What is the process to find your fast motion?

[diegobrito]

Hi everyone, I hope you are able to provide some guidance!

I’m trying to find my fast playing motion currently. Even just trying to understand the reverse dart movement has been difficult. I think this is due to my hand positioning being very different from the ones in the videos (Troy’s).

What is the way to find my fast movement? I understand it’s about freely experimenting, but is this something that should take a few minutes? Hours? Weeks?

Would I just do a little bit of that everyday until it clicks? Should I focus my whole practice to that for this period?

Some more specific questions about the reverse dart: is it similar to a DSX movement? So the pick would pass above the string below on the downstroke? If that’s the case, is the thumb side close to the strings due to hand position?

I’m trying to navigate all the information, but it’s quite overwhelming! Links to videos and/or other posts here will be super helpful.

Thanks!!!

[kbr]

My approach was not to find any fast motion, but to learn a specific one. I followed the Reverse Dart Thrower tutorial from Pickslanting Primer.

I try to keep my form as close as possible to the “tall ergonomic mouse” one. Focused a lot at the beginning on keeping stable anchor points (forearm on the edge of guitar body + my palm near the pinky on the bridge) and keeping a large degree of supination. Then it’s just hitting the string like a tap like Troy explained in the tutorial.

Have you watched those tutorials? They are very good.

Picking Motion Tutorials

[diegobrito]

Thanks, @kbr!

I was thinking that I would test that at speed, see that it works more or less, and then practice the exact movement more deliberately slowly, with metronome, etc. Is that what you’re doing?

The hardest for me is to do tremolo on all strings by keeping the same anchor (that little pea bone on top of the bridge). If I go to a string individually, I can do the tremolo, but I’m noticing that I move my anchor point depending on the string I’m at, which I think is suboptimal. I don’t know if I will able to move the hand at speed like that when changing from string to string.

Any insights on that? Do you happen to have videos posted of your technique?

[kbr]

@diegobrito

I was thinking that I would test that at speed, see that it works more or less, and then practice the exact movement more deliberately slowly, with metronome, etc. Is that what you’re doing?

Nope, I’m currently practicing fast only. The tutorial also teaches a fast movement, not a slow one.

@diegobrito

I’m noticing that I move my anchor point depending on the string I’m at, which I think is suboptimal.

Well, then… Don’t do that?

@diegobrito

Do you happen to have videos posted of your technique?

I posted some in the other thread

How do you efficiently guide the motor learning process?

Why not indeed: [RDT DSX+USX fast 2024.30.06] I recorded two motions there. First the RDT DSX motion that I’m focusing most of my efforts on. From 0:45 I also show a second motion which does continuous USX, I think it’s still RDT? (but a “flatter” one, closer to the deviation axis? I’m using a very supinated position) The consistency of this motion seems pretty similar to the DSX one, which kinda annoys me, because I spent maybe 1% of effort practicing this compared to the DSX one… …

How do you efficiently guide the motor learning process?

@Jacklr I can do this easily. I don’t think my motion is inefficient. Here’s a video with 230 bpm click in the background: [tremolo] once I “bootstrap” the tremolo it goes. The problem is that often (on lower strings) the first stroke gets stuck; if I “brute-force” through it, eventually the hand converges to this smooth tremolo (which I can do for minutes without much effort). The failure to do a burst exercise smoothly (and in time!) is the problem that I’m currently facing. …

[joebegly]

You’ve got a full membership. I’d strongly advise the Technique Critique feature. Personalized feedback from either Troy or Tommo (2 of the best pickers and motion teachers in the world…seriously).

There is some prerequisite stuff like getting speed counts of “away from guitar” motions and updating your profile with the numbers. They’ll take it from there and guide you on what you’re naturally best at. Even if that happens to not be the motion you’re after it’s a great baseline to figure out what fast/smooth picking feels like.