Alternate Picking/speed Picking Options

[Maboroshi]

Hello everyone, something is really bothering me today.After so much practice in alternate picking, with lessons such as Neoclassical Etudes #1 & #2, String skipping Etudes, Modal Madness Series, I came to the conclusion that I might be doing it all wrong.
I have been playing guitar for quite a while, so I can reach a decent speed with alternate picking for a intermediate player.

As I play in slower tempos, I find no problem in the way I pick. Up and Down , pick angled, all that stuff. The notes come out clear, no problem , I'm happy.

However,when I start to add some bpm to the tempo, in order to be able to play faster, I notice that my picking hand starts to do some kind of a diving motion, and very often the pick hits the pickups (The distance between the strings and the pickups on my Ibanez is not very big).

I can still make the notes sound, but I feel like doing this motion kind of stops me from going on to higher tempos.The pick doesn't just lightly scrapes the string, it goes deeper and hits the pickups.

I'm not sure I've made myself perfectly clear, but does any of you guys experience the same problem? If so, how did you fix it?

Thanks in advance.

Video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7nKMdRmARs...eature=youtu.be

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This post has been edited by Maboroshi: Aug 1 2014, 05:54 PM

[Ben Higgins]

Do you touch the guitar with your fingers to help anchor the picking position at all ?

Sometimes people have problems with getting the depth gauge of the pick just right and it dips lower than it should. I find this particularly problematic on the top E string if there are no fingers in contact with the guitar.

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[Bossie]

yep keeping contact with scratchplate or just below the strings keeps my distance balanced...even if it's just the side of the pink.

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[Maboroshi]

I personally do not use an anchor, however my brother does. He rests his pinky finger on one of the pickups, and although he still has the same problem as I do, he can have a little bit more control. I'm going to post a video where you can see my playing exactly.
We can play fine in lower tempos, but when we up the speed it starts getting really hard to keep with the right hand, because it needs to go faster and we lose time by diving the pick too much between the strings.
Just how deep should the pick go in order to be able to do fast alternate picking?

Ty in advance

The video is here :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7nKMdRmARs...eature=youtu.be

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This post has been edited by Maboroshi: Aug 1 2014, 05:53 PM

[Ben Higgins]

You're floating your hand with no contact at all so it is more difficult to get the right depth for your pick.

Most players will rest the heel of their hand near the bridge. So the edge of the hand on the pinky side would rest on the strings near the bridge but at an angle that allows you to pick normally and switch between non muted notes and muted notes at will.

If you float your picking hand you won't be able to mute the strings when you play with distortion. It is possible to play like that but not ideal for rock / metal. If you do want to keep playing like it though, you might want to change the angle of the pick because I have found from my own experience that it's easier to play with a floating hand angle if you angle the pick so it hits the strings at a diagonal. Looking at your video, you play with the pick quite flat so more of the pick hits the strings, increasing the resistance.

So, to recap:

1. Try to rest part of your hand near the bridge. This gives you the ability to mute the strings when needed. It also gives you an anchor point for the hand.

2. Try to increase the angle of the pick itself so it hits the strings at more of a diagonal angle. Less of the pick touches the strings, making it easier to 'slice' through.

If you do number 1, you may find you don't need to do number 2. But try both anyway.

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This post has been edited by Ben Higgins: Aug 1 2014, 07:23 PM

[Jim S.]

Hey man how you doing? I too am working on very similar things. Hand position, having an anchor, thumb movements all those are very critical when playing fast. One thing that I found that threw me off a bit was that I was increasing the tempo too much when practicing. Sometimes just a matter of 10 bpm can cause you to loose balance especially when your near max speed. Also stopping to up the metronome speed is a real killer for me too. If you can set a loop that automatically ups the tempo a few bpm each pass I've found better results. Let us know what works for you.

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[Todd Simpson]

Thanks for the vid!!! It's extremely helpful when students post a vid showing what they are having issues with. I can see your problem right away. BEN nailed it on the head!! Your basically going "too deep" on each strike. You are essentially over committing to each pick strike by going beyond what is needed to make the strike.

Your pick needs to only graze the string to make the strike. Also, I notice your hand is wagging back and forth quite a bit which pulls your palm off the bridge and would result in unwanted string noise under high gain. Have you noticed unwanted string noise when using high gain?

The good news is, this is easy to fix

1.)Use headphones/use a pod with headphones/use a laptop with headphones/amp with headphones/etc. This will allow you to hear what you are playing without having to strike each string so hard that it throws you off for your next strike. Playing without an amp is fine and dandy, but for what you are trying to fix here, it's not going to help much.

2.)Try sharpening your pick or buying a sharp pick. You switch back to your normal picks later, but for now, until you get the swing of this, find a sharp pick like the DUNLOP SHARP.

3.)Use a THICK pick. Again go back to whatever you were using later, but for now, get a 1.00 or 1.2mm thick pick. The "flex" or bend in a pick can actually reduce your precision. I have no idea what you are using now, so if you are alredy using a 1.0 mm dunlop sharp, great!

4.)Try focusing on your right hand only. Forget about the left hand. Traverse/change strings as if you are playing a scale/drill but don't move your left hand. Fret a chord or something, whatever, doesn't matter, just take the left hand out of the picture until you get this a bit more worked out.

5.)Try finding the magic minimum of force needed to strike the string hard enough to make it sound.

6.)Keep your hand planted on the bridge for a good palm mute (This will help keep each note distinct and reduce unwanted string noise).

7.)Try using your thumb and first finger to articulate (move the pick) as much as possible.

You can go back to your existing techniques or a modified version or any other version after you get a handle on this one thing So I'm not saying change your style of play forever, just try these tips until your picking improves and then your style will adapt to what you've learned

Here is an example played slow and fast. Watch the picking hand. Notice how each pick strike has very little "travel" back and forth and each strike is done fairly lightly, and each strike exerts only the minimum needed force. This results in being able to recover from one strike in time to make the next one, even at high speed.

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This post has been edited by Todd Simpson: Aug 2 2014, 03:58 AM

[Gabriel Leopardi]

Hi Maboroshi. You've been clever asking this question here and posting that video. I can see clearly what's happening and I'm sure that you will be able to fix it soon if you follow Todd's suggestions. Each things he commented on the previous post will have a big effect in your alternate picking technique, and based on your video, you definitely need to improve it.

I know that it can be a bit tricky to think on all those things at the same time, but as Todd said, start slowly, just focusing on your right hand (you can practice playing open strings, you don't need to use your left hand) and once you feel that you start to see improvements, record a new video and share it here. We'd like to monitor your progress to be sure that you are on the right track.

Keep on the hard work!

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[Maboroshi]

Thanks guys for replying with such helpfull tips, ill make sure to correct my picking habit according to the advice i have received here
And i will make sure to post my progress results here aswell

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This post has been edited by Maboroshi: Aug 3 2014, 08:02 PM

[Gabriel Leopardi]

Thanks guys for replying with such helpfull tips, ill make sure to correct my picking habit according to the advice i have received here
And i will make sure to post my progress results here aswell

This sounds great mate, we will wait for your update!

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[Cosmin Lupu]

Hey mate Since everyone already posted very important insights, I would like to offer a lesson suggestion which focuses on picking one note at a time for each type of rhythmic subdivision you will be playing - this will give you the time to focus on building the right hand picking habits in a musical context as well

Here's the lesson: https://www.guitarmasterclass.net/ls/Picking-Hand-Basics/

Let me know what you think about it and I'd be glad to assist further!

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[Maboroshi]

I will make sure to check it out Cosmin .
The only thing im not understanding here is the 'resting your hand near the bridge while playing' thing, i mean if im resting the heel of my hand on the guitar strings, i will be palm muting the upper strings permanently, even when i'm not supposed to.
Should i rest my hand on the actual bridge of the guitar?

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[Ben Higgins]

The only thing im not understanding here is the 'resting your hand near the bridge while playing' thing, i mean if im resting the heel of my hand on the guitar strings, i will be palm muting the upper strings permanently, even when i'm not supposed to.
Should i rest my hand on the actual bridge of the guitar?

No, not on the actual bridge, just near the bridge. If you watch most guitarists they play closer to the bridge than the neck.

Even if you do rest your hand on the strings near the bridge you can still take the hand away slightly when you're playing things that you don't want to mute like rhythm guitar etc.

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[Todd Simpson]

BINGO!!!!! Well said!! Keeping your hand sort of hovering over the bridge allows you to mute, lightly mute or not mute. Also, you can change from not muting to muting in a flash as you are right above the bridge. Mastering this strategy can be a great help in reducing unwanted string noise.

Most folks get used to muting high string with their left hand without realizing it. They lift up with the right hand. The trouble with this is when doing long runs using all the strings, you end up not being able to cover all the strings and you get unwanted string noise. Also, when using open string licks you run in to the same problem.

Also, during a lick you may want to mute every other note, or set of notes to add dynamics. The close mute position allows for this.


Todd





[BINGO!!!quote name='Ben Higgins' date='Aug 4 2014, 02:14 PM' post='693404']
No, not on the actual bridge, just near the bridge. If you watch most guitarists they play closer to the bridge than the neck.

Even if you do rest your hand on the strings near the bridge you can still take the hand away slightly when you're playing things that you don't want to mute like rhythm guitar etc.
[/quote]
o a

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[Maboroshi]

Alright, thanks guys

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[Cosmin Lupu]

Hey mate - looks like Sir Higgins and Sir Simpson have already pointed you in the right direction in respect to the hand position. I am looking forward to hearing your impressions on the new technique upgrades and on the way they are functioning in the context of the suggested lesson

Please let us know if there's anything else we can help with!

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[Maboroshi]

Hey guys, im still having trouble figuring out where to put the heel of my right hand so that i won't have my hand floating and doing all that unecessary mumbo jumbo. Im not sure i get the concept of hovering over the strings, i mean was i not hovering over the strings in the video i've sent in the sense that i wasn't touching them?
Sorry for bombarding you guys with so many questions... it would be nice if one of you guys could show me how you position your right hand on a video of your own.

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[Cosmin Lupu]

Hey guys, im still having trouble figuring out where to put the heel of my right hand so that i won't have my hand floating and doing all that unecessary mumbo jumbo. Im not sure i get the concept of hovering over the strings, i mean was i not hovering over the strings in the video i've sent in the sense that i wasn't touching them?
Sorry for bombarding you guys with so many questions... it would be nice if one of you guys could show me how you position your right hand on a video of your own.

Hey mate To be quick with responding, I thought you could get a good idea about what I am doing when picking without muting - that is holding the hand over the bridge without touching the strings. The amount of touch, as Todd and Ben said, is a thing that varies, in respect to what you want to achieve, so please watch video nr 2 - all of it, focusing especially on the right hand position - in the following lesson: https://www.guitarmasterclass.net/ls/Tesseract-Style/

Notice that my hand is positioned over the bridge in order not to touch the strings - if I wanted to mute them, all I had to do was to drag the hand slightly towards the neck and I could've executed the same lick with palm muting. The amount of palm muting is decided by the amount of skin that touches the strings. That is something you should explore and decide how you like it better - more or less palm muting. Please let me know if you understand the mechanics explained here and I'll be around to help further

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[Ben Higgins]

Also have a look at this video. I made the video about palm muting and you can see how I move the hand to the strings in order to make it muted and just leave it away if I don't want it muted.

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[Todd Simpson]

DOUBLE BINGO!! As COS and BEN have mentioned, it's more about keeping it near your mute position so that you don't have far to move when you want to mute. You may mute and un mute in a single phrase or pasage.

What may be gumming you up is i noticed you were wagging your hand a pinch much perhaps instead of articulating/moving the pick very much with your finger and thumb. Typically, unless you are blazing 32nd notes, you can do most things with very minimal motion that doesn't require the entire hand much like the vids posted so far.

Did the vids ben and I put up make sense? And the lesson cos shared?

Todd

Also have a look at this video. I made the video about palm muting and you can see how I move the hand to the strings in order to make it muted and just leave it away if I don't want it muted.

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