Wrist Movement Options

[Wabba]

Hi Muris! I wrote in your forum cause I like your techique most. Anyway, I red a topic where were discusion about guitar speed picking. Somebody said, that to achieve the fastest speed, wrist must be tight, and the movement must come from elbow (I've tried this, but I can barely play a single note because of the loss of accuracy). I'm currently picking like you (I think), that all movement comes from wrist. But I want to achieve super-fast-speed-with-good-accuracy. So should I learn the elbow-technic, and use it when my wrist can't move any faster, or is the maximum speed achieved then when wrist can't move any faster. I haven't yet achieved to maximum wrist speed (Or actually, I have, but it's a bit unaccurate), but I ask this now, cause I wanna know it for the future.

Hope you understand something what I try ask.

Hope I posted this into the right forum.

[Muris Varajic]

Hi.

As you've seen so far,the idea and routine for picking
varies from person to person,there is no right or wrong way.
However I'm gonna explain it to you how I do it and why.
I prefer wrist picking as much as possible.
First of all,to move your wrist only it takes less effort
comparing to moving your elbow,less muscles are in use.
That gives me the conclusion that I have more time to pick
if I do less movements with less effort.
Also another thing I've found important,I like to keep my wrist
kind a fixed on the bridge,it stays almost at the same location
while I pick through different string,I somehow change the angle a bit
but I keep same position of the wrist on the bridge.
This also works nice for me palm muting wise,
I don't move my palm a lot,I just roll it down on higher string
when I play them.
So that is what I do to get decently fast and accurate picking,just from elbow.

Now,in order to play rapidly fast(usually one string only) picking I go from elbow.
But there's a problem with it,at least for me.
It is a lot faster then from wrist but it's also surely out of my control,
it comes handy for so called tremolo picking when I play single note
repeated x times and as fast as possible,
for everything else I'd go from wrist.

[Wabba]

Ok, Thanks for answering! I move my palm always so, that I mute the lower strings that I don't use and I also try to mute the upper strings that I don't use with my left hand fingers. I guess wrist speed is the maximum speed when playing scale runs/many string patterns.

This post has been edited by Wabba: Nov 30 2008, 01:14 PM

[Muris Varajic]

I guess wrist speed is the maximum speed when playing scale runs/many string patterns.

Probably yes.