I’ve been watching an rewatching the upstroke escape video. I can’t seem to match the range of motion position where my thumb is in line with my forearm like the way Troy does. When I do, my hand is passed all six strings. I can adjust it somewhat and get it to where my index finger is more in line with my forearm.
I’m only making slight adjustments BTW.
Anyone else experiencing this?
It might be worth posting a video if possible as I’m not sure what you mean.
Yeah,
I had to sit in front of my phone just right, so it may have affected my pose.
I just have an issue with getting my thumb in line with my forearm.
Hi!
Sorry for the delay — we missed this earlier. In general, I think the easiest way to understand this is that the arm starts out straight. Then the downstroke happens and the wrist has the ulnar offset. Then you do the upstroke and you’re back to straight again. Instead of having to think about which finger is lined up with which bone, just think about “straight” being the starting position of the downstroke, and “ulnar” / “right” being the ending position of the downstroke. So the whole picking motion operates mostly on the ulnar side of the wrist’s range of motion.
When you say “past the strings”, what do you mean? Are you saying that if you begin with a straight arm, you can’t place the pick on the string you want to play? Why not?
My guess is you might be talking about coming at the strings from above, almost straight down. If that’s the case, maybe you don’t feel comfortable putting the pick on the string you want to pick because you feel like you have to have hike up your shoulder to do it. If that’s the case, adjusting your “approach angle” is the answer. Here’s how McLaughlin approaches the strings:
Notice John’s approach angle is lower. He’s not coming straight down from above, he’s coming in a little over the bridge. He can put the pick on whichever string he wants, and he can have a straight arm-wrist alignment when he does it. Here’s a shot of Andy Wood and you can see the same setup:
Notice he switched legs for this, he’s on the left leg, classical-style. Here’s another shot of Andy on the right leg, with a slightly higher approach angle:
This still works because he can still be on the string he wants. If you sit down like Andy while doing this it might be easier. If you’re standing up, you might need to hike the strap.
Let me know if that’s what you’re referring to.
Troy,
I’ve been working on this and have gotten it a little closer to (what I think) you described it as.
What I meant about “past the strings” is that the pick is past all six strings over the pick guard when I hold it with my thumb in line with the radius side of my forearm relaxed, Particularly if I use the watch - band part of my hand on the bridge. Instead of over the G string as you do it.
Theres also a little string tracking question I have in relation to this. Do you slightly move your arm up when going to the lower strings? It looks like Andy wood might, but he’s starting a run on the lower string. I don’t think the wrist is the axis for all six strings, otherwise the thumb and finger hold the pick move up to much towards the radius side when you get to the low E string (almost like in my video I posted above).
I might have misinterpreted what you meant by keeping the thumb in line with the radial part of the forearm. I assumed when you said that the thumb should be in line with the forearm I thought you meant the nail part of the thumb ( that last two phalanges) that holds the pick, is that correct?
For that matter, is the entire thumb held straight when you do it? It almost looks that way, but I can see the slight triangular protrusion where the base Metacarpal of the thumb (that attaches to the hand) meets the last two phalanges the thumb (that grips the pick).
I sometimes bend the last two bones in an almost pinch grip instead of straight like you do it. I think that was to make more of and edge pick.
I’m getting closer to it.
I watched the video over about 4 or five times. Andy wood’s approach is what I was going for.
I know I’m over-thinking this, but I’ve been experimenting a lot lately.
I do pretty well with rotational picking (Yngwie), but wrist picking I always had an issue with.
I’m getting there though.
Sherp
Hi! I’m sure this is just a problem with the clarity of our instructions. The thumb isn’t super relevant. I just thought I was giving people a helpful landmark, but I see I just made things more complicated. Here are the revised instructions.
Step 1, point the wrist joint in a straight line with the arm. Step 2, place the pick on the string you want to pick. Doesn’t matter where your anchor point ends up, just place the pick on the string you want. Step 3, perform the downstroke. Wrist should bend in the ulnar direction. Perform the upstroke - wrist should go back to being straight.
That’s it. Let me know if you can do that or if it’s failing somewhere.
I don’t think it’s you.
I benefited a lot from this channel.
I’m getting it.
I always try to break it down to the simplest actions.
All this stuff is deceptively complicated. Here we are in 2019, trying to teach people how to move their wrists. And I didn’t figure any of this out until pretty recently, being mostly in the dark about my own motions, whatever they even were. Give those instructions a shot and let us know how you make out.
Will do.
It’s getting there. It’s hard to switch from what you were doing to something different.
Thanks for replying.