amazing music nonetheless):