Hey guys. Apologies if I did this wrong regarding the angle etc. It was difficult and I’ll try again if need be.
Something about my mechanic just feels “wrong” and has for a while. I’m not exactly sure what it is. I’ve tried a few different things but nothing really feels right.
In this vid I’m trying tremolo picking, 3nps and 2nps pentatonic things a few different times.
oh, and I’m going pretty balls out here. Just about as fast as I can.
Hey there! Thanks for posting. I’m not a pro, but a couple of observations and requests.
Hm, re “Something about my mechanic just feels “wrong”” – and you’re not sure … could it be:
Any of those, a combo? Perhaps a different tack might be fruitful: you think it feels “wrong”, what would “right” feel like?
Thanks for the reply @jzohrab!
Okay, I’ll do a tremolo video in a little bit and post it to this thread.
Picking certain notes harder is intentional but I do it so often that it may be ingrained in the way I play these particular licks.
Hm, I’ve never noticed that before actually – but yes, I’m pushing my hand into the guitar pretty heavily. When I examine it now, it seems to help my pick get closer to the strings without having to alter the angle of my hand.
As far as what feels wrong – it’s a lot of those things. The picking itself feels unstable and inaccurate, the pick gets caught sometimes and there’s not a ton of tension but more than I’d like.
I think what I want to feel is smooth, effortless, flawless pick accuracy. Full control. The thing of dreams, really. I’ve tried visualizing it since I do believe that sort of thing can help, but I can’t even wrap my mind around what it would be like to play that well.
Okay here’s a more tremolo-focused clip!
Thanks @RyanMW. I’m not as advanced as some others here, hopefully they’ll drop in this thread as well.
In the meantime, I have a few things you might consider experimenting with. I actually think you’re in a pretty good spot, i.e. I don’t think you have fundamentally change everything.
Cheers! jz
Thanks! This is exactly the kind of stuff I came here to hear. I wouldn’t have come upon either of these suggestions on my own. I definitely do play too hard and there definitely is a lot of randomness in my picking. This is excellent advice.
In some cases, it’s actually easier for me to play faster bursts than very slow, rhythmically consistent parts. I have a tendency to dive in headfirst before completely nailing the fundamentals so this is very typical of me.
I’ll check the thread you suggested also and work on playing more quietly, slowly and controlled.
Edit: Ha! I went to watch the video and realized I’d just watched it last night. I didn’t realize that was you! Great stuff and thanks again.
Yeah I hear you re fast is easy, it looks like you’re pretty coordinated for short bursts, so things are probably firing and releasing pretty well. Playing slow is one component for refining things, and playing fast is the other component to make sure things will actually work! So, in some senses, you diving in was still nailing fundamentals 
and now perhaps it’s about refining, cutting out extra effort, and really getting a sense of what’s going on and what’s causing issues. All just a theory, of course, but maybe that opens some lines of inquiry.
Hey Ryan,
I’d recommend taking a step back and just posting a 10-second video of yourself playing your best tremolo on you favourite string.
Just bang on a single note repeatedly as fast as you can (or close), no metronome, no brain 
We’ll take it from there!
EDIT: thanks @jzohrab ! I think the below is great advice
@tommo ah okay, sure! Will do as soon as I get home from work today. I’m an elementary school teacher and the year is almost over, so the kids are extra crazy 
okay @jzohrab, @tommo – here’s the trem-only vid as requested. Max speed. Feels super sloppy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KFRLMn0jek
Well I think that looks pretty great, and you’re in a good spot. My suggestions are still the same as the above. your pick is sometimes getting caught in the strings because your body hasn’t yet stabilized the motion — for me, that has come with slow and fast practice: slow to observe and refine, fast to test it out! Keep discarding extra effort when fast. I’ll watch again to see if anything obvious jumps out. Cheers! Z
Thanks @jzohrab!
It’s interesting how it looks and sounds a lot better on video than it feels when I’m playing it. I played it and was like “oh wow, that was awful!” Then I watched it back and thought “oh, actually not so bad.” I imagine that’s because the video is lacking the haptic feedback of actually striking the string and feeling each individual inaccurate pick stroke.
Ah ok, the feel is the important thing! So if it looks good, but feels bad, that’s bad! But, I still feel your motions and placement look good, and think that that must count for something. Also, you may be magnifying the errors in your head: sure, I hear inaccuracies and too-strong accents, but think, “oh yeah, that needs some work,” whereas you might think, “OH JEEZ, THAT NEEDS WORK AND HOLY SMOKES I SUCK.”
Also, that you feel your inaccuracies so strongly could be good, because it means you’re paying close attention, which is in itself a skill and informs your experiments. So, don’t get too focused on what’s missing, I feel there’s a lot of good things going on. But that’s all well and good … so try the points I mention above and see how that informs your feedback loop.
Sometimes for things like this it’s useful to try different “schedules”:
The point is to try several small variations in your approach, which are all little experiments, and give yourself enough time to process the “data” you get back. If you’re relaxed and free of excess tension, it’s much easier to try different adjustments. These adjustments can be minute, e.g.:
Really, really small adjustments, as you’re just looking for that particular configuration that frees you up a bit more.
And then, sometimes, it might be useful to make really big adjustments – change your motion entirely.
Ah, I also threw some suggestions into the thread Capped for years at 100 bpm 16th notes that might be useful – accents and rhythms .
I hope that this is not too much info – the doing and observing is the important thing, not reading and theorizing. Plus I don’t know when to shut up. So I’ll shut up now, and you can see what thing work for you. Cheers! z
Not too much info. Never too much . I’ve been wondering if I needed adjustments to my form and if that’s not what was holding me back.
I’m entirely self taught so there can very well be multiple things I’m doing fundamentally wrong .Is that something that could be diagnosed via the video? I assume not. It’s hard to know what adjustments will bear fruit because there seem to be so many. So far what I’ve tried hasn’t helped much yet. The video represents my current form and current most effective motion.
Working on relaxing has been a beneficial tip already. I never realized how much tension I held in my picking hand. So that’s worth something in itself.
Not by me, maybe by other more experienced diagnosticians. Best I can do, I’ve already done. Yeah it’s hard to know what to tweak, isn’t it? So, sometimes you just keep consciously throwing changes at it. But yeah, relaxation is critical, if only to clear the pathways so that you can really start to notice what the hell is going on. And keep pushing the tempo up and back down, up and down, testing things out. (But seriously, slow practice is underrated, as long as it’s coupled with fast practice)
Okay, I don’t know anything about code stuff but this I do know - It’s time for you to work out some sweet single string licks… You know, like the interlude section in Yngwie Malmsteen’s “I’ll See the Light Tonight”, and any of the single string sequences that use even number of notes per string, like 6’s or even just 1-2-3-4 2-3-4-5 3-4-5-6 etc up and down each string for a bit. I bet you get super fast at it, man.
hmmm i actually don’t play single string licks very often at all so that’s a good idea. Thanks Scott!
I found this was really helpful to me way back when; AC/DC’s Thunderstruck, The intro to Wasted Years by Iron Maiden, there’s all kinds of “real music” that uses single string ideas, Yngwie does it a lot too… I hope that helps, man!