Where to start for Tremolo picking Metal Chords

Playing Technique
#1

So I’m here for one thing: I want to play power chords at fast tempos with 32nd notes using tremolo picking. On strings 6&5, 5&4, and 4&3.

What is the most direct route to work on this using the site’s resources? Willing to buy any products if it will help me towards this goal. But to be clear I am not interested in playing any lines at all with alternate picking. I am working on my legato for lines

Right now I am hitting a sticking point somewhere at 90-95 bpm(depending on the day) with 32nd notes. It is not as accurate as id like it to be and seem to get the pick stuck between strings sometimes at this tempo. I have never learned anything about tremolo picking and am kind of clueless as to what techniques will facilitate my goal. I do have some tension in my wrist and forearm. My string gauge may be an issue (I actually dont know the gauge as I only had half of a d’adario pack lieing around that I am current using. But I think they’re pretty light) and also setup. What string gauge would be recommended for Tremolo? Any tweaks to guitar setup that help as well?

Thanks a lot and thank you @Troy for creating this resource.

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#2

Welcome @JacksonC! Correct me if I’m wrong @Troy, @Brendan, but I think the most relevant product for meta rhythm is currently the Brendon Small interview. Here is a free excerpt from Youtube:

We have some great metal rhythm players in here: @guitarenthusiast, @Rob_The_Viking, @milehighshred come to mind (I’m sure I missed many others!). Let’s see if they have any suggestions!

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#3

Welcome. Can you link some songs that do this? I’d mainly like to get an understanding of what you mean by fast tempos. 32nds at 95 BPM is really fast already.

One instance that comes to my mind is older Meshuggah:


That’s 16th notes at 168 BPM. Are you looking to do riffs like this, or just very long passages of constantly fast-picked chords without rests?

In any case I’d probably try a blend of wrist deviation and forearm rotation technique to play really fast power chords. Try to pay attention to how you’re doing the upstrokes (what’s the picking path like, what parts of your hand/arm you’re using to do it), and how deep you’re digging into the strings on both up and downstrokes. If you want to palm mute sometimes, see if you can find a way to keep the side of your palm above the strings, ready to mute. Check out the wrist and forearm sections of Pickslanting Primer if you can.

A bit of sidenote: You won’t need to think about this like strictly “tremolo” picking. The term is a bit counter-intuitive in this context. It means to pick fast on a string, either in subdivisions (like 16ths or 32nds or some tuplets) or just “very fast” to create a constant stream of notes. So usually it’s just on single strings. Technically you can tremolo pick multiple strings, but at least in the realm of metal/rock and musical context of traditional power chords, it’s not really called tremolo picking, because of the sometimes non-subdivided usage of the technique.

#4

What you are describing is alternate picking. There is no way to do this without developing a fast, fluid alternate picking motion. And many joint motions will work for this. Here’s death metal legend Eddie Van Halen doing it with wrist motion:

And here’s death metal legend Chris Thile doing it with elbow motion:

I’m kidding of course but my point is that when you find players who are good at this, it’s no surprise that they’re likely to have great all-around picking technique too.

However, as @Shredd says, if you can do this at 190bpm sixteenths equivalent, then you’re probably already pretty good at alternate picking. What joint motion or motions are you using? My best recommendation, as almost always, is to link to a clip of yourself doing this so we can take a look. Maybe there’s something we’ll notice that’s not optimal. Or maybe we’ll tell you it looks and sounds awesome and you’re doing great. We do that a lot around here!

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#5

That’s already pretty fast for power chords. Faster than that is quite tiring :slight_smile:

Umm Im not really an expert, but I can try to throw some ideas out there, but id really like to see how you’re playing now, especially when you encounter the pick sticking problem.

Ive always used a hard ass pick, used to use big stubbies when learning tremolo… i wore so many of them down to the nub. But im sure ur already using a good pick.

Strings i dont think should be an issue ive played fast tremolo power chords on thin strings, and on bass guitars.

The fastest i can play is with a slight upward pick slant (so the back end up slightly, with the picking side down slightly), palm planted above the bottom pickup, a pretty loose grip on the pick and like picking with as little pick as possible. I also think the pick might be kinda turned a bit at the thumb knuckle. Oh and I can only really go that fast with elbow motion, which gets quite tiring after a while.

Umm here ill scrounge up a sample.

Okay so i started off slow to show how i do it. Uhm then i sped up a bit with some string changes. Never get any hiccups on that front. Just noticed, it looks like as i switch to higher strings my hand angle kinda changes, maybe that helps?

Lemme know if i can help in any other way. Oh, and post a video like this pls so we can see whats up :slight_smile:

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#6

Thank you guys so much for commenting. Cracking up at “death metal legend Eddie Van Halen” :grin:

Thats a lot of info to take in but I will try to. Although I think I will need to watch some more videos to get an idea of exactly what is meant by the hand position stuff.

When I said I dont want to play “lines” I just meant I’m not really into using alternate picking for single note stuff . I get that what I want to do is alternate picking.

The thing that got me interested in this was the Phillip H Anselmo & the Illegals song “bedridden”. Here’s a link https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://m.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DnB5KOW_Aa-Y&ved=2ahUKEwj5lP-V6uPoAhUlB50JHWc1BuIQo7QBMAF6BAgBEAE&usg=AOvVaw2BDRr0wxJtvykIiFfeMe8U

It’s what the guitarist Marzi Montazeri is doing right as the song begins and throughout. Well, I dont know if that is exactly what I have been doing but it seems similar and is where I got the idea. He may not be doing as fast as i’d like to eventually though. I don’t know if he’s playing 32nd notes or what, but I just figured it would be a good way to add some structure to practicing it by just focusing on speeding up 32nd notes (I am pretty sure that is what i am doing)

I feel like I have heard it before other places but not really sure where.

I’m going to try to find a way to rig something up with my phone and post a video of me playing later. I have a hang up about being “critiqued” I think I picked up from a brief time i spent taking music courses at a college when I was younger, but I know it’s all friendly here, so I’ll get over it.

I can’t see the comments as I type this on my phone so I will go back and see if there’s any points I missed that I’d like to adress.

Thanks again!!

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#7

This fucking song is awesome dude. God damn. I didnt know phil anselmo had a new band. This song totally fits right now, this’ll be the soundtrack for my quarantine :smiley: Im gunna check out more of these guys.

#8

I know man. Such an amazing song. Check out his stuff with Superjoint Ritual too. The "Use Once and Destroy " album is really good.

Here’s a video of me giving it a shot:

I got my pick in the shot at the end. I forgot to mention that I began using the side you usually hold it with to pick to get a smoother attack on single note lines a while ago. I just keep holding it this way when I began working on some heavier sounds recently. Do you think this could be limiting me? It feels unnatural to hold it normally now but I’m willing to get used to it again if it would help. I also tried a bigger pick recently and it felt like it slowed me down and got stuck more. Maybe a bigger one would be better once i adjusted to it?

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#9

Okay lemme preface with im not a pro or anything im just some dude on here like you. But i have a few thoughts.

Are you palm muting? Its kinda harder to tremolo and palm mute because for me palm muting has me anchoring in a different place and i cant angle everything the way that i go fastest.

When i tried to copy the way you are picking i could only go the speed u were going. So i think its about the way ur strumming. It looks like ur using ur forearms rather than bending at the elbow and using ur bicep and triceps.

It might be a bit more tense but the fastest way ive ever been able to tremolo was by really anchoring down and almost pressing into the guitar with my wrist and driving the hand back and forth at the elbow. Ive seen people go fast with wrist movement by like rotating the hand in a fluttering motion but i dont/cant do that and im not sure it would be good for 2+ strings.

As for the pick, naw that should be fine, i used to wear down the big stubby picks until it was like playing with the side of the pick. But then when i started a new pick it would feel weird for a little while.

Here i just had an idea of something for you to try. Ill post up a vid.

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#10

Awesome. Really appreciate the input.

I have mostly been doing it without a palm mute. I think I found that to slow me down and ditched it for now. I think I’ll come back to it later though. It could be a cool sound.

You’re definitely right about all the motion, or at least the majority of it, coming from my wrist. I have been trying to avoid using the upper arm actually because I watched an Al Di Meola video a couple years ago and he talked about making the motion come from the wrist as opposed to the elbow and upper arm. I remembered that when I started trying to work on this recently. I guess this doesn’t really apply here which is good to know.

Really excited to give it a shot with some arm involvement later today. Your video is definitely helpful. Will be referring back to it.

Also @Troy, I think I may have missed the point of your post. Upon reading it again, I think you mean that what I want to do is basically something that just generally getting proficient with alternate picking will facilitate? so pretty much, use the resources on the site and learn about pick slanting, hand positioning and the fundamentals, then apply it to the the 2-3 note chords I want to use it on? And don’t treat this as some totally separate technique from the ones used for single note lines. My bad if I came across as not willing to take your advice to do so (if what I just wrote was actually your advice).

Would the Pick Slanting Primer be the right lesson for me to buy to learn more or would something else be recommended?

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#11

This is the most efficient type of motion (that I’ve found) for tremolo picking more than one string at a time. Watch the entire video.

Also, check out Ihsahn’s picking in this video as another reference point for that type of motion:

#12

Yes exactly. I know when people say “alternate picking” they’re thinking about lead playing, but a motion is a motion. There is a small difference with the chord stuff in that you’re trying to basically create a trapped motion that covers a certain number of strings. But most of the joint combinations we look at can do that.

Either way this may be a moot point because if you can already do this at 190bpm sixteenths then you have already found a motion that works well.

Again, post a clip and we’ll take a look at what you’re currently doing!

Edit: Sorry, I’m dense, I didn’t see your clip. That looks great to me! That’s wrist motion and it looks very nice. You’re doing the three-finger / middle-finger grip and supinated arm position. That’s the motion we teach here:

I don’t see anything wrong with this. This is a very nice setup for lead playing as well - it’s what EVH and Albert Lee also do. So to the extent that you may want to work on lead playing with picking, this is a great way to do it. I use this occasionallly as well:

If you’d like to learn another type of picking motion to complement this, by all means. Taste the rainbow. @Rob_The_Viking has a very nice looking elbow technique, and @13GuitarDude is suggesting a forearm version which also works, though you won’t get muting with the Joscho Stephan version of this.

Lots of options here. But I wouldn’t get rid of the one you have currently, it’s great and has lots of potential.

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#13

Awesome. Really appreciate that info Troy.

I did use some upper arm involvement just a little while ago though and it made a big difference. I was able to add a few more bpm with it. Thanks again Rob for suggesting that.

I realized I actually am palm muting. I dont know how I didn’t realize it before. But it seems like you can still get some elbow motion in the mix with a palm mute as long as it’s not really pressing down on the strings too hard. I love the palm mute sound so I’ll keep experimenting with it.

And 13guitardude. I will definitely check those videos out. Thanks for posting them.

Again really appreciate all of the help. This is a Great forum. Looking forward to learning more from you guys

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