I've had trouble with picking for as long as I can remember, where as legato came very easily to me. Most of my guitar heroes have been people who are really solid alternate pickers but no matter how hard I practice I make no progress. On the flip side, I can practice any other technique and have a lot of progress. There's just something about alternate picking I can't get! No matter what I do my right hand just feels awkward and clumsy. I feel maybe my right hand technique is the problem. I play with my palm resting (not anchored to the bridge and my pinky fingers resting (again, not anchored, they both move a bit when I change strings) on the body below the bridge pickup.
Oddly enough I can play triplets at 130bpm and it's quite clean, but the whole time my right hand feels very awkward and like I'm using up a ton of energy for every stroke, despite me always focusing on being relaxed and making very small movements. I should also note that I have no problem tremolo picking at high speeds for extended periods of time (very accurately in time with specific note groupings, note just a mush of fast picking), but I'm using a different technique for that that I see a lot of people use for trem picking, and NOT for alternate picking.
Here's some video of my technique, can anyone help me out?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=playe...p;v=ZmAsM3PYh4MIt has honestly gotten me so frustrated. I'm such a calm person and I rarely get angry, but alternate picking always gets me frustrated, despite my immense patience for practicing any other technique, and my experience with how to properly practice techniques and get them up to speed.