What is my crosspicking motion?

Technique Critique
#1

Think it’s time I got some feedback on this, it’s not that I’m having massive problems, just that some days I feel like I’ve got single note line playing down, and some days I feel like I’ve got rolls/alternate picked chords down but I don’t often feel like I’m comfortable with both at the same time.

There are a few flubs here and there but hopefully there’s enough to see what I’m doing - my best guess would be “it’s some kind of wrist and forearm blend”.

If I take this and try and “floor it”, single note is great but I lose the definition out of the picked chords (though not as much as if I just forget about picking the indivdual notes and strum it instead, so maybe it’s just a case of working on alternating between strumming and picking chords at different tempos).

1 Like
#2

I’m not sure but it looks like mostly finger movement, with a touch of forearm/wrist. Does it feel smooth? It would be interesting to see a video of when you “floor it”!

1 Like
#3

Sometimes it feels smooth, and sometimes it feels accurate, sometimes it feels smooth and accurate.

Having watched myself on video for the first time, it does look like a lot of finger/thumb movement, but it had never occurred to me before that that was what I was doing. I certainly feel like the whole arm is involved when I’m playing.

So now if I concentrate on keeping a bit of that finger and thumb movement going when I slow it down I feel like I get smoother transitions between different speeds.

1 Like
#4

Nice! And uncommon. Yep looks like finger motion with possibly some small amount of other stuff. As @Johannes has already sussed out. (I’ve been typing that a lot lately!)

You’re on your own with this one but that’s not a bad thing. I mean, Martin Miller had to come up with his technique somehow because he had no instructions for it. The key is that this isn’t really “practice” in the traditional sense. You’re basically engineering an unknown motion and doing so by feel. That’s cool.

Main comment is that some of the notes are getting cut off. Could be rest stroke type pick contact, or it could be related to fretting or hand sync. Does the problem happen if you remove the fretting hand? If so, it’s pick contact. If it’s pick contact, try changing the motion, by feel, until the notes ring out fully. Once you figure out how, try to do it across different kinds of phrases to see if you can replicate the “fix” by feel.

Nice work. Let us know how you make out on this.

2 Likes
#5

I think most of the missed/dead notes in these examples are fretting errors but another thing I’m aware of is notes going missing in the middle of rolls - I’m not yet convinced that what I’ve got here is going to be a workable technique for all the various roll patterns that you might want to do.

I landed on this as it involved the least amount of change from how I already held the guitar/pick/my arm etc.

I tried setting up with the basic wrist motion as covered in the seminars but it just felt alien and sounded awful.