Which Motion Should I Pursue? (I've hit a speed limit)

Technique Critique
#27

Hi @Jacklr

Below are my thoughts - influenced by my experiment of spending a year on one very difficult Yngwie lick and eventually being able to play the Steeler descending fours at Yngwie speed. Your way may be different to mine though :slight_smile:

a) It is great you are on taking on an Alcatrazz solo! They are hard to play if you want to play them with “Yngwie Sync”
b) 190bpm for extended reps with high accuracy is challenging - the good news it is a repeated 6 pattern
c) it is not challenging for Yngwie - look at how easily he manages it in the live video!
d) breaking it down to just focus on the first set of 6’s at his speed and sync is how I would start
e) I would ditch the metronome as others have suggested - treat it as a burst lick
f) to get it to sound like Yngwie means very, very accurate hand sync (slow his to 25% and you will hear it)
g) I tested my practice sessions by slowing down via the software my recorded takes to see if I was hitting “Yngwie Sync”
h) Record all your takes and review - if possible get the Yngwie solo into your DAW and test yours against his
i) Yngwie is naturally significantly faster than most players - to get into that zone I had to really PUSH
j) I was continually playing it slower than Yngwie - even when I thought it was as fast - so I started singing the lick to help me get the speed - so for your lick “meedly meedly meedly meedly” etc as fast as he plays it to help psychologically get the speed - this really helped at the end
k) elbow mechanic is where I get extra speed if my wrist finger motions aren’t cutting it - then I reintroduce them if sync is faltering
l) experiment with pick escapes
m) this could take you a while to get it to Yngwie level - it took me a year of intense practising the one lick to get the descending fours happening at 190bpm with Yngwie sync- so don’t give up - make it fun
n) you can do it!

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#28

I would keep at this, but for this step, I’d ditch the metronome and also not try any particular motion and not try and stop the arm moving or forearm wiggling.
Having knowledge can sometimes get in the way of this step… I’m aware how crazy that might sound haha
Just looking to get a fast and smooth tremolo for this step.

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#29

Hard to say as I’ve been doing this so long it’s become subconscious! I’ve started working on trying to introduce some forearm wiggle into my motion which feels very unnatural to me but feels like there may be some potential there for improvement.

Even though the motion is brand new to me and super slow I’m amazed at the sound of the pick attack with the forearm, really percussive and cool sounding :grin:

#30

like the others have suggested, I would not do any “theoretical planning”. The table tap test @210bpm suggests that you should be able to find a motion to pick these 6s @125bpm.

I think other have already suggested our good old “tremolo test”. So, what happens when you tremolo pick on one string as fast as you can? It may be that your elbow takes over — if so, just let it happen*!

*note that if you end up doing elbow it will be DSX, so you’ll want to do the jet to jet 6s pattern starting on an upstroke (or using a pulloff to avoid the upstroke string change)

#31

With the tremolo test I think my problem is that I tense up too much and my elbow motion takes over but gets too tiring :thinking:

I’ve done some experimenting with the elbow trying to assume a Vinnie Moore like position and I think there is some potential there when I come at it with a more relaxed approach. I have a problem with my pick slipping around a little and bashing into other strings but I feel like that it’s a process of learning the motion?

@Pepepicks66’s observation about my forearm really peaked my interest in incorporating more of the motion. I’ve been working on it the past couple of days now and the potential seems really exciting!

I seem to be able to get a purely rotational forearm mechanic going for little snippets with incredible percussive pick attack and higher effortless speed, it’s crazy, I’ve never felt anything that fluid before :open_mouth:

The problem is that very quickly I notice the radius wiggle stop and the motion becomes more of a Gyspy forearm-wrist blend which is a little faster than my wrist motion but ultimately not what I’m after. I’m amazed that Troy in his Rotation video can switch between them on the fly! I’m going to keep trying to work on the rotational mechanic and see if I can continue to replicate it :smile:

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#32

No worries, I understand the feeling! It may be worth checking if things get more comfortable if you stay a bit below your max speed. And as you hinted at, try variations in your form to see if you can find a less tiring setup.

Also, read this :slight_smile:

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#33

Another idea to assist with the speed busting on this lick is to simplify the 6’s into triplets.

An easier lick so you can focus purely on speed busting. By the way, this intro sounds awesome played in this simplified way in my opinion as well!

This is what I mean - don’t worry about Yngwie sync yet - just floor it.

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#34

hey now lets not forget about 1,2,3 what did he do to get left out?

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#35

Haha I love that lick, it’s the Al Di Meola version :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

I’ll give it a go, perhaps this will work as a form of interleaved practice!

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#36

Another thing you could try is to play the pattern but double pick each note. That way you could be flooring your picking but your fretting hand would be half speed. Might help expose a weak link in the chain.

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#37

Well I say that, but now that I think about it, Al is the earliest person I heard do what I more commonly refer to as Yngwie sixes :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

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#38

You must have the Joe Stump book, he talks about this in chaper 2 tremolo picking. :laughing:

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#39

Interesting, I do not have that book. I know I didn’t dream that up myself though. I should point out with licks like this that also change strings, the double picking thing only works on USX. If DSX, you’d have to start on an upstroke and play the string changes cleanly. Which is definitely a thing DSX players would do in general on this tune

#40

he is playing so fast and that camera is so terrible on fps that even at .25 speed i cannot tell if he is doing upstroke like you say. i mean ya it looks that way but jeez i figured he would have some of the best video equipment money could buy… :laughing:

#41

Oh I forgot to post this one: a nice way to explore higher speeds (which works very well with the Yngwie pattern) is to combine picking and pulloffs:

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#42

Wow, what a great video!

So many cool ideas, I quite like the tonal texture the half picked stuff has as well :slight_smile:

#43

@tommo what do you think of this? Any potential?

Around halfway through the video it seems to click into a higher speed then I’ve accessed before, I’m not sure, I’m having trouble working out how fast it is. Either way, there was no strain at all with this attempt. Maybe time to dive into the Vinnie Moore catalogue and steal some licks? :grin:

#44

Thought I would post a little update to this as I’m really happy with the progress I’ve made thanks to everyones help here on the forum :smiley:

I know this isn’t perfect as I slip out of time but it feels insanely better then my previous technique, completely smooth and tensionless in comparison to the tense mess it was before!

I’m trying to play at 125bpm which is my upper limit at the moment but this motion feels like it could definitely access higher speeds as it becomes more learned and ingrained :grin:

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#45

Sounds great, looks effortless, and also excellent choice of t shirt :slight_smile:

Only comment I would make is on production :smiley: → the loudest thing in the video is actually the metronome! In your case it’s still obvious that this is very good playing, but if we were trying to work out fine details etc. the metronome would just be a distraction.

For the next update you can either ditch the metronome or have it in your headphones so we don’t hear it. Or you could record the guitar track, sync it to the vid and ditch the camera audio with the click.

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#46

Thank you!

Yep, all great points! Your earlier advice about ditching the metronome really helped as well, as most of the progress with this motion was made just trying to play along at speed to the fast part at the end of the Highway Star solo :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

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