USX Elbow Problem & Smoothness

Technique Critique
#1

Hi Everyone,

I’ve been practicing USX since the pickslanting primer (mostly Eric Johnson 5 note patterns) and have a couple of issues – if anyone has any recommendations it would be much appreciated!

  1. After playing several runs, I get pain in my right elbow because I think I’m too tense in my right arm. I’m having trouble loosening up while still maintaining speed. Maybe some kind of flexion or extension problem?

  2. The runs get a little choppy sometimes. Is my pick getting stuck from using more than the very tip to hit a string? I’ve been using tortex 0.88 mm picks in case anyone is curious.

I’ll post two videos to show both camera angles. I used a clean tone so any mistakes/needed adjustments are hopefully easier to hear.

Picking View:

Audience View:

Thanks!

#2

Hey @JJJ1800! One thing I noticed is that your sweeps are much faster than the alternate picked notes, you could try to control their timing a bit more by using rest strokes:

Regarding tension / discomfort, I can only make some guesses. I see that you are extending the picking hand fingers when you speed up - is that intentional, and is it comfortable? Many players in this style glide the unused fingers on the pickguard, you do at the beginning of your video:

image

Maybe you can try to use this form also for the faster runs, and see how it feels? Not sure it’ll help but worth a shot :slight_smile:

#3

Hi @tommo, thank you so much for the feedback!

I see what you mean – the sweeping portions do seem too fast so they sound more like double stops/chords rather than individual notes. I just tried to purposely slow down the sweeping part to get more clarity (as seen in the video below). Hopefully it sounds a little better.

As far as the finger extension, I don’t know how that happened. It semms like I do that with patterns of 6 and not as much with patterns of 5. I’ll try to be more conscious of that and close up the grip and relax.

1 Like
#4

Hey! Timing has definitely improved on the sweeps :+1:

Another thing you can try is to place your accents on different notes, an see if that helps at all with timing / relaxation.

By the way how did the arm tension feel in this last video?

#5

Thanks, I’ll keep working on it and do some experimentation with the accents. Arm tension does feel a bit better when I don’t extend my right hand fingers and keep them curled – it forced everything to loosen.