Alternate picking slowing down

RedRabbit · August 2017

viz said:

I would focus on playing musical tunes rather than a certain bpm if I were you.

Okay but its not as though I'm trying to improve my picking just to be able to hit a certain BPM. I'm doing it because I feel that my picking is currently holding me back from playing what I want to.

To be honest I don't really get this point of view as long as being able to play the exercises isn't the aim. I could have started the thread by saying that I'm learning an song and had seemingly taken a backwards step in getting a tricky part up to speed. Would that be more musically valid? Does it matter that in working on it that I'd probably have broken the tricky parts down to what would be, essentially, repeatable exercises so I could slowly build them up to speed?

Veganic · August 2017

So you have hit a wall or gone backwards?

Try changing your technique radically for a week. I mean trying Benson picking, finger-picking, or anything different.
Return to your prefered technique afresh, fresh and "reset".

stratman3142 · August 2017

Can you post the actual patterns you're using as an exercise? I'd be nervous about giving any advice before checking I can do it myself.

RedRabbit · August 2017

I'll try and put the tab up later today.

Barney · August 2017

Something that really sorted my picking out was practising by not really plucking the note
So for eg ...take a scale and use picking motion as you would picking but dont make contact with the string rely more on the left hand to sound the note .....then slowly introduce the pick so your just making contact ...do this for a couple of weeks for 5 mins a day and you will see a difference ....it seems to sync the left and right hand to work together...also refines the right hand so you font over compensate..

Try it for a week 5 mins a day so only 35 mins in total and see iff it works..iff it dosnt work for you just that time lost but i think it will

PolarityMan · August 2017

Just play it legato

Old_Swanner · August 2017

RedRabbit said:

I'll try and put the tab up later today.

Even better would be to post a close up video of you playing it from slow speeds up to the speed it falls apart at.

bingefeller · August 2017

PolarityMan said:

Just play it legato

this is what I would suggest.

For me, after years of trying on and off to get quicker at picking, it just wasn't happening. I was spending more time on exercises instead of learning music, so I started adding in more legato to help me play fast lines. Of note, Paul Gilbert and Bruce Bouillet play a lot more legato than they use to, especially Bruce.

After analyzing some of Troy Grady's packages Yngwie and Eric Johnson use quite a lot of pull offs to help them change strings when playing a descending line and they tend to, but not always, arrange their lines so they can use economy picking when ascending. If they come to a situation where they are changing string and the last pick stroke would be an upstroke, they would hammer on to the last note to give them time to get over the string. Andy James also arranges his lines in a similar fashion, but he angles his pick upwards and starts most of his alternate picked lines on a upstroke.

What I'm saying is that when you really look at it, a lot of fast players use a lot more legato than people might think so they do.

PolarityMan · August 2017

Thing is I do fast picking when I play actual music but not sustained, rhythm wise I could prob down pick way above the speed you're talking about playing. Like in a chuggy riff where all the fast stuff is on the open string but when your playing melodic figures across strings then 90% of the time its going to sound better with legato anyway.

bingefeller · August 2017

RedRabbit said:

Yeah, thumb and first finger. Used to use thumb and second but forced myself out of that habit a few years ago. I don't tend to have a lot of the pick showing - maybe 2 or 3 mm.

Edit - found a pick on my desk, this is how I hold it

http://i.imgur.com/9vB0cMm.jpg

To be honest, it doesn't matter how much pick shows. From watching the Troy Grady videos, there are clips where he has quite a lot of the pick showing and he is playing well over 160bpm, 16ths, and he isn't being slowed down.

Check this example:

If you adjusted your grip, it might be more comfortable and you might be able to play faster.

DLM · August 2017

bingefeller said:
For me, after years of trying on and off to get quicker at picking, it just wasn't happening. I was spending more time on exercises instead of learning music, so I started adding in more legato to help me play fast lines.

@Bingefeller Do you know where you maxed out? The great thing about the Troy Grady stuff is that with his research, one can emulate what the top players actually did. There's a lot of development potential in doing stuff "wrong", too, but when you're trying to match top athletic performances, doing things the way that worked for the guy who did it on record seems like a good place to start.

I'm interested in the exact exercises in use here, too. How long are the rests between your repetitions, Mr Rabbit? One beat? One bar? And how many notes in the patterns before they repeat? How many repeats before you rest?

bingefeller · August 2017

@DLM Probably around 135bpm at 16th notes on a good day. This was after I discovered Troy's videos and they helped me reach that speed.

DLM · August 2017

@bingefeller OK, but how long were those phrases? A whole chorus of semiquavers at 135 is rippin', a two-beat phrase (eight notes) isn't, really. I can play a short burst of a few notes many times faster than a long continuous stream. I think if the OP works on such short bursts he'll be able to improve his overall top speeds.

*insert something here about developing fast twitch muscle fibres*

*give it a snazzy name like "burst picking"*

*start an online cult following using embarrassing marketing techniques*

*take a load of money off teenagers*

*get hatemail from Levi Clay*

*get the teenagers to go to war with Levi Clay*

*all publicity is good publicity*

Oh shit, I'm still on tFB, I thought this was iNapkin, the start-up business plan app!

*Ed Balls*

Double shit, this isn't Google either!

bingefeller · August 2017

@DLM probably about a max of 8 bars on a really good day.

digitalkettle · August 2017

bingefeller said:

@DLM probably about a max of 8 bars on a really good day.

You need to drink as much coffee as @DLM

DLM · August 2017

@digitalkettle Holy crap, not if he wants to keep his health he doesn't!

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4427/35531135104_e3a127e56a_k.jpg

Danji · August 2017

Lestratcaster said:

I'd be interested to see your picking hand position as well, do you rest any of your fingers on the pickguard area? Sometimes it helps keep the hand stable.

when I was learning to alternate pick many moons ago, I traced Paul Gilbert's right arm from Intense Rock and hand on some paper and then copied it.

TheBlueWolf · August 2017

It *might* be a plateau. It happens to me a fair bit, where I can't speed up.

There's plenty of good advice already, so my suggestion is slow it right down and see if you can play these phrases with the least amount of movement. One of my bad habits is that my fretting hand is nowhere near where it should be if the speed is too fast.

DLM · August 2017

bingefeller said:

@DLM probably about a max of 8 bars on a really good day.

@bingefeller I think that's most respectable. In one of the Creative Guitar books, Guthrie talks about increasing how long you can do an exercise continuously, rather than only going for pure speed on shorter phrases.

OP: do you know how fast you can tremolo pick? Jonathan Strange's tuition materials and forum posts are also great resources for picking, and he starts with trem picking as a basis. This is no good if your trem picking technique is radically different to how you play normally (see EVH, not that he has a problem).

I disagree that it's a plateau. The speed is too low for the problem to be muscle-development related. An inefficient technique is much more likely.

Oh, and here's a massive caveat from Terry Syrek: https://www.premierguitar.com/articles/Diary_of_a_So_Called_Shredder_The_Dreaded_GIFO_Disease

RedRabbit · August 2017

DLM said:

bingefeller said:

@DLM probably about a max of 8 bars on a really good day.

@bingefeller I think that's most respectable. In one of the Creative Guitar books, Guthrie talks about increasing how long you can do an exercise continuously, rather than only going for pure speed on shorter phrases.
OP: do you know how fast you can tremolo pick? Jonathan Strange's tuition materials and forum posts are also great resources for picking, and he starts with trem picking as a basis. This is no good if your trem picking technique is radically different to how you play normally (see EVH, not that he has a problem).
I disagree that it's a plateau. The speed is too low for the problem to be muscle-development related. An inefficient technique is much more likely.
Oh, and here's a massive caveat from Terry Syrek: https://www.premierguitar.com/articles/Diary_of_a_So_Called_Shredder_The_Dreaded_GIFO_Disease

Not sure on max tremelo picking speed. Single string exercises are quite a bit faster - probably up to around 140bpm (16th notes still) - I can play the Thunderstruck riff at full speed using only picking but can't maintain it throughout the whole song.

I'll catch up on the other replies later.

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Alternate picking slowing down

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