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I am waiting on the Magnet Kickstarter (THE MAGNET: Smartphone Camera Mount for Guitar by Troy Grady — Kickstarter) but I came across this device. The price is pretty nice for what it is and it works great. Good for examining your right hand technique.
Here is the Etsy link for The Pick Stick: The Pick Stick | Etsy
I'm not affiliated with the seller at all, just sharing a cool product.
Here's a short demo video I shot today using The Pick Stick.
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02-12-2021 11:26 AM
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That looks useful and not too expensive. Thanks for the tip!
Nice playing.
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That is really cool. Both the product and your demo.
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reminded me of this
cheers
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Jimmy was so on top of his game back then. What a player!
Originally Posted by neatomic
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I ordered one. What the heck.
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hah...cool...keep us posted when you hook it up...fun gadget
cheers
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Thanks for posting. I ordered one. I've been waiting on the Troy Grady version but that has taken forever and this is a device that I will use infrequently so the price is well worth the gamble.
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That's what I was thinking! Might only use it a couple times but if it teaches me something useful, it will have been worth it. Then I can rent it out for big bucks. Originally Posted by rob taft
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I will. It has shipped. Should have it by the 19th. (Not coming from Amazon----I ordered a hutch for my desk around 5 PM yesterday and it was on my patio before 11 AM today. This is from Esty, which isn't as fast and it's not free shipping either, but hey, I'm a wild man. ;o) Originally Posted by neatomic
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Still waiting. Expected it today. (Today was the seller's estimated arrival date.)
Wondering what I'll play when I get it to see what my picking is like.
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It arrived.
Uh-oh. I have a string hopping problem. I got it bad and that ain't good.
Video tomorrow.
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no worry...you've got 24 hours to get rid of it! haha Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
cheers
ps- the problem!...not the camera!
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Originally Posted by neatomic
I wish 24 hours would do it!
The device came this afternoon while the wife's youngest was here. I just stuck it on the guitar to see how it looked and played a few notes. Tomorrow I'll warm up first and everything.
But I did see enough to realize I string hop like mad. (Even watched a Troy Grady video to make sure that was the right term.)
I've realized lately that I'm less concerned about great speed (-though it would be nice) than with inconsistency when recording rhythm guitar parts. That and speed.
Never a dull moment!
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Okay, here is 30 seconds of my life and hard times. ;o) At Low Volume!
Wanted to film something / anything day one just to see where I'm at. Later, I can check back to see if I've made improvements.
The first thing is a 12-bar Herb Ellis solo. Just started learning it, so it's not an old familiar passage.
The second thing is a Jackie King exercise. (Pick notes 1 and 3, slur notes 2 and 4.) Great exercise. What it shows here is some intense string hopping. My pick strokes are traveling more above the strings than through them. Yikes.
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far better than you insinuated!
a thicker pick might give you the feeling of goin "through" the strings, better...
cheers
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It's a LOT of wasted motion. That's a Jazz III pick (1.38 mm?) I don't know that I'll go to something thicker. I like a 1.0 mm Pickboy pick too. (My go-to 351 shape---a bit thicker than a Fender Medium but not too much.) Originally Posted by neatomic
I have to re-watch some Troy Grady videos and watch my mechanics as I practice.....
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That was quite useful to form your diagnosis. I know from taking golf lessons, for me a video is much more effective in me really recognizing a technical issue, much more effective than words alone. Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
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Decided to join in. I'm hopping a bit, seems to mostly happen when I try to play faster, which is a bummer. Noodling...
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I've noticed when I try to do DWPS, I feel it in my right shoulder, right at the top. Not a pain; an awareness. It's as if my shoulder is in a different position, one it's not used to.
As long as I keep it "open" (for lack of a better term), my picking hand doesn't bounce. (I've always known that when I play fast my fingernails clack on the pickguard. I never thought much about why but now I realize it's my hand coming down after moving up.)
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Frank, that didn't look hoppy to me. Originally Posted by fep
First time I've seen you play with a pick in years, it seems.
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How's the quality? The video looks pretty good. Mine suffered a problem during the printing process and was delayed. Vendor was upfront and explained the delay. I should get it Monday.
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Quality seems fine to me. It's a simple device, 3D printed. Originally Posted by rob taft
Here's a pic of mine attached to my Tele. (The phone's not in the pic becuase I had to use the phone to take the pic.)
The two knobs at the left end adjust the device. One is to secure it to the neck and the other is to secure one's phone.
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Glad to see that this thread was useful for some other folks.
In watching some of the videos I took, I noticed that I was not actually picking some notes that I thought I was.
Here is another video I made of a right hand picking exercise that I do to work on my GJ picking.
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An attempt at DWPS. Trying to Stop the Hop.
The camera is further up the neck for this one, closer to the neck pickup.
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The problem is people are trying to control their pick hand. String hopping comes from the reasonable concern not to hit the wrong string. However, it makes for that inefficient movement 9/10 times.
The nice thing about pickslanting is you use the guitar strings to control your picking.
However, it's still a big psychological leap to stop trying and avoid hitting the next string over. DWPS picking is about deliberately contacting but not playing the next string over, so that's the way to go I think; learning that contacting the next string is a good thing.
So my suggestion is work on rest strokes mindfully for bursts of about 5 minutes a few times a day until they just happen.
It reminds me of my singing days. Many student singers try to control their voice from the throat. To sing well actually feels a bit wild and uncontrolled.
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The hopping is not necessarily a bad thing, isn't it. It supports consistent alternate picking - smooth and even attack, works better with string skipping. It can be optimized to the minimum of just clearing the strings. To me it is a really good default way.
It all really depends on sound one is after. Other techniques have their own strengths and sound - learning them requires a deliberate effort and it takes time.
For the rest strokes I too found it helpful to really exaggerate: steep angle, relax the grip and push the pick through the string aiming for a percussive click from the next one. Another little trick is to focus initially on downstrokes only - picking only down, noticing how little effort is required to prepare for the next downstroke when the pick bounces off the next string. Then keeping this relaxed feeling make the return motion to go through the string adding upstroke.
Even more on rest strokes I got from chord etudes of Leawitt - they pretty much require it. The man is a mountain, his book seems to contain everything regarding technique in a condensed form. Gypsy picking, pure alternate picking, dud dud triplets - all is there.
Sorry for truisms, just don't quite get why be upset about what to me is a fine way to pick
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Does the Pick Stick work like a mirror, something to use to watch the way you pick AS you're doing it, or is it a video camera that allows you to watch they way you pick AFTER you've done it?
I'm getting a stiff neck from watching the way I pick (I don't like using a mirror, because I can't get the same angle as I do when I just look down at my RH).
I tried pick slanting on the descending dim. arp idea that Steve Vai played in that Ralph Machio movie that Troy Grady did a vid on, and it seemed like something that is very hard to control at fast speeds. I decided to just work on the descending arp idea on my own by just gradually raising the tempo, and can play it cleanly at over 300bpm. I don't know if I'm doing any pick slanting. At that tempo it seems impractical to think that you can consciously control so many minute pick movements.
I practice Paul Gilbert and other's picking exercises, but i don't think about pick slanting, at all. I just gradually raise the tempo till I can play the triplets at 200bpm, and the 16ths at 320bpm.
I;m not looking to be a shredder.Last edited by sgcim; 02-28-2021 at 04:44 AM.
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Triplets at 400bpm, isn't that insanely fast? Originally Posted by sgcim
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It depends where you place it on the neck. If you put it where the neck meets the body, then you won't see much as you play. (At least, I don't, but one can see that one's hand is in the shot.) The further back toward the neck you mount the device, the more you can see WHILE you play (but what you see RECORDED won't be as up-close because the camera is further from your picking hand.) Originally Posted by sgcim
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That is 20 notes per second which puts you on top of this list My List of Fastest Alternate Picking speeds | Michael Angelo Batio Forum above Shawn Lane with 18 nps. Enviable Originally Posted by sgcim
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In my experience a Dwps technique almost always gets an improvement in string skipping accuracy over string hopping
I put down to the fact that the pick isn’t trapped and is free to move but you are also getting positional information from the pick contacting the strings. Things like cross picking open voices triads (see the Chico Pinheiro thing above) become reliable and straightforward at moderate speeds. Even descending arps!
And by the standards of Paul Gilbert/sgcim reliable moderate tempo playing is really out main area of concern as jazz guitarists.
Even at faster tempos - my feeling is blazing picked eighth note lines need to be used sparingly at 300+, the machine gun effect is not really the aesthetic to my ears.
That raises different challenges
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im not sure I could do that. Then I’m not entirely sure that’s on my list of priorities. Originally Posted by sgcim
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Christian, you’re so British!!
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro
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I just finished practicing my triplet exercises, and I realized I'm only doing three notes per beat, NOT six notes per beat. So I'm only doing TEN notes per second. Putting the metronome on 200bpm is so fast, I can't even count correctly. Usually I put it on much slower tempos when I'm doing 16th note scales, arps and exercises, so I have trouble counting at 200bpm. Originally Posted by Danil
That is 20 notes per second which puts you on top of this list My List of Fastest Alternate Picking speeds | Michael Angelo Batio Forum above Shawn Lane with 18 nps. Enviable
That should prove I'm not on the shred level of those guys, and never will.
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No, I was mistaken. It's triplets at 200bpm. I can't even count at that tempo. Originally Posted by fep
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