UPDATE: "Relearning" for DWPS

Technique Critique
#1

Hey dudes,

as I already indicated in another thread I’m trying to learn DWPS at the moment. I’m a primary UWPS and the DWPS-parts in my 2WPS (or just my general playing) is giving me trouble, so I thought I’d try to establish that hand position and picking path.

It feels like S*** to be honest. It almost feels impossible for me to do downstrokes that do not escape. You’ll see that in the slower parts of the video, I always tend to do some wrist based crosspicking. For the faster playing (around 165 bpm) I tend to slip into a parallel movement with supinated position. The inside/upward string changes work quite well, the outside/downward string changes are always insecure and really make me anxious :wink:

there are two takes in the video. one is the 1234 exercise at 165 bpm. The other one is rest strokes alternated with smaller movements at low tempo. I still tend towards a crosspicking movement I think. Or 10 to 3 o’Clock in Newspeak :wink:

Should I try to keep practicing fast or torture myself through the slower thing to bake that movement in.

Tom

P.S.: sorry for that stupid watermark. Will never use that software again. Had to quickly find some editor for windows, as I did that during lunchbreak at work. Using Linuxsoftware at home normally. Any recommendations for REALLY free Windows editing software?

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#2

One thing that was helpful for me is the Brad Davies DDU stuff. You can find that on YT.
I know this basically is an ascending economy picking lick, but that really is quintessential of DWPS I think. I started to work on it kind of by chance few years ago and it was a light bulb for the EJ pentatonic lick. Go figure …

The cool stuff about the way Brad does it is that it relies on rest-stroke. So it forces you to a linear pick trajectory with escape on the upstroke. This is exactly what Troy would describe in CTC afterwards.

I’m not a DWPS player, but I can do that stuff (DDU, and more ascending sweeping stuff) thanks to what Brad Davies would show. I think that prior to Troy, Brad Davies was the guy who really nailed DWPS in an instructional context - outside the Gypsy Jazz guitar school.

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#3

Hmm, well, this really is almost only the kind of string-change that is giving me a hard time, so I might give it a try. On the other hand, that DD-part leads to a supinated position with a pick-trajectory parallel to the strings. something that I want to unlearn. Of course, the U and the following approaching of the string is correct DWPS.

Might also be a way to play that “child-in-time”-arpeggio lick really easy :wink: That would help me with my new Deep Purple/Whitesnake/Rainbow-Tribute Project.

Thanks

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#4

Hey,
I tried to demonstrate some slow DWPS exercises.

I wanted to ask, if you think this is legit DWPS. I think it looks good in normal speed, but in slowmotion I see some deviation from a straight line. The motion clears the strings for sure on the upstrokes, but I think the path deviates on the downstroke after hitting the strings and I can not avoid it no matter what.
Am I right? Is this still o.k.?
Can I speed this up now? For me it seems to work just fine on the lower strings. Especially the high e gives me troubles.

Thomas

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#5

Yes it looks great. The tiniest barest amount of a “2:00” movement that is so slight you almost can’t even perceive it in slow motion is not enough to hold anyone back. In fact it seems to work for this guy, and he’s got more of it than you do!

Yes! But… to me this question is backwards. I speed things up first, as a way of testing whether or not I’m doing it right, or at least in the ballpark of right. In other words, the test for smoothness of motion is speed. Sloppy and spazzy and uneven if necessary, but “floor it” as Andy Wood likes to say and see what happens. Make it go as fast as you can at this moment. If it doesn’t go fast, but some other movement goes faster, then maybe proceed with the faster one.

I only ever start with fast movements, as the test, then choose the ones which are the smoothest / fastest, and try to slow them down and see if I can maintain the same smoothness while improving the accuracy. I flip flop back and forth quite a bit, sensing the smoothness, then trying to slow it down realistically, then sensing the smoothness again.

I don’t really think “start slow get faster” works for motor learning. It hasn’t ever worked for me. Instead it’s more of a scatter plot of faster speeds that gradually becomes wider to encompass slower speeds over time, while accuracy (hopefully) improves.

Otherwise this form looks good and I see no problem with it, nice work. But don’t let that stop you from aggressively and as dispassionately as possible auditioning various alternatives!

#6

Thanks!
This kind of makes me happy, as I was not so sure about it, because it feels awkward, at least on the higher strings, especially the high e-string. I’m looking forward to really burn it in. But Sterns motion path seems quite linear to me!? Whatever…

I agree with the “try it faster and even it out afterwards approach”. My problem is, when I try to do this faster, I play faster, but I can’t maintain that motion. I can up to max 140 bpm and then I gradually cross over to a parallel motion path with downward slanted pick, probably because it is somehow engrained in my muscle memory. No escape anymore, catchy upstrokes… So I guess I have to go as fast as I can while still maintaining that motion.

Hmm, well…
At the moment I have enough to do with speeding up and maintaining single-string picking over a longer period, as I have to play the Higway Star and Burn solos. A little more supination might also help to loosen things up a bit, as Teemu (correct?) pointed out with his “piece of foam”-approach, although I’m pretty convinced that the problem I have with that stuff is kind of mind-related. I might post a Video. So I keep working on these 2 topics until I encounter another problem :wink:

Thanks, Tom

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#7

I know what you mean. Something that worked for me was to try and speed up a dwps exercise where trapped upstrokes are not an option at any point: basically anything that is strictly 2 notes per string starting with downstroke. Could be a chunk of the pentatonic across 2 or 3 strings, a double picked triad, a maj7 arpeggio on 2 strings, and so on.

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#8

How come I do not come up with this idea myself? Thank you, this really makes sense. I’ll try and crank some 2-string 7th arpeggios, maybe over a chord progression to make it more interesting. My problem will probably still be the 902-tendency I have, especially on the e-string, where I tend to do some bounce motion. But I had that problem on the low E-String and got it evened out, ending up with UWPS.
Thanks a lot!

Thomas

BTW: Is tommo your real first name? Just wondering, as it is similar to mine, and assuming your italian IIRC, I would have expected tomaso…

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#9

Cool, feel free to share if you come up with a cool DWPS etude, I’d be happy to try it as I haven’t used the 2-string arpeggios much yet. They can be a great tool.

You got close! The full name is Tommaso, originally from Italy indeed. Here in the UK I have been part of a masters swimming team for several years, and a teammate came up with the nickname Tommo. Initially I thought it sounded a bit weird but then it grew on me!

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#10

So!

Here it is: Pachelbels Canon in DWPS-major… In C-major :wink:
Obviously it’s just the chord progression I borrowed. The arpeggios are always the same pattern. It’s a bit more fun if you create an accompaniment in Band-in-a-box or ChordPulse (there is a free version called ChordPulse Lite, btw).

CanonInDWPS
CanonInDWPS905×815 27.4 KB

As always with these arpeggio exercises it sounds boring as long as it’s not played fast enough.

Tom

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