Been a while since I’ve posted and figured I’d reach out to the group for a little advice. I’ve been working on Ben Higgins’s three month technique program that he put out at the end of last year to his email list. I realized that I’ve been playing for 30 years this year and thought I’d put some real time into getting my technique more consistent with the time I’ve been behind the instrument. At any rate, I’ve identified an issue regarding my upstroke, specifically that I can’t seem to get the angle vertical enough in order to cleanly escape the lower string when moving to an upper string. At lower tempos this isn’t an issue, but as it increases, the picking angle gets flatter. This results in me banging into the lower string on string changes and often swiping that string. This also affects three note cross-picking rolls at increasing tempos, too; I just can’t seem to get the upstroke to hit cleanly due to flattening out of the pick path angle.
I can get a video up later if that’d help; I know without seeing my picking it’s hard to diagnose. I’ve tried rolling my hand more toward the bottom of the guitar so that my heel is sitting more across the bridge, but this changes the mechanics of how I strike the strings in an uncomfortable and unstable manner. My usual posture tends toward a little flatter version of Al DiMeola’s downward escape stroke and often the outside edge of my thumb rubs against the lower string from the one I’m picking. I’ve also had a sort of natural cross-picking movement, too, but not at all consistent.
Thanks for the look and the help.