I need some serious picking help! this is bad!

[NateFreezy]

Very helpful posts. I totally agree with the effortless comments, and need to do a lot of work on this myself.

A question though for people - I've been trying just the last few days to work on playing as relaxed as possible. There comes a point though where I do tense up as the speed increases, to the point where I hit a wall and can't play at that speed at all anymore. So how do people go about pushing up this wall/ tempo?

I recently had a look at the Guitar Speed Trainer software - it uses this very simple speed curve with basic picking patterns, going from a slower tempo that should be effortless, up to one that is quite difficult to play at, then back down to a moderate tempo that is still somewhat difficult. When going back to this moderate tempo, I think the idea is to try to regain as much of the relaxation as possible (though I've found this can be a struggle after having already tightened up).

Does this sound like a solid approach? Or are people just playing up to the point where they can stay relaxed for longer periods of time, or multiple practice sessions, and not getting to the tightening part, but slowly trying to raise the bar?

Thanks!

[Tlon]

This is a great thread. Not sure this will help you like it has me, but I just bought some of the new Ultex Sharp picks and found they helped me a lot.

http://accessories.musiciansfriend.c...ack?sku=582856

I still have a long way to go, but having sharper picks made it easier for me to move to heavier picks and the pick doesn't get stuck on the strings quite as much.

[cigpow]

Thanks to all who have contributed thus far! This is a really great thread

[Redhouse-Blues]

This is a great thread!!!

What fixed mine was doing a quads everyday and I still do. I would start out with the metronome around 75bmp and go up the neck 1-2-3-4 up and down each string making sure I alternate my pick every note. After a week I could do this easy, then I switched it up doing 1-3-2-4 or 1-4-3-2 and I didn't speed up the metronome until I could play the quads perfect. Once I could, I found I could go as fast as I wanted, which I couldn't do before.

[buddastrat]

Originally Posted by Joe Gamble

Great advice here guys. I'm in the middle of revamping my technique myself and have had to accept that pushing doesn't work. It IS all about relaxation, light touch, economy of movement and staying within the mindset that whatever it is I am playing- it needs to be easy. If I have to strain I need to play it slower.

I had an eye opening experience a month ago. I took a lesson from Bruce Bouillette from Racer X to get a handle on these things. It was really helpful to be able to ask him how it FELT when he was playing quickly. He said there was ZERO tension when he "ripped". He also mentioned Paul Gilbert talking about using the "small muscles" when playing fast. It made sense to me on a conceptual level at first but now I get it on an experiential level- the longer I play slowly and controlled, the less and less I have to move AND it sounds better. While I'm not ripping yet I can feel my technique getting stronger by the day. What's cool is that I recorded myself when I couldn't pick at all and when I do get this together I'll tape that and post the vids. Should be cool.

That's cool story. It's true, I think so many try and play fast before they're ready and that's where the tension comes in and stays, sometimes for good.

how is Bruce? I thought he had hand injuries and that's why he had to quit Racer X.

[ivers]

The major hurdle for most is crossing the strings. Few do this well, because they don't practice it in a focused way. Usually they do chromatics and three note per string patterns. Not useless, but very few who mostly do that has a solid picking technique that can readily be employed for complex improvisation.

I ditched sweeping entirely, purged it from my playing, for the precise purpose of forcing myself to cross the strings with alt picking.

This has helped immensely, my alt picking is now my strength, where it was a weakness (a mess, actually).

Of course for a working musician, sweeping is perhaps necessary in order to cope with all the challenges, but if you're in a woodshedding phase, then you have the 'luxury' to focus on a single aspect like alt picking. It's quite easy to get back to sweeping again when you have a good alt picking technique down, in fact chances are that you're better equipped to be a good sweep picker when your alternate is in shape. The other way.. not so much.

As for excercises, Tumeni notes by Steve Morse is a classic, but simpler stuff, like just alt picking the open strings, top to bottom and back, is really good, as is playing chord shapes, like those classical etudes that would naturally be fingerpicked. Try moving quartal shapes around while alt picking them..demanding, but you can get a very nice attack on them with alt picking that suit such McCoy Tyner'isms well.

Bach's violin stuff is also great.

Edit: Play more funk rhythm (16th, 16thtriplets, 32s), this will help ya become more loose.

[buddastrat]

Originally Posted by ivers

The major hurdle for most is crossing the strings. Few do this well, because they don't practice it in a focused way. Usually they do chromatics and three note per string patterns. Not useless, but very few who mostly do that has a solid picking technique that can readily be employed for complex improvisation.

I ditched sweeping entirely, purged it from my playing, for the precise purpose of forcing myself to cross the strings with alt picking.

This has helped immensely, my alt picking is now my strength, where it was a weakness (a mess, actually).

Of course for a working musician, sweeping is perhaps necessary in order to cope with all the challenges, but if you're in a woodshedding phase, then you have the 'luxury' to focus on a single aspect like alt picking. It's quite easy to get back to sweeping again when you have a good alt picking technique down, in fact chances are that you're better equipped to be a good sweep picker when your alternate is in shape. The other way.. not so much.

As for excercises, Tumeni notes by Steve Morse is a classic, but simpler stuff, like just alt picking the open strings, top to bottom and back, is really good, as is playing chord shapes, like those classical etudes that would naturally be fingerpicked. Try moving quartal shapes around while alt picking them..demanding, but you can get a very nice attack on them with alt picking that suit such McCoy Tyner'isms well.

Bach's violin stuff is also great.

Edit: Play more funk rhythm (16th, 16thtriplets, 32s), this will help ya become more loose.

Alternate picking definitely has it's own sound, a bit mechanical. I think a blend of several technique approaches is good like what bluegrass guys do or Dimeola, Eric Johnson and Yngwie. To me, I like the smoother, natural sound of traditional crosspicking how Dimeola does it. Some think he alternates on that but no way, he gets that nice flow that would not sound as good if he were to alternate pick. I do find alternate picking to be easier especially with picking across the strings because it's predictable and once you get that coordination, you do everything the same and keep downs on downbeats and so on. Of course, it's good to work on lots of styles for lots of sounds and feels.

[ivers]

Originally Posted by buddastrat

To me, I like the smoother, natural sound of traditional crosspicking how Dimeola does it. Some think he alternates on that but no way, he gets that nice flow that would not sound as good if he were to alternate pick.

Yeah, soundwise, it all depends on what you're after.

For instance, I'm not hearing the 'horn' thing at all for me, but for Holdsy it works fairly well (understatement of the day, there).

Dimeola uses right hand damping, which lets him play faster and more percussively. Not a sound for me, but it's has become a signature sound for him and made him an influental player.

Personally, I like the mechanical sound for some kinds of improv (say, 'jazz'), as I'm not influenced as much by guitarists as piano players with an aggressive playing style, like Hampton Hawes, McCoy Tyner and John Hicks etcetc.

However, tastes in sound aside, for getting the alt picking in shape, picking across strings is a superior excercise.

[buddastrat]

Originally Posted by ivers

Yeah, soundwise, it all depends on what you're after.

For instance, I'm not hearing the 'horn' thing at all for me, but for Holdsy it works fairly well (understatement of the day, there).

Dimeola uses right hand damping, which lets him play faster and more percussively. Not a sound for me, but it's has become a signature sound for him and made him an influental player.

Personally, I like the mechanical sound for some kinds of improv (say, 'jazz'), as I'm not influenced as much by guitarists as piano players with an aggressive playing style, like Hampton Hawes, McCoy Tyner and John Hicks etcetc.

However, tastes in sound aside, for getting the alt picking in shape, picking across strings is a superior excercise.

It would be a great exercise but imo, only for someone who wants to train themselves to alt. pick everything all the time. Because you'd be programming yourself like that. I see some guys suggest alternate picking the Bach violin stuff. I like to approach it more the way a violinist would play with the bow, across the strings. Programming myself with an exercise in alternate picking across the strings would tend to go against the grain, for me anyhow.

I still consider myself mainly an alternate picker. But not like Morse or Petrucci, as I like to take from a lot of styles as I feel there is no one right way.

Besides Dimeola, I watched Paul Gilbert talk about doing that very exercise, picking across open strings and I was surprised that he said he would not alternate pick it, because of all the wasted motion.

[cigpow]

I think I am going to try to seriously slow down the metronome on my next couple practices, and build it up gradually. I will try to focus on being very relaxed all the time.....hopefully this will help. I hate feeling the way I do right now (playing wise). I feel like speed comes so much more naturally to other instruments like sax, piano, etc...........what a drag!

[brad347]

My advice is to slow it down, but forget about speeding it up gradually for now. Think long-term. Speed it up 'eventually.'

The most important thing is that it should feel good when you play. If after a long practice session or 4 hour gig you feel really tired or your shoulder/arm hurts, that's a sign you're working way too hard. If you find yourself procrastinating on practice sessions, having very short practice sessions, or thinking of practice as 'work,' it might be because the physical exertion of playing is more than what it should be. If done in a relaxed, comfortable way, playing is fun and relaxing.

It also bears mentioning that we talk about "right hand" technique and "left hand" technique, but neither exists in a vacuum. I personally don't really find it so beneficial to practice left and right hand things individually. They are interconnected and interdependent on one another. I don't recommend, from my personal experience, 'focusing' on one hand or the other.

I recommend instead 'focusing' on the relationship between the two. When I begun doing this, it's where real progress came about with technique, for me. I always thought my left hand was 'fine' and my right hand was the issue, but in the end I found that my left hand was just as much, if not more, to blame for the issues I was having. It was just hidden because I never knew any other way.

That's the biggest challenge. So much stuff feels "normal" because we never knew anything else. I started playing at 6 and developed all kinds of bad habits that it took a long time to break-- not because they were 'habits,' but because it never occurred to me that they weren't perfectly normal-- and it's stuff that's invisible to the naked eye, more or less.

Know what helped me with that? Tremendously? Visualization. I know this sounds really new-agey but I promise it's not. Sit and close your eyes and imagine very specifically that you are playing very fast and effortlessly. Is it easy for you to imagine? Can you really pretend in your mind that you are playing very fast and relaxed so that you can almost feel what it feels like to do so?

I couldn't. The reason I couldn't is because I had never played that way.

Since I couldn't imagine what it was supposed to feel like, whenever I practiced I wasn't practicing toward that. Plain and simple. I had to really practice visualizing that feeling, almost to the point of meditating on it, for weeks. Eventually I taught myself mentally a little bit about what it might feel like to play that way. Once I had a slight understanding of the very beginning of that, I could almost visualize it. Then I could begin practicing towards it. I still visualize, because technique is still a work in progress for me as it is for many. It was one of the most beneficial things I ever did for technique study, in MY case. Everyone is different.

It was my way of understanding what I was doing.. You have to understand what you're practicing towards, on a really deep level (not just an intellectual level). It's not enough to identify it. You have to be able to imagine it, or else (in my opinion) it's basically directionless.

Someone once said "practice doesn't make perfect-- practice makes permanent" and I can't think of anything that applies to more than this. You have to really understand what you are trying to ingrain and be able to imagine it. If not, you're just ingraining your current methods more and more.

[buddastrat]

"practice doesn't make perfect-- practice makes permanent" I trademarked this saying decades ago! Seriously, I honestly did not think anyone ever else said it or thought of it, at least then. I made it up and put up a poster in 1988, when I started teaching. I also had others like instead of "no pain, no gain" I'd have "know pain, no gain" and that was in reference to tension like were discussing.

Yes, visualizing does help a ton with anything you do in life. A large part of of anything we try physically, is mental. A mirror helped me as watching your hands can help to relax you.

But Brad, I think isolating the hands at times is great, because it allow all the focus on that hand and you can then start to tell where tension is or ain't and can experiment using small muscles or different ones or... if you're playing stuff with both hands, attention can't be focused on specific things as easily and accurately.

[brad347]

Duly noted. I guess my method became "if it's too hard to focus on both hands at the same time, slow down." Because in real life we're using both at the same time. So we have to get comfortable with that.

Maybe it would be better to say "don't exclusively work on the hands individually without spending an appropriate amount of time observing their relationship to each other."

[flagstaffcharli]

Originally Posted by Tomo

Do you use your amp when you practice? Try to use a tip of pick. Play soft so that you won't hear your pick sound. This is very important foundation for playing. It's frustrating but it's worth to spend 2-3 months to build your picking technique. And you can practice finger picking style too. Mix them later.

Tomo

I'm not the fastest flatpicker in the world, but I have made some progress in the past year. What's helped me is concentrating as much on dynamics and playing slowly with a metronome. I think it has helped me get some muscle control, and for whatever reason working on playing with varied dynamics seems to help a bit with speed.

Also, I was doing some passages out of good old Mel Bay books because my reading needs work. I'd play the passages both straight and with swing rhythm. I think the swing rhythm also helps with speed. It trains you to play that part of the beat a little faster.

Finally, just practicing playing passages with all upstrokes might help some. I know my downstrokes are a lot stronger than my upstrokes, and getting these things evened out is key to clean alternate picking.

Oh... now I better practice too!

[ivers]

Originally Posted by brad347

Maybe it would be better to say "don't exclusively work on the hands individually without spending an appropriate amount of time observing their relationship to each other."

Sure, without adjusting certain stuff in my fretting technique, I couldn't make my pick attack sound the way I wanna, or as clean, so it must be seen in context.

That's coming from a huge proponent of practicing some stuff in isolation..like the upstroke thing the previous poster mentioned, which is very good, and inside/outside picking, isolated and repeated, which is amazing.