Hey everyone! I was wondering if anyone could shed any light on the motion I am using in this video?
Normally I play with an USX wrist motion but as of late I have been trying to incorporate elbow motion. I thought I had an USX elbow motion down but from what I’ve been reading here on the forums elbow motion can only be DSX.
I’m wondering if maybe I’m still using USX wrist motion but just with more elbow movement (which seems to really help and takes WAY less time to warm up).
In the video below I’m doing the Paul Gilbert lick at 110bpm, doing one repetition per click.
Hey there! The motion looks really smooth for me, kind of mixture of elbow and wrist, and the tempo is also hitting 110bpm sixes for sure, but the ones are always feel off the beat.
I think @gabrielthorn nailed it! Looks indeed like a wrist + elbow blend to me too! 99% of the time, wrist+elbow players have a primary DSX motion, except for when an usptroke string change is needed (in which case a secondary motion typically appears):
If you want to know more about what escape paths you are actually doing, then you’ll need a “down the strings” perspective (possibly filming at 60FPS or higher):
By the way, I am not sure the metronome is very useful here - it sounds like you are not locked in with the click. For what purpose were you using the metronome?
If your objective is to play in time then metronomes or drum loops can help, and it can be useful to record yourself and listen back to see if/how you should correct your timing.
If your objective is to play fast, then turn the thing off and just play fast! Let things be a little sloppy at first, but get a taste of what your playing feels like at the higher speeds. Then slow down just a little and clean it up.
You’re both right about the click! My goal for this lick is to push it up to 120bpm, which I can do for a couple of reps but then it falls apart, 110bpm is my upper speed limit at the moment
Do you think it’s worthwhile pushing through when it falls apart or do you think building up clean full speed reps is the better route for progression?
I’ll have to try turning off the metronome as well!
Interesting! This indeed looks like it’s potentially USX. Edit: or maybe it’s fully trapped + occasional escaped upstroke. I’ll have to look more carefully later.
Fast first - clean later! What do you mean by “falls apart”? Details are important for these things - you want to find out exactly what the problem is
Just show us! If you still want to have a 120bpm click, use headphones for it so we don’t hear it in your video.
I still think it’s off the beat, I think the metronome is just a distraction for you now. I’m voting for DSX motion here but I might be wrong. It just looks very similar to the motion I’m doing to play this lick.
Oh so you mean it could be DSX most of the time, then USX just before the string change (hence the downstroke swipe) - then back to DSX on the D string?
Yes, for me it looks this way. Maybe only for this particular lick. I’m not sure about the primary motion, would be nice to see a tremolo first. (posted a short clip in the Long Thread)
Here is video number three, I start with a single string lick and then change between two strings at the end, again at roughly 110bpm.
When I try to push over 105-110bpm and into 115-120bpm range I feel like I just run out of juice really quickly, like I haven’t yet built up the stamina needed to sustain that speed. The first couple will be in time and then the timing just instantly goes out as I can’t match the tempo anymore.
I’ll record another video at 120bpm to try and demonstrate it
I had a brief exchange with Troy about your clips. Short story: you could try to pronate your arm a bit more, using the exact same motion.
This way you should be able to do DSX consistently (as opposed to fully trapped or quasi-trapped). DSX is the typical motion associated with wrist-elbow blends so who knows, maybe things will feel easier if you do that — let us know!
That being said, apart from the timing problem this sounds good!
The only other thing I was thinking is that the elbow movement is arbitrary and I’m just using the USX wrist movement I’m used to. Maybe when I thought I was making an elbow motion I was just waggling my elbow while the wrist does all the work?
I think it is in principle possible to construct a elbow + wrist blend that gives an overall USX trajectory. The wrist could somehow “counteract” the DSX motion of the elbow and give a (possibly shallow) upstroke escape as the end result. It may or may not be what is happening here.
But what should definitely work is to pronate the arm a bit more so that we can exploit that elbow motion to get a solid DSX motion.
