It was a pretty good representation of his technique. The bits and pieces of the seventies stuff that we see coming out on 16mm are mind blowing, it would have been cool to see better footage of that. First stop in the DeLorean at 88mph...
I love seeing these different methods. When I first started watching these videos of different styles I thought "riiight, so all I've learned is that you can make it work for you a lot of different ways. There is no one way." But as I spent more time with these and played around with them, I've realized that while it's true there are many ways to skin the proverbial cat, most of us learned one way and never even thought to TRY a different method, no matter how silly it seemed or looked. So thanks for inspiration to break outside the box and continue making the right hand picking method a journey!
That's true. If anything, there are so many right ways that it's not obvious how each of them work, and why some of them include different arm positions and grips. When people come to us who are stuck with a technique that really *doesn't* work, trying another way is really the only solution.
This guy is the bomb for teaching speed! This technique really clicked with me and the trick to get the feel by scratching against a table was something I hadn’t even considered before. My goal is to play the Bark at the Moon solo and this has just unlocked getting up to speed for me.
I think if Eddie were here he would say, do it in whatever way gets you to where you want to go. His whole thing was doing things his way. It's like the old adage that says "If you take the same road every day you'll never get to a different destination".
Eddie really was one of the greatest guitarists of all time (One of the 1st along with with Brian May who made me curious of the electric guitar). Like Hendrix he influenced everybody after him and yet has many inimitable features. Some of his techniques were I suppose unorthodox to a lot of shred guitar guidelines and yet these mannerisms and the context in which he employed them gave him an edge over everybody else. So thankful to see a video on his unique picking motion, I think being a great rhythm guitarist as well, his hand position killed many birds with one stone. Though I like shred guitar there does come a moment where it gets gimmicky with most players, but Van Halen made everything work in some way, he hardly bores me. Everything has attitude, sufficient flair and is in some way song oriented without sounding like a lifeless exercise.
Thanks. When I was a young guitar player back in the eighties I suspected there was something about his picking technique that made him sound so good...but I never sorted out the details. I love YT vids like this. Nowadays, all the guitar players are putting this stuff together. 👍
For sure, back in the day, good information was super hard to come by. The fact that those players got as far as they did without resources like this only makes their achievements that much more magical.
Absolutely revolutionary!!! a genuis! a virtuoso! a game changer!! Technically the most innovator!! Mr Eddie Van Halen! Thank you for give us this important master class of one of his techniques,!!
Your analysis is out of this world. It's like watching a genius, analyze another genius, and making it feel much more understandable for us viewers. The next step, though, is for us to put all the learnings to action. 😁👌
The table is potential a help in that regard. If you can do the motion on a desk, and it feels easy, you can definitely do it just as easily on a guitar. The trick is if it doesn't feel easy at first, then you know it's not your lack of capability, it's just that you're not doing it the same way you were on the table, and that more experimentation is necessary. Test, and test again!
@@troygrady so maybe that's why it's a struggle. I write using my left hand, but picks the guitar with my right. I may have to work on my right hand as if I'm writing on a table.
another great video. I started really taking guitar seriously about a year ago, and your videos have definitely sped up the process of learning these much harder licks
Eddie used his middle finger and thump to pick so his index finger could do hammer on etc. I saw him live at the stage many times being 60 now he was number 1 for me
Troy, i wonder how old were you, when you started playing guitar? An interesting thing i've noticed throughout your videos is that you are able to learn basically all the motions that you show us and push them to a level of mastery. And this fact is extremely inspiring, because you're able to master these new complicated motions at a reasonably mature age. This also leads to a question how old were you, when you got your basic shreddy speedy chops? Hope, my English is not too bad :)
I had some ability as a teenager but didn’t make the first discovery about clean string changes until college which was 20 or so. Had I watched our videos when I was 14 I would have been way way ahead of where I am now. So I wouldn’t worry about age at all it’s a small factor compared to knowledge.
@@troygrady I think there are many guys in their 20's, who are really concerned about getting the technique. We see almost no late bloomers among the greatest players. Thank you for the answer and for a great chanell!
@@nigel5634 The hardest part is not "practice", it's figuring out how the techniques work. This is done mainy through trial and error and making many casual attempts to do something, like riding a skateboard or a bike. Most of what people casually call guitar "practice" is really trying to learn new physical techniques, and that process should always be approached with the mentality of doing a trick, and trying to get it right, through many short attempts. That's how you learned every other physical motion in life, so that's how you learn guitar motions.
For all of the (now) typical YT video language - starting w/ some storytelling, then some plz subscribe, n then some teenager jokes n only after some tiring minute or so there starts what may or may not be what I wanted to see -, this video (as are a lot from yours) is completely shocking. one minute on and I had already gained a very specific and well packaged insight. thanks as always.
GREAT video Troy!!! I remember seeing that exact footage from Live Without a Net in 1988 when i was about 11 yo. My friend was obsessed and turned me on to EVH. 32 years later and I still can’t pick that way!!! I just can’t float my hand like that!
It sounds like you’re referring to Eddie’s tremolo which is a forearm technique. The motion we’re looking at here is anchored, on the bridge, and uses wrist motion - just like the table top scribbling.
The idea behind the pen scribbling test is that it is a motion most people already can do pretty well. Have you tried it, and is it comfortable? If so, then it shouldn't be any harder on a guitar - that feeling of easyness is what you're looking for, and the trick is to keep trying slightly different approaches until it feels easy like the table version.
Holy shit. You've done so much to articulate the mechanics of pick technique here visually your jargon is perfect. I can take this and show it to my physical therapist so he can appreciate the physicalitity of what I do as a musician as I rehabilitate my elbow. Perhaps examining your videos further in conjunction to physio will help me unlearn some habits
I've always been able to do his tremolo picking in this style. Spastically twitching my wrist. One of the only things that came naturally to me at guitar. I'm so hyper all the slow stuff I didn't get for literally over a decade... Trade off worth it? Yes. Imo.
Very cool insight as to what is kinda happening. Also, Eddie held the pick that way, so he could tap with his index finger, and to not have the pick get in the way. I hold the pick between my thumb and index, but also tap with my index finger. My friends asked what I did with it, and I showed them that I just switched my index with my middle finger to hold, while I tapped. I guess it's all in how we feel in holding the pick. And I still can't tremolo pick to save my life. Lol
For what it’s worth, I’ve always held my pick the same way as Eddie since I started playing, with pointer and middle finger. Even before I discovered Eddie. Just felt comfortable to me. All the teachers tried to get me to hold the pick normally, never happened haha. I even do eddies “fly picking” when tremolo picking. When I eventually did discover Eddie, all bets were off haha
So cool to see the science behind this. I remember wondering how the heck he held his pick like that. 💡 Thumb & Middle finger - like scribbling on paper. Genius. You, and of course him👑
In our teaching, lots of people have trouble learning picking motions on an actual guitar becuase they're not sure how the motion is supposed to work. They make incorrect, inefficient motions like stringhopping, and they don't even realize they're doing it. By contrast, on a desktop, most people can get this motion right on the first try, and do it smoothly, efficiently, and rapidly. Once they have that, they just have to reproduce it on the instrument.
I used to draw very much from early age til this day and I became very quick and precise with the pencil doing loads of cross hatching and getting very good feel for how much weight I put into the lines. When I started learning guitar the Van Halen grip was the most natural way for me of holding the pick. It feels more stabile, controllable and in line with my forearm. When using regular grip the pick seems to be outside of my forearm line and it feels unbalanced and uncomfortable to me. I use the hardest picks along with a very soft grip between thumb and middle finger. Whenever I lose the grip the slightest I quickly adjust it back with my index and ring finger without losing a beat. This technique put minimum strain on the arm and I can train for hours with zero fatigue.
He said in several interviews that he got the idea from watching someone play violin. It''s a similar motion to someone holding a bow and playing back and forth very fast.
There is an aspect missing. The middle finger is the anchor to the wrist. There is a collected motion in the angle. Ed just figured it out. There is an "axis" with the wrist and not everyone is going to have that axis. I'm sorry @ 5:51 it is not the same motion. His wrist isn't even moving. It is basically speed picking variant. I got s**t for commenting. I don't discount Troy in any way. When he asked to see who could explain it, I jumped in but I just didn't have the camera to do it. It was an ipad then even the laptop didn't work in showing the trem technique. There is a lot more going on here. Pick size has alot to do with it as well. The technique don't work as well with thicker picks. Ed used .60mm picks for the most part. I think sometimes he went up and down. Never heavy. When revisiting the trem technique I had some picks made that were .80 and made all of Ed's lines easier. And extra heavy isn't so easy to do the trem technique let alone anything else Ed played. The middle finger, he doesn't always use it. Ed was a hard player. Listen to Spanish Fly. Ed came up with in on the electric sans amp, and in order to hear it better you start picking harder. When on an acoustic version is comes across aggressive in the picking moments. Tapping was about the same though a little more open on the nylon. Ed had a planted palm. He was very controlled in the use of his speed picking and it wasn't wrist based. It is a shorter version of the trem but micro. Ed also palmed his pick in his middle finger between the first and second knuckle when he wanted to tap but it was also easy to bring the pick back into his middle finger and play normally. Ed didn't always use 2 fingers either on the pick. It was very defined into what he was doing in the moment. It was just natural and one or two it didn't matter. He could do it both ways. More favorable to middle sure. What is the strongest finger in you hand? Thumb isn't a finger. Waiting for the Magnet. First round failed. Second round maybe I can post some videos when it comes.
Sorry for the confusion! I think you may be referring to Eddie's forearm rotational motion, the one he used for the tremolo section of Eruption. That was a beautiful thing, but not the motion we are teaching in this lesson. This lesson is about Eddie's general purpose lead playing technique, where is a wrist motion where only the hand moves, not the arm. The example you point out at 5:51 is a perfect example of Eddie's wrist technique, and as you can see the arm is not moving, only the hand. That's how the wrist joint works.
@@troygrady I think you had written more, but it seems to have disappeared. I just didn't have time to read it all. Yes, I was talking his trem technique. I may have over analyzed his wrist motion when writing this up. Obviously shorter motions for any player is going to increase the speed. I will say, that I have used almost every gauge of pick for the trem pick. I think I even did it in the video I did for you years ago. Everything from medium to Dunlop 2.0's. Its just a matter of getting use to it. Wasn't really thinking in terms of how I did it initially. I started medium and then ended at XH and went up to 2.0. Lately, .80mm to extra heavy seems to work the best for me in the moment. I've been through even pick on the planet. I have bags on hundreds of every gauge incase I decide to change. Ed did rely on middle finger mostly, but I have found several videos of him using his index finger as well. But that is a player thing. I might economy pick and alternate pick as it just comes from what is comfortable rather than technique. Check out Ed playing with the SNL band. I think tempo, comfortable level and the fact he isn't playing a 2 hour set he uses his index finger. With picks that are .60mm they wear quick and you can feel the burrs from picking after 10 minutes which drags on the strings. Sorry if I went in another direction. I have sometimes found myself playing with my middle finger after knuckle palming the pick for tapping but never really realized it. Looking forward to getting the magnet when its ready. Also, since Ed does A LOT of whammy work, and uses his last 3 fingers, check out the transfer from middle to index to whammy to middle. Live without a net has some but they really cut away a lot in those moments but if you look around enough you will find it. Mostly, hit the G, switch pick, whammy work, knuckle palm for tapping and back or hit the G and knuckle palm and tap and back to first. It is definitely an unconscious thought in those moments. It is just muscle memory. Additional add. I have noticed in some cases Ed starting on an up stroke. You see it in the solo live without a net. He does it if you pay attention.
For sure, tapping convenience is another potential benefit. Whatever the reason, there is an arm position that is necessary to make this grip work, and this affects what wrist motions are available. That may not have been his original motivation, but that was the result. Personally I see the wrist motion as the main benefit, since it's another way to do a thing that a lot of people find tricky, and more ways increase the chances of getting it.
Check out the "EVH day at the office " 2012 live video someone posted. They kept the camera on Edward most of the time so you get a ton of looks at his pick angle etc. Surprised how often he switches from holding the pick with his middle finger and thumb to index finger and thumb, sometimes mid lick he will switch and probably doesn't even know he does it.
I learned how to hold the pick like this from EVH very recently, after playing guitar for almost ten years. I think I can move faster and I can use my index finger for tapping easier, but it's almost like learning how to pick for the first time in my life. Which is good in a sense, because I stopped playing guitar for quite some time, it's keeping my brain going
I think that's how that technique of Eddie's evolved it freed up his index finger for tapping easier whilst holding the pick between his thumb and middle finger.
Interesting with that pick grip as I've been trying to break out my my grip habit and was looking for alternatives and everything I've found for pick grips points to doing the "OK" grip lol
Options are good! The key is that it's not really just the grip, it's the arm position and wrist motion that also change. They work together like a system. So you're not just changing the grip - the grip change is a door to learning a new motion which might work for you.
Hi David! Yes it's done and we're working with the factory to make them. We'll have it for preorder on our web site at some point when we get closer, so I'd stay tuned to our mailing list for updates if you're not on it already. Thanks!
Troy, can you do a video about that fast funk strumming motion you showed during this video? That's one thing I have never seen ANYBODY even mention, yet it's so important to fast strumming! Everybody's so into fast shredding, but what about fast strumming?? You would know how important this is as I remember you once mentioning playing at a Bar Mitzvah which I do too, and that sort of gig demands very fast strumming. Thanks
I've never played in a band, but much respect to people that do! I can only imagine how much strumming goes on in bar mitzvah and klezmer bands. We've looked at this technique a little before. Here's a clip from our Joscho Stephan interview where he demonstrates, and he is a stone cold strumming master: th-cam.com/video/sp-Kai8Z1ck/w-d-xo.html
@@troygrady you know how you hear all the time that a professional guitarist is actually keeping rythm most of the time, not soloing? That's exactly the case in these sort of bands... You need to be a solid funk, rock, country, and other specific genres guitarist all at once, playing everything at crazy tempos, and know how to do it all on one guitar. It's pretty challenging but super fun! Thanks for replying. I'll check out the video.
Well if you can do it on a desk with a pen, then you can definitely do it on a guitar! Just keep experimenting until you find the way that is just as easy on the instrument as it is with the pen.
Oh I was doing it wrong but I guess I came up with an alternative picking motion I’v never seen before. Basically I’m only rotating the hand and not moving the arm whatsoever. So bascially if you have your arm in front of you and spin the wrist with palm down, palm up except not rotating that drastically. It’s only a very minor movement that goes really fast.
9:20 It's not that it's a scratchy sound, but that there is NO way to measure the distance in terms of a cycle because the motion is "to easy" but way more if not impossible to control. This is what the rest stroke accomplishes. The question is about rhythm and what it is to feel a rhythm actually. The real question is can you recognize a cycle in musical or anytime without a sonic(vibrational element) or not? That is to say does it need to be explicit or not and what exactly explicit and implicit mean in this context. Oh btw the motion is not diagonal it's up and down like MOB said in your interview with him after his in studio performance. No 1'oclock 2'oclock 3'oclock 4 needed. You also left out why he curls his index finger into his thumb, it's because the compression achieved by being in that position holds the thumb in the correct position and prevents inertia from taking over when you actually hit strings with force thus keeping everything aligned and thus allow the thumb to just grip the pick in the second finger as if the the index and middle finger are one compound digit working with the thumb like a non isosceles triangle . This doesn't matter when used to strum and might explain why EVH liked to use very light picks with this in mind. There is more but that's enough cracking for now.
2:04 how can one not bust out laughing from 2:04? hahahah man... I'm sorry. but that was probably wrong of me but to do that motion in mid air.... haha it does NOT look uh... cool? hhehehehehe well.... anyway.... I need to quit dreaming about picking and get my arse into bed! Thanks for all your hard work, man. Really love your vids.
If I'm doing longer phrases, i.e. surf style, I employ the eddie grip, I find it way more relaxing and have less tendency to tense up. There is another factor, did eddie not use a light pick, I'm thinking .60mm? This would without a doubt help with the tremolo picking as well and have less tension over all
To me, it always seemed harder to play that way, (with thumb and middle finger) and yet EVH cranked on those fast harmonics and speed picking doing this
Randy and Gary Moore had an interesting hand position quite far back and with the little finger pointing outwards. I think John Sykes emulated Gary with his picking hand far back on the guitar.
"Little bit weird, right?" Yes, yes it is weird to watch a guy tapping the crap out of a dvd case with a pen to a metronome. Lol. In all seriousness, cool stuff.
Yes! Good catch. It's the arm position, which is why Carlos often uses a similar three-finger type grip to reach the strings. Here's a great clip of some surprisingly virtuoso picking from Carlos playing with George Benson: th-cam.com/video/CfFuD7qSeR0/w-d-xo.html
Does eddie do that thumb, first finger and middle finger pick grip so he can keep a hold of the pick with the thumb and middle finger so he can tap with the first finger?
You could certainly do that, but most of the time when Eddie taps, he doesn't actually hold the pick with those fingers - he buries the pick in the middle finger, and uses the remaining fingers to grip the fretboard, while tapping with the index finger. The real purpose of the middle- and three-finger grip is to reach the strings while using Eddie's arm position and type of wrist motion.
Did not realize i playes this way till has a guitar playing freind come over last night and comment on how i was picking. Been doing this since is started 30 yrs ago.
As an experienced drummer, I am strongly drawn towards sextuplets and faster rhythms on guitar. As I am starting to get stable sextuplets at 140bpm or so I am noticing a lot of chaffing on my palm from the bridge. How come nobody ever talks about that? Are my guitars the only ones with sharp edges on the bridge? I ordered a flatter bridge (like for a Floyd Rose), but I feel like maybe I’m doing something wrong?? I have to have me palm on the bridge or my fingertips on the pick guard to ensure that only the tip of my pick is touching the strings consistently. Without one of those points of contact my pick will dig too deep on the strings and destroy any ability for speed. Is that a technique problem?
Interesting, never know EVH held the pick that way and supinated his wrist with that grip. I just tried it and it doesn't work for me. It yields a really bad performance; I miss the string sometimes that way! Is it just something to get used to and practice and then eventually yields a faster picking motion?
It's hard to say without video of what you're doing. But our latest lesson addresses this type of wrist motion in much greater detail ( th-cam.com/video/NWuGkXhj0T8/w-d-xo.html ) and gives you more hands-on tips for actually getting it to work on the string. We also look at different pick grips.
Apparently he broke his wrist fighting with Alex .... was thinking this might have helped him to do this technique ..... it's pretty hard to do Edit: the only time he uses this technique for more than one bar is in eruption; which leads me to believe that it's more spasmodic in nature .... he tends to use it at the end of a phrase
I think you may be confusing this with Eddie's forearm technique - that's a different motion. The motion we're looking at here is the wrist motion that Eddie uses for most of his coordinated lead lines, like Spanish Fly and everything else.
@@MortalKastorR I am! But that's an ad which we filmed separately, and not part of the lesson. None of the tabletop motions we are demonstrating here utilize arm rotation. I see how that can be confusing though, and that totally didn't realize this would throw people. Our bad!
The shot that we're looking at from Live Without A Net, where you can see right down the strings, appears to be upstroke escape. However lines like the intro to Hang 'Em High would have to be double escape, and there is live footage of Eddie making double escape motions where you can actually see it. The chromatic thing at the end of Dirty Movies, there is some fan-shot footage right here on YT where the double escape motion is pretty clear.
Still not ready to talk about HIM in the past tense.
❤️❤️❤️
I noticed and thought it was strange, but reading this, you’re so right.
I think the important thing is to talk about him in any tense, and this is a great way to remember his genius.
Same here Troy! Ditto for Neil Peart :(
We are all together in this brother. Take care ❤
Live Without A Net! On repeat through my childhood :) Love Eddies tone and playing on that
It was a pretty good representation of his technique. The bits and pieces of the seventies stuff that we see coming out on 16mm are mind blowing, it would have been cool to see better footage of that. First stop in the DeLorean at 88mph...
@@troygrady Yes i have some of that early stuff on VHS. Stellar!
I love seeing these different methods. When I first started watching these videos of different styles I thought "riiight, so all I've learned is that you can make it work for you a lot of different ways. There is no one way." But as I spent more time with these and played around with them, I've realized that while it's true there are many ways to skin the proverbial cat, most of us learned one way and never even thought to TRY a different method, no matter how silly it seemed or looked. So thanks for inspiration to break outside the box and continue making the right hand picking method a journey!
That's true. If anything, there are so many right ways that it's not obvious how each of them work, and why some of them include different arm positions and grips. When people come to us who are stuck with a technique that really *doesn't* work, trying another way is really the only solution.
Anyone else just randomly flailing their right hand in the air right now?
Are you watching me ? :)
I'm left-handed.
In the air like you don’t care.
I read this while doing it😂
I scribbled all over my table trying to keep up with 220ppm lol
This guy is the bomb for teaching speed! This technique really clicked with me and the trick to get the feel by scratching against a table was something I hadn’t even considered before. My goal is to play the Bark at the Moon solo and this has just unlocked getting up to speed for me.
Right on. If you can do it on a table, you can definitely do it on a guitar with some experimentation!
Your research and ways of explaining are unparalleled.
Bow down to you.
Nobody should be bowing to Cracking the Code, though we may all bow to Eddie! I will permit that. :)
Finally, someone on TH-cam that is showing the correct way it’s done! Thank you, man!
I think if Eddie were here he would say, do it in whatever way gets you to where you want to go. His whole thing was doing things his way. It's like the old adage that says "If you take the same road every day you'll never get to a different destination".
Eddie really was one of the greatest guitarists of all time (One of the 1st along with with Brian May who made me curious of the electric guitar). Like Hendrix he influenced everybody after him and yet has many inimitable features. Some of his techniques were I suppose unorthodox to a lot of shred guitar guidelines and yet these mannerisms and the context in which he employed them gave him an edge over everybody else. So thankful to see a video on his unique picking motion, I think being a great rhythm guitarist as well, his hand position killed many birds with one stone. Though I like shred guitar there does come a moment where it gets gimmicky with most players, but Van Halen made everything work in some way, he hardly bores me. Everything has attitude, sufficient flair and is in some way song oriented without sounding like a lifeless exercise.
Finally a follow up video to this. Thank you so much, Troy!
Thanks.
When I was a young guitar player back in the eighties I suspected there was something about his picking technique that made him sound so good...but I never sorted out the details.
I love YT vids like this. Nowadays, all the guitar players are putting this stuff together. 👍
For sure, back in the day, good information was super hard to come by. The fact that those players got as far as they did without resources like this only makes their achievements that much more magical.
Eddie made great music with his technique these days many new players just have the technique its always about the music
Absolutely revolutionary!!! a genuis! a virtuoso! a game changer!! Technically the most innovator!! Mr Eddie Van Halen!
Thank you for give us this important master class of one of his techniques,!!
missed you Troy, glad you are back!
Was just looking at your last upload and wondering when we’d see another. Great stuff
Wow amazing!
I really do have a tremendous amount of respect for the fact that you’d devote yourself to systematizing our understanding of picking technique. ✌️
Your analysis is out of this world. It's like watching a genius, analyze another genius, and making it feel much more understandable for us viewers. The next step, though, is for us to put all the learnings to action. 😁👌
The table is potential a help in that regard. If you can do the motion on a desk, and it feels easy, you can definitely do it just as easily on a guitar. The trick is if it doesn't feel easy at first, then you know it's not your lack of capability, it's just that you're not doing it the same way you were on the table, and that more experimentation is necessary. Test, and test again!
@@troygrady so maybe that's why it's a struggle. I write using my left hand, but picks the guitar with my right. I may have to work on my right hand as if I'm writing on a table.
another great video. I started really taking guitar seriously about a year ago, and your videos have definitely sped up the process of learning these much harder licks
Thats the hope. Glad to hear you're making progress.
I like the Cornford head in the background! I bought one of the first ones ever many years ago.... it looked so cool!
Troy, your vids are just awsome, you and your unique lessons/guests/ camera angles have brought playing on no end, thanks bro.
Most amazing stuff as always; improved hugely as a player and guitar teacher, thanks to this channel.
Good to see you again Troy! I miss Ed and RR.
Eddie used his middle finger and thump to pick so his index finger could do hammer on etc. I saw him live at the stage many times being 60 now he was number 1 for me
Later on in his playing. This is a bad habit to start out with. Ed played like this before all the finger tapping.
Troy, i wonder how old were you, when you started playing guitar? An interesting thing i've noticed throughout your videos is that you are able to learn basically all the motions that you show us and push them to a level of mastery. And this fact is extremely inspiring, because you're able to master these new complicated motions at a reasonably mature age. This also leads to a question how old were you, when you got your basic shreddy speedy chops? Hope, my English is not too bad :)
I had some ability as a teenager but didn’t make the first discovery about clean string changes until college which was 20 or so. Had I watched our videos when I was 14 I would have been way way ahead of where I am now. So I wouldn’t worry about age at all it’s a small factor compared to knowledge.
@@troygrady how do you practice each technique till mastery though ?
@@troygrady I think there are many guys in their 20's, who are really concerned about getting the technique. We see almost no late bloomers among the greatest players. Thank you for the answer and for a great chanell!
@@nigel5634 The hardest part is not "practice", it's figuring out how the techniques work. This is done mainy through trial and error and making many casual attempts to do something, like riding a skateboard or a bike. Most of what people casually call guitar "practice" is really trying to learn new physical techniques, and that process should always be approached with the mentality of doing a trick, and trying to get it right, through many short attempts. That's how you learned every other physical motion in life, so that's how you learn guitar motions.
yes, all good points. At a glance I would say, however, this looks and sounds cleaner than other things he's tried. Nice work 👍
Amazing wrist technique at 5mins, 43. where Eddie reaches for his cigarette.
P.S - no disrespect! (I hope he would've liked that humour)
@r o g e r Haha, I don't know how! I'm not that advanced.
New Troy Grady always makes the day better!
You're my favorite guitar youtuber
For all of the (now) typical YT video language - starting w/ some storytelling, then some plz subscribe, n then some teenager jokes n only after some tiring minute or so there starts what may or may not be what I wanted to see -, this video (as are a lot from yours) is completely shocking. one minute on and I had already gained a very specific and well packaged insight. thanks as always.
That’s the plan! We’ve been working on trying to get to the point:
OMG this is so eye opening. Thank you! Always thought that was weird, now I'm actually working on it!
Awesome Mustang, always good to see one in action. Competition blue
It's a classic!
Wow he finally decides to post up a Video. Good to see you again Troy! I hold my pick just like Eddie.
GREAT video Troy!!! I remember seeing that exact footage from Live Without a Net in 1988 when i was about 11 yo. My friend was obsessed and turned me on to EVH. 32 years later and I still can’t pick that way!!! I just can’t float my hand like that!
It sounds like you’re referring to Eddie’s tremolo which is a forearm technique. The motion we’re looking at here is anchored, on the bridge, and uses wrist motion - just like the table top scribbling.
@@troygrady thanks, Troy. You’re exactly right. I find both to be very challenging, the tremolo in particular! Thanks again for a great video.
The idea behind the pen scribbling test is that it is a motion most people already can do pretty well. Have you tried it, and is it comfortable? If so, then it shouldn't be any harder on a guitar - that feeling of easyness is what you're looking for, and the trick is to keep trying slightly different approaches until it feels easy like the table version.
Jimi plays with this style as well, the Benson style.
And Tuck Andress, I think?
i prefer Gangnam style
@@andysixxlett2632 get out
Holy shit. You've done so much to articulate the mechanics of pick technique here visually your jargon is perfect. I can take this and show it to my physical therapist so he can appreciate the physicalitity of what I do as a musician as I rehabilitate my elbow. Perhaps examining your videos further in conjunction to physio will help me unlearn some habits
....I am so ready to get my "Magnet"....can't wait...the excitement is killing me...Great stuff as always Troy!
Cool analysis, its fun to see these techniques dissected so well. Thanks
After 4 months , finally new vid
I've always been able to do his tremolo picking in this style. Spastically twitching my wrist. One of the only things that came naturally to me at guitar. I'm so hyper all the slow stuff I didn't get for literally over a decade... Trade off worth it? Yes. Imo.
That was an interesting video - focusing on something that's often overlooked..
Very cool insight as to what is kinda happening.
Also, Eddie held the pick that way, so he could tap with his index finger, and to not have the pick get in the way.
I hold the pick between my thumb and index, but also tap with my index finger.
My friends asked what I did with it, and I showed them that I just switched my index with my middle finger to hold, while I tapped.
I guess it's all in how we feel in holding the pick.
And I still can't tremolo pick to save my life. Lol
For what it’s worth, I’ve always held my pick the same way as Eddie since I started playing, with pointer and middle finger. Even before I discovered Eddie. Just felt comfortable to me. All the teachers tried to get me to hold the pick normally, never happened haha. I even do eddies “fly picking” when tremolo picking. When I eventually did discover Eddie, all bets were off haha
So cool to see the science behind this. I remember wondering how the heck he held his pick like that. 💡
Thumb & Middle finger - like scribbling on paper. Genius. You, and of course him👑
You are a brilliant presenter, Troy!
RIP Eddie, you were the best, and a class act.
It’s about time Troy!!
Siempre aprendiendo en tu canal... Thanks Troy.
Why the pen? Why not just a pick and guitar?
In our teaching, lots of people have trouble learning picking motions on an actual guitar becuase they're not sure how the motion is supposed to work. They make incorrect, inefficient motions like stringhopping, and they don't even realize they're doing it. By contrast, on a desktop, most people can get this motion right on the first try, and do it smoothly, efficiently, and rapidly. Once they have that, they just have to reproduce it on the instrument.
Welcome back master!
I used to draw very much from early age til this day and I became very quick and precise with the pencil doing loads of cross hatching and getting very good feel for how much weight I put into the lines. When I started learning guitar the Van Halen grip was the most natural way for me of holding the pick. It feels more stabile, controllable and in line with my forearm. When using regular grip the pick seems to be outside of my forearm line and it feels unbalanced and uncomfortable to me.
I use the hardest picks along with a very soft grip between thumb and middle finger. Whenever I lose the grip the slightest I quickly adjust it back with my index and ring finger without losing a beat. This technique put minimum strain on the arm and I can train for hours with zero fatigue.
He said in several interviews that he got the idea from watching someone play violin. It''s a similar motion to someone holding a bow and playing back and forth very fast.
Wish you could analyze Robert Fripp's techinique
Love that fender u got
It's a classic!
Great video as always.
Love the shirt choice (Prince) Troy - what kind of pickups are those? please and thanks
~j UT, USA
Zexcoil noiseless
There is an aspect missing. The middle finger is the anchor to the wrist. There is a collected motion in the angle. Ed just figured it out. There is an "axis" with the wrist and not everyone is going to have that axis.
I'm sorry @ 5:51 it is not the same motion. His wrist isn't even moving. It is basically speed picking variant.
I got s**t for commenting. I don't discount Troy in any way. When he asked to see who could explain it, I jumped in but I just didn't have the camera to do it. It was an ipad then even the laptop didn't work in showing the trem technique.
There is a lot more going on here. Pick size has alot to do with it as well. The technique don't work as well with thicker picks. Ed used .60mm picks for the most part. I think sometimes he went up and down.
Never heavy.
When revisiting the trem technique I had some picks made that were .80 and made all of Ed's lines easier. And extra heavy isn't so easy to do the trem technique let alone anything else Ed played.
The middle finger, he doesn't always use it. Ed was a hard player. Listen to Spanish Fly. Ed came up with in on the electric sans amp, and in order to hear it better you start picking harder.
When on an acoustic version is comes across aggressive in the picking moments. Tapping was about the same though a little more open on the nylon.
Ed had a planted palm. He was very controlled in the use of his speed picking and it wasn't wrist based. It is a shorter version of the trem but micro.
Ed also palmed his pick in his middle finger between the first and second knuckle when he wanted to tap but it was also easy to bring the pick back into his middle finger and play normally.
Ed didn't always use 2 fingers either on the pick. It was very defined into what he was doing in the moment. It was just natural and one or two it didn't matter. He could do it both ways. More favorable to middle sure.
What is the strongest finger in you hand? Thumb isn't a finger.
Waiting for the Magnet. First round failed. Second round maybe I can post some videos when it comes.
Sorry for the confusion! I think you may be referring to Eddie's forearm rotational motion, the one he used for the tremolo section of Eruption. That was a beautiful thing, but not the motion we are teaching in this lesson. This lesson is about Eddie's general purpose lead playing technique, where is a wrist motion where only the hand moves, not the arm. The example you point out at 5:51 is a perfect example of Eddie's wrist technique, and as you can see the arm is not moving, only the hand. That's how the wrist joint works.
@@troygrady I think you had written more, but it seems to have disappeared. I just didn't have time to read it all.
Yes, I was talking his trem technique. I may have over analyzed his wrist motion when writing this up. Obviously shorter motions for any player is going to increase the speed.
I will say, that I have used almost every gauge of pick for the trem pick. I think I even did it in the video I did for you years ago. Everything from medium to Dunlop 2.0's. Its just a matter of getting use to it. Wasn't really thinking in terms of how I did it initially. I started medium and then ended at XH and went up to 2.0.
Lately, .80mm to extra heavy seems to work the best for me in the moment.
I've been through even pick on the planet. I have bags on hundreds of every gauge incase I decide to change.
Ed did rely on middle finger mostly, but I have found several videos of him using his index finger as well. But that is a player thing. I might economy pick and alternate pick as it just comes from what is comfortable rather than technique.
Check out Ed playing with the SNL band.
I think tempo, comfortable level and the fact he isn't playing a 2 hour set he uses his index finger. With picks that are .60mm they wear quick and you can feel the burrs from picking after 10 minutes which drags on the strings.
Sorry if I went in another direction. I have sometimes found myself playing with my middle finger after knuckle palming the pick for tapping but never really realized it.
Looking forward to getting the magnet when its ready.
Also, since Ed does A LOT of whammy work, and uses his last 3 fingers, check out the transfer from middle to index to whammy to middle. Live without a net has some but they really cut away a lot in those moments but if you look around enough you will find it.
Mostly, hit the G, switch pick, whammy work, knuckle palm for tapping and back or hit the G and knuckle palm and tap and back to first. It is definitely an unconscious thought in those moments. It is just muscle memory.
Additional add. I have noticed in some cases Ed starting on an up stroke. You see it in the solo live without a net. He does it if you pay attention.
Loved the Funky Prince riff!
Interesting, I always wondered about this and thought he did this to have his index finger ready for tapping. good info
For sure, tapping convenience is another potential benefit. Whatever the reason, there is an arm position that is necessary to make this grip work, and this affects what wrist motions are available. That may not have been his original motivation, but that was the result. Personally I see the wrist motion as the main benefit, since it's another way to do a thing that a lot of people find tricky, and more ways increase the chances of getting it.
Happy new year dude
Very interesting. Thanks
Check out the "EVH day at the office " 2012 live video someone posted. They kept the camera on Edward most of the time so you get a ton of looks at his pick angle etc.
Surprised how often he switches from holding the pick with his middle finger and thumb to index finger and thumb, sometimes mid lick he will switch and probably doesn't even know he does it.
I learned how to hold the pick like this from EVH very recently, after playing guitar for almost ten years.
I think I can move faster and I can use my index finger for tapping easier, but it's almost like learning how to pick for the first time in my life. Which is good in a sense, because I stopped playing guitar for quite some time, it's keeping my brain going
I think that's how that technique of Eddie's evolved it freed up his index finger for tapping easier whilst holding the pick between his thumb and middle finger.
Interesting with that pick grip as I've been trying to break out my my grip habit and was looking for alternatives and everything I've found for pick grips points to doing the "OK" grip lol
Options are good! The key is that it's not really just the grip, it's the arm position and wrist motion that also change. They work together like a system. So you're not just changing the grip - the grip change is a door to learning a new motion which might work for you.
Is the Kickstarter campaign over for the magnet? Can you post a ink for where to buy one... Thank for all your efforts Troy.
Hi David! Yes it's done and we're working with the factory to make them. We'll have it for preorder on our web site at some point when we get closer, so I'd stay tuned to our mailing list for updates if you're not on it already. Thanks!
Troy, can you do a video about that fast funk strumming motion you showed during this video? That's one thing I have never seen ANYBODY even mention, yet it's so important to fast strumming! Everybody's so into fast shredding, but what about fast strumming?? You would know how important this is as I remember you once mentioning playing at a Bar Mitzvah which I do too, and that sort of gig demands very fast strumming. Thanks
I've never played in a band, but much respect to people that do! I can only imagine how much strumming goes on in bar mitzvah and klezmer bands. We've looked at this technique a little before. Here's a clip from our Joscho Stephan interview where he demonstrates, and he is a stone cold strumming master: th-cam.com/video/sp-Kai8Z1ck/w-d-xo.html
@@troygrady you know how you hear all the time that a professional guitarist is actually keeping rythm most of the time, not soloing? That's exactly the case in these sort of bands... You need to be a solid funk, rock, country, and other specific genres guitarist all at once, playing everything at crazy tempos, and know how to do it all on one guitar. It's pretty challenging but super fun! Thanks for replying. I'll check out the video.
Well done.
I really wanted this video, I am 15 and I was so inspired by Eddie. I really wanted to pick like Eddie, just as fast as he did in the eruption
Well if you can do it on a desk with a pen, then you can definitely do it on a guitar! Just keep experimenting until you find the way that is just as easy on the instrument as it is with the pen.
Troy Grady yes i will practice!! Thank you so much...!!
Oh I was doing it wrong but I guess I came up with an alternative picking motion I’v never seen before.
Basically I’m only rotating the hand and not moving the arm whatsoever. So bascially if you have your arm in front of you and spin the wrist with palm down, palm up except not rotating that drastically. It’s only a very minor movement that goes really fast.
I had forgotten about this channel
Eddie had the "Pick of Destiny" great movie if you haven't seen it.
I just realized the way Eddie holds the pick is how I hold a pen...a lightbulb moment!
Not gonna lie... the picture of you in the thumbnail, for a second I thought you were Rick Beato! Lol
I thought the same thing LOL
Glad I'm not the only one lmao
9:20 It's not that it's a scratchy sound, but that there is NO way to measure the distance in terms of a cycle because the motion is "to easy" but way more if not impossible to control. This is what the rest stroke accomplishes. The question is about rhythm and what it is to feel a rhythm actually.
The real question is can you recognize a cycle in musical or anytime without a sonic(vibrational element) or not? That is to say does it need to be explicit or not and what exactly explicit and implicit mean in this context. Oh btw the motion is not diagonal it's up and down like MOB said in your interview with him after his in studio performance. No 1'oclock 2'oclock 3'oclock 4 needed.
You also left out why he curls his index finger into his thumb, it's because the compression achieved by being in that position holds the thumb in the correct position and prevents inertia from taking over when you actually hit strings with force thus keeping everything aligned and thus allow the thumb to just grip the pick in the second finger as if the the index and middle finger are one compound digit working with the thumb like a non isosceles triangle . This doesn't matter when used to strum and might explain why EVH liked to use very light picks with this in mind. There is more but that's enough cracking for now.
2:04 how can one not bust out laughing from 2:04? hahahah man... I'm sorry. but that was probably wrong of me but to do that motion in mid air.... haha it does NOT look uh... cool? hhehehehehe well.... anyway.... I need to quit dreaming about picking and get my arse into bed! Thanks for all your hard work, man. Really love your vids.
You should honestly have a PhD in guitar techniques
Very Good Job on ( vdc ) Istructional Technic Player. .. Nice One ... ☺😊😀/👍👌👏👋
Troy "The King" Grady back on TH-cam!
Great work. 🤘🤘
If I'm doing longer phrases, i.e. surf style, I employ the eddie grip, I find it way more relaxing and have less tendency to tense up. There is another factor, did eddie not use a light pick, I'm thinking .60mm? This would without a doubt help with the tremolo picking as well and have less tension over all
To me, it always seemed harder to play that way, (with thumb and middle finger) and yet EVH cranked on those fast harmonics and speed picking doing this
Hi Troy, how do you deal with the thinning index finger nail?
Randy and Gary Moore had an interesting hand position quite far back and with the little finger pointing outwards. I think John Sykes emulated Gary with his picking hand far back on the guitar.
"Little bit weird, right?" Yes, yes it is weird to watch a guy tapping the crap out of a dvd case with a pen to a metronome. Lol. In all seriousness, cool stuff.
Mantap udah nungguin lama nihh
I’ll try it. Doesn’t Santana use this picking technique?
Yes! Good catch. It's the arm position, which is why Carlos often uses a similar three-finger type grip to reach the strings. Here's a great clip of some surprisingly virtuoso picking from Carlos playing with George Benson: th-cam.com/video/CfFuD7qSeR0/w-d-xo.html
@@troygrady Cool clip Santana & Benson. Santana’s Yamaha is hard to find now. I should have got the one I saw in a Mpls pawn shop 20 years ago.
Does eddie do that thumb, first finger and middle finger pick grip so he can keep a hold of the pick with the thumb and middle finger so he can tap with the first finger?
You could certainly do that, but most of the time when Eddie taps, he doesn't actually hold the pick with those fingers - he buries the pick in the middle finger, and uses the remaining fingers to grip the fretboard, while tapping with the index finger. The real purpose of the middle- and three-finger grip is to reach the strings while using Eddie's arm position and type of wrist motion.
@@troygrady yea true enough, Eddie was just light years ahead at one stage when it came to technique.
Good job
Did not realize i playes this way till has a guitar playing freind come over last night and comment on how i was picking. Been doing this since is started 30 yrs ago.
I used to old my pick with three fingers technique for past 35 years now without any specific reason, it is just more natural to me.
As an experienced drummer, I am strongly drawn towards sextuplets and faster rhythms on guitar. As I am starting to get stable sextuplets at 140bpm or so I am noticing a lot of chaffing on my palm from the bridge. How come nobody ever talks about that? Are my guitars the only ones with sharp edges on the bridge? I ordered a flatter bridge (like for a Floyd Rose), but I feel like maybe I’m doing something wrong??
I have to have me palm on the bridge or my fingertips on the pick guard to ensure that only the tip of my pick is touching the strings consistently. Without one of those points of contact my pick will dig too deep on the strings and destroy any ability for speed. Is that a technique problem?
Troy, those pickups in the mustang look amazing. What are they?
Zexcoil noiseless
Interesting, never know EVH held the pick that way and supinated his wrist with that grip. I just tried it and it doesn't work for me. It yields a really bad performance; I miss the string sometimes that way! Is it just something to get used to and practice and then eventually yields a faster picking motion?
It's hard to say without video of what you're doing. But our latest lesson addresses this type of wrist motion in much greater detail ( th-cam.com/video/NWuGkXhj0T8/w-d-xo.html ) and gives you more hands-on tips for actually getting it to work on the string. We also look at different pick grips.
Apparently he broke his wrist fighting with Alex .... was thinking this might have helped him to do this technique ..... it's pretty hard to do
Edit: the only time he uses this technique for more than one bar is in eruption; which leads me to believe that it's more spasmodic in nature .... he tends to use it at the end of a phrase
I think you may be confusing this with Eddie's forearm technique - that's a different motion. The motion we're looking at here is the wrist motion that Eddie uses for most of his coordinated lead lines, like Spanish Fly and everything else.
@@troygrady Yes, but at 5:57 you are using this forearm technique no?
@@MortalKastorR I am! But that's an ad which we filmed separately, and not part of the lesson. None of the tabletop motions we are demonstrating here utilize arm rotation. I see how that can be confusing though, and that totally didn't realize this would throw people. Our bad!
@@troygrady Thanks for clearing that up! You know more than anyone that the devil is in the details! Thanks again for all your work!
Doesnt eddies fast picking use forearm supination instead of wrist movement ?
Troy, when are you going to deep dive into VIBRATO???
Wow! That simple, just scribbling the guitar.
I learned this technique right when I started playing guitar.
Are you interested in covering Matteo Mancuso?
Thanks for the awesome video as always ☺️
Awesome
Thanks for this but I was wondering if EVH is doing double escape picking or like you mentioned a small enough stroke to not touch the other strings?
The shot that we're looking at from Live Without A Net, where you can see right down the strings, appears to be upstroke escape. However lines like the intro to Hang 'Em High would have to be double escape, and there is live footage of Eddie making double escape motions where you can actually see it. The chromatic thing at the end of Dirty Movies, there is some fan-shot footage right here on YT where the double escape motion is pretty clear.
Paint the fence, wax the car, now shred the guitar!