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Probably not but this video is really interesting.
What inspired the title is his discussion of the different muscle groups that move the wrist. His "tall ergonomic mouse" position (looks a lot like Benson picking!) seems to most efficiently utilize those muscle groups. And isn't the point of learning technique (in the mechanical sense) to play with as few physical obstacles as possible? Wouldn't it follow that if someone wanted to learn to alternate pick, in a sense the correct way to do so would be to learn this motion? You could make the argument that this is analogous to instruments like the piano or violin, where specific mechanics are part of the pedagogy.
(Please keep in mind this is posted mostly as bait haha, and just as something interesting to think about)
The real take away is that picking technique should feel comfortable. And that the pure side to side wrist motion that many, myself included, tried to learn to alternate pick is probably not the best way. I found it a really interesting video!
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09-21-2023 05:38 PM
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Thumbnail pictures have gotten out of hand.
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My experience with Troy is that it would come as news to him if he proved there is "a" (as in one) correct way to pick.
Hands differ, types of guitar differ, and desired results differ.
I think Troy's done important work in showing what some great players are doing when they play (-which is often something other than what they think they are doing and what they tell people they are doing.)
And he's also done good work in showing how certain picking habits novice players may develop are likely to lead to trouble later on. When playing slow, almost any technique will work; when things speed up, fewer picking grips / motions work efficiently, and at high speeds for several measures, most people are glad they have one way they can depend on, while a few especially fortunate souls have a few pick tricks up their sleeve.
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I’m a bit skeptical of stuff like this. You mention classical violin and piano, for example. I think electric guitarists kind of fetishize their pedagogy in a weird way, because they’ve been around so long and there is such a developed methodology for stuff. But a lot of that isn’t quite so ironclad as you might think.
I teach a lot of classical guitar and there’s a pretty well-set pedagogy there too as far as playing position, etc (though not nearly as established as other instruments). Still I find myself mostly referring to the Ends (straight wrist, minimal tension, etc) way more than any super detailed means (exactly where and how to hold your hand, etc). When I make physical corrections, they’re almost always more effective when they’re little illustrations of ways to make the motions happen (rest your fist on the strings and pretend it’s a balloon inflating, the cats paw for playing with the big knuckles, jelly fingers, stuff like that). I think all that is because every body is different—hands different, posture different, etc. If you have extremely precise instructions about how everything is suppose to go, I think they’re going to run up pretty quickly against the reality of your student’s actual physical body.
I think with the addition of another intermediate substance between finger and string — a pick — it’s probably even more true there.
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Troy's great. Lot's of answers on that site
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Yeah that's all true, I guess pedagogy does need to be *teachable* haha. But I could kind of imagine a way to teach the motion. Hold the pick like this, make a door knocking motion, turn your arm away from you, etc. And if you think about players who use that kind of motion (Benson, Cecil Alexander, maybe Shawn Lane) there's enough room for variation while still keeping the mechanical motion.
Originally Posted by pamosmusic
I think the real downside to trying to make an electric guitar pedagogy is just that there's so much language on guitar that's achieved in different ways. Grady points out that the motion is essentially locked into DSX, so like Gambale style sweeping seems like it would be difficult. Technique and musical expression seem tied together for guitar in a way that maybe they aren't for piano? Idk
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There's a bunch of lessons on the site teaching this stuff and a technique critique where troy will give you feedback which compensates for the material not suiting all learning styles.
BTW while there's RDT in Benson and Cecil Alexander's mechanic, they don't use the exact motion Troy's demonstrating here.
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Yeah that's a good point. Troys technique is DSX, while those two are pretty clearly USX. Maybe Shawn Lane would be the closest to what he's doing? Originally Posted by bediles
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Yeah I think so. I can't remember if I heard/read that Shawn Lane was Dart Thrower. I don't know his playing well but if his arm is more pronated than likely DT, supinated then like Tory in the video, RDT. Originally Posted by BreckerFan
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I may be misinterpreting your post, but I don't think he's saying that this approach is "the one right way to do everything." There are different techniques for different applications. Many players seem to switch between alt picking, sweep and hybrid picking as the need arises. Originally Posted by BreckerFan
So instead of trying to use this approach all the time, you can add it to your bag of tricks for passages that call for this kind of picking.
I'm intrigued enough to give it a try :-) Thanks, OP!
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That’s not quite what I mean. I mean that the goal of good technique isn’t always visible in the musical result. You want good technique so that you can play super fast, but you also want good technique so that you don’t get carpal tunnel after two years and have to quit. Good technique should also make playing guitar comfortable and sustainable, and I’m not sure that this stuff is super helpful on that front.Yeah that's all true, I guess pedagogy does need to be *teachable* haha.
By that I mean, focusing on this kind of super detailed, granular approach to stuff can sometimes make it hard to focus on how everything feels.
I think my question for something like this would be … how do you know it’s working for you?
If it’s enabling you to play fast challenging passages, then how soon? How soon should you even be trying to play those passages? How does it feel to play them?
Or is it another metric?
Yeah that’s probably true. Even something as simple as playing closer to the bridge for a brighter sound really changes the way the wrist orients to the guitar. So there are a lot of variables in there.I think the real downside to trying to make an electric guitar pedagogy is just that there's so much language on guitar that's achieved in different ways.Last edited by pamosmusic; 09-22-2023 at 01:08 AM.
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Troy has done amazing work - there was close to nothing before him as to sound, complete and non-misleading pedagogy about picking technique. In my case it had been a major hindrance to my playing and learning guitar. Other things weren't much of a problem or could be figured out with work, but the right hand just wasn't happening. I like that there's an agnostic quality to his work, he's covered all styles. Being able to pick at high tempos is quite relevant to jazz. The best thing is as he points out again in that video - ANYONE can do it.
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Interesting. Turns out I used be DT and then learned RDT (gypsy picking) and now I swap between them.
In the former case it was all intuitive.
I maintain that well meaning but overly strict teachers can actually interfere with students technique. If I’d had a teacher for plectrum guitar im sure I’d have been talked out of my early picking style, which looks almost exactly like the stance Troy uses in the start of the vid. I was self taught in this regard.
Plectrum technique is poorly understood imo, I think TG’s work is helpful, but I wish there were more like him.
In any case yes, pick technique should feel easy and if you can’t speed it up there’s probably an ergonomic issue.
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Yeah, the funny thing about Troy's stuff is the seeming discrepancy between all the material in his lessons/videos and the advice he ends up giving you, which basically amounts to saying 'forget about all these analyses, just go fast'. A case in point is that he used to teach two-way pickslanting as a thing, however:
One-page explainer on playing scales with alternate picking — overview of what we know! - Playing Technique - The Cracking the Code Forum (troygrady.com)We used to call method 4 “two-way pickslanting”, because the use of the forearm makes the pick appear to turn. But the teaching hit rate was not high because students would hyper-focus on “changing the slant” of the pick (however they did that), instead of making the correct picking motions.
So then we started teaching them to explicitly perform the forearm motion that causes the “slant change”. This lead to overdoing the helper motion and looking awkward / slow.
I downloaded the Pickslanting Primer earlier this year, and there is some useful info. And yeah, there are many correct ways to play guitar - sometimes I envy pianists and violinists etc. their standard pedagogy but it does make the guitar more interesting in a way.
Anyway, while I've said on here more than once that I'm going adopt downward pickslanting economy playing, believing it to be a panacea for stringhopping, ultimately I don't want to interfere with the licks and phrases I play already. So I'm still continuing the search for a proper double-escape motion which would take its place.
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That double escape motion is explained in the Primer, it's basically Andy Wood's default technique. Originally Posted by James W
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Yeah, I know. It may be explained but that doesn't make it any easier to do, at least for me... Originally Posted by m_d
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I think the later videos have the benefit of Troy and team having coached players one-on-one which wasn't the case before. So a couple of things he believes in is rehearsing the motion (in the "Testing yours motions" section, also see for instance the "ergonomic mouse" explanation), and the principle of "starting with speed". Testing the motions makes apparent how easy they actually are to do. Then of course translating the motion to the guitar poses some real issues. In my case I got the Andy Wood default motion in a couple of sessions, with more careful preparation (e.g. making mental or written notes of all important points) and repeated watching than I had a year before, when I had given up. But I did not fundamentally work harder than I had a year before. A couple of weeks before I had successfully performed the wrist/arm tremolo motion which I was able to do for a good minute straight - that gave me a boost in confidence too. All in all keep in mind there's no special predisposition to be able to do this - you've already got it. Those guys are special because they're able to figure it out by themselves. Originally Posted by James W
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Not wishing to derail the thread with my own technical hang-ups
but anyway...
Yes, I have a fast motion, and can use it do a reasonably fast tremolo fairly effortlessly, though for no where near as long as a minute - yet. I would question the thing about having a predisposition - as Troy himself has said, some people have string-hopping problems, while some don't. I'd say the proper double-escape is difficult because a) one can't rely on a rest-stroke and b) string-hopping is also double-escape, and Troy's solution to 'defeating' string-hopping is to play whatever it is you want to play at a speed above what string-hopping it capable of, so something like 150 BPM sixteenth notes, so essentially I have to try to play Donna Lee at 300BPM to ensure I'm not string hopping. Originally Posted by m_d
Kudos to you for achieving a proper double-escape technique though!
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Those breakthroughs are recent I don't have the double escape yet - don't have enough time to play and am limited to practicing one move at a time, but how he explains it is straightforward enough. Default is a DSX position with the pick almost perpendicular and a "shallow" escape while still retaining a rest-stroke, which is a much easier position (than say, a USX position) to do double escape, either an occasional one, where you revert thereafter to DSX as default, or a "constant" one as in a "bluegrass roll" figure over three strings. I would try DSX at high or medium-high speeds first to establish and anchor the feel of "no string-hopping" (that smooth diagonal wrist motion) and only then attempt lines that require some double escape.
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Advice to new players re: picking
1. Watch videos of me
2. Don't do what I do
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I think Grady's answer to that is that the test is whether you can comfortably play fast immediately. And not necessarily passages, but just can you execute tremolo picking with the technique for a longish period of time without feeling like you're fighting your body. Which makes sense to me, you want to stress test the technique to see if it's capable of whatever speed you're after before you spend time working on accuracy and time feel slowly. So many players hit a speed limit where technique doesn't work because there's a fundamental flaw that's only exposed at higher speeds. Originally Posted by pamosmusic
But then once you know you have a picking mechanic that works, you still need to do the work of synchronization, time feel, applying it to language, and ideally making music with it!
But i just think about if I had a teacher when I started guitar at 13, imagine how natural it would feel now after years of practice. Ingraining the motion early probably opens a lot of doors for application that might otherwise be shut.
I think that's where I'm saying maybe this would be good as a part of pedagogy. You ideally want to impart the correct tools as early as possible so that people can then run with them. Teaching a picking motion early that gives you the potential to reach your true top speed seems better than now, after years of playing, trying to go back and figure it out.
But yeah the counter argument is there are so many different styles on guitar that require different techniques. This is great for like shreddy alternate picking stuff, but it doesn't help you learn to play like SRV or Holdsworth or Wes etc
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Yeah he's truly like a guitar scientist haha. I don't feel the need to reinvent my technique, but I still love to watch his stuff, it's just fascinating. Originally Posted by Christian Miller
His stuff makes me feel like there's potential to develop a more logical and systematic approach to picking technique. Like if you can understand these wrist motions and weigh them on how efficiently they work given your wrist,s anatomy, couldn't you find a 'right', or maybe set of right, picking motions?
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There are logical and systematic schools of picking. Originally Posted by BreckerFan
one is the gypsy picking school which reliably turns out technically excellent players
Another is rodney Jones who has a systematic approach to picking (similar to benson.)
And there’s the Chuck Wayne school.
problem is there’s a lot of teachers who don’t know these approaches and insist on straight pick alternate picking from day one which imo is the hardest style.
Esp in jazz. I see a lot of tense pickers with their pick gripped tightly in a fist studiously alternate picking from the wrist with forearm rotation like their teachers told them. It makes me tense up just thinking about it. It’s really not their fault.
as for rock… imo the existing of shred as a genre is an indication of the failure of pedagogy. Players like Yngwie should not be remarkable. (Perhaps they aren’t these days so much.)
i think Troy’s a force for good in the destruction of the mystique around technique. Hopefully we can focus on music
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Jelly fingers?
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Jelly fingers. Originally Posted by Cunamara
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