This is Jeet Kune Do for guitar. Repetitions and constantly evaluating your motion implementing economy of motion and chipping away the non-essentials. Bruce did not believe in natural ability per se. He believed in hard work and training both mind and body to achieve it's potential. Ultimately achieving self expression through martial art. He no longer hits, it hits all by itself. Meaning the movements have been ingrained into the sub-conscience so much that he didn't have to think, it just happened. The same is true for guitarists. We must also practice and self evaluate always making those corrections until it just plays all by itself. Troy is a finger pointing us in the right direction giving us the tools to become limitless in our own self expression. Much thanks to Troy!
"All we're trying to do is provide clearer instructions so that the trial and error part is reduced and you can start much closer to where you want to be." - Mr Troy, you certainly are doing this and I am really grateful. You videos are really, REALLY appreciated, thanks :)
JoseitoEdlVodao no man I discovered you a long time ago, what I meant was I was already watching one of your videos when you uploaded this one, I occasionally re-watch your videos, it helps a lot.
titmusspaultpaul5 and yet most of the community is watching dumb guitar meme channels, only few persistent players can understand him, rightly said we don’t deserve this.
That was a misconception, always brought up by rock players who want to avoid playing slow. He only plays beyond his speed when he wants to know his limits, then work it up by playing slow
@@sayanorasonic "Shawn Lane talks about speed (Radisson Hotel, 17th Apr 1993)" starting at around 2 minutes. He seems to suggest that the best method is approaching it from both directions: First you start slow and learn the lick and then you jump up to a higher tempo and start cleaning it up.
@@bamboocha63 Close! Slow speed is for memorization of fingerings. Fast speed is for discovering the smoothest way to do an unknown picking hand motion. Once you've discovered the smooth way, you go *backwards* from the fast speed, gradually getting slower and cleaner with the unknown motion, while regularly checking the fast speed to make sure the motion is still smooth. Eventually, the unkown motion becomes the known motion, and you can do it very slow with accurate expert-level form. But only at the end of the journey, not the beginning.
This is the kind of video that always makes me glad I found this channel. This is how I learned, don't work up to speed just go for it and work on cleaning it up. I always wanted to play Buckethead stuff and well I always just kind of went fast and listened to what bits were kind of clean and what bits were horror and just worked on it. Took a while to clean up but now after 7 years I can safely say I can play with speed.
I'm a subscriber to your channel. It is ENORMOUSLY helpful just to hear this. After spending a lot of time trying to figure out the mechanics of picking, it's a relief to hear skilled players such as you basically endorse the Andy Wood 'rational hit-and-miss procedure' as a solution to picking mechanics. Thanks! (And thanks to you too, Troy)
That's a great way of putting it - you can't skip the "rational" part. If you're not noticing that some things work better than others, than you're not really making any changes to do things the better way. All we're trying to do is provide clearer instructions so that the trial and error part is reduced and you can start much closer to where you want to be.
@@troygrady Hey Troy, thanks for all the work you do. Guthrie Govan does a very cool ultra-fast strumming thing here: th-cam.com/video/mMPfYYE5CBE/w-d-xo.html have you seen it? A vid on that would be great.
Troy, you're truly making this world a much better place. Your Michael Angelo Batio video changed my life. When I record my first virtuoso rock guitar album, I'm giving you a major shout out. Thanks for everything.
This is great advice. I wasted years doing progressive tempo picking excercizes on a metranome just to hit a brick wall at a certain point. I have more slowtwitch muscles controlling my wrist. Later found great speed by utilizing my wrist AND forearm and lightly hovering the pick over the strings. Everyones body is different and if speed is your goal, work with it to begin with.
This is EXACTLY the concept of motor learning they Charlie Francis explored in Speed Trap (On sprinting ) and that Roman and Medveyev explores in their seminal texts on Olympic Weightlifting techniques. It is SPOT ON. Even the character Sam Mussabini in chariots of fire when describing the difference between sprinting and distance running said that sprinting was custom-made for neurotics because you have to control and hold your nerves in , which is exactly what we are talking about here, essentially trying to run at full speed actually gets a slower performance than trying to run that 90 percent speed because the latter is smoother and the muscles don’t lock up
Yeah. Absolutely right. I learned this from John Petruccis Rock Discipline VHS tape many years ago. Go over the limit when practicing and then dial it back. It's like using a medicine ball to warm up in Basketball.
After watching this I've honestly made more progress in my picking technique in few days than during the period of last six months. And I'm not even exaggerating. It seems that when I start slow and speed up gradually, I'm always teaching my picking hand to do some useless extra movements, because of which I hit the "speed limit" at some point. The best way to get past that barrier seems to be just start picking fast (ignoring the sloppiness at first) and continue doing it until it starts to feel "right". And voila, there's your perfect picking technique. Quite simple really, but maybe also a bit counter-intuitive because everyone's always telling you to practice slow.
That's pretty much it. Glad you're seeing results. It does help to have instructions for the motion you want to use, though. That reduces the trial and error component of waiting for it to "feel right". But even with instructions, attempting them at a realistic speed, without worrying too much about accuracy, is the quickest way to know if you're in the ballpark. Thanks for watching.
Troy I’ve been trying to find someone with this kind of psychologically informed approach to the guitar and to practice for such a long time. Thank you for existing 🙌🏼
I'm sure this approach works great. But in the late 90s, I achieved tremendous results by practicing very slowly at first and gradually increasing speed. In my case, I was trying to find a way to improve my right hand technique without aggravating a painful right wrist. So, I made relaxation a primary goal. After gaining complete relaxation and solid, reliable execution at one tempo, I would increase the metronome by one notch. I started playing a maximum of sixteenth notes at 80 bpm, and worked my way up to sixteenth notes at 160 bpm. I remember the moment when it finally clicked that I could play sixteenth notes at just about any commonly used tempo in rock or jazz. While playing at a jam session in Montclair, NJ, I attempted a sixteenth note pentatonic run. All of the pieces fell into place. What a great feeling. After years of neglect, I'm trying to regain the technique that I had achieved back then. I'm 62 now, but I don't think it's too late. I'm still at 40 bpm (or 80 bpm, depending how you look at it) and feeling good.
I'm sure it doesn't work great - and a lot of the guitarists who perhaps didn't invent it but were certainly instrumental in making it popular have largely abandoned it - and certainly the guitar players that are heralded as the best around today do not do it - in fact perhaps the hottest around at the moment doesn't even use a pick showing what a nonsense it is to decide there's some set way of wiggling that is required to create fast notes and you obtain this by focusing on how it feels to wiggle your hand. That's a stupid way of learning to create noise. Imagine if you wanted to speak and instead of listening to yourself you focused on how your tongue felt - or better yet think how deaf people talk because they can't hear themselves speak. It doesn't work very well does it? Many of them probably do talk how they hear themselves and others. But imagine your music is going to suck if you decide to effectively do the same thing - instead of generating the sound you imagine and want to hear, by listening to your playing, you start focussing on how your pick feels - and I'm sure you'll find myriad ways it'll feel great, but, the music won't. It's like hoping that the music you play will sound good if the patterns your fingers create look pretty or that your finger movements feel nice - that's not how harmony and melody work is it? Study Ted Greene and he'll teach you that there's an awful lot of good music where your hands are going to have to spend a period of time uncomfortable, stretched etc doing stuff that Troy is his misguided ignorance would call "wrong" - because the pretty sound requires that set of notes that set apart on the neck. It's not a question of finding what feels nice - you can do that but it's no more likely to sound good than if you pick paints you like the smell of hoping that will create walls you like to look at. Indeed, the biggest problem with this method is that it just leads to shredding, a mostly mechanical noise devoid of most of the elements of music that make the guitar so versatile compared with instruments like the piano - and then you'll either be stuck forever showing exercises on your youtube channel with no one interested in your music at all or you'll be wondering why your relaxed, feels nice fast notes don't sound like actual musicians and then you'll have to learn how to pick to create those kind of sounds - and at that point you should realise that there's no one way of picking that's right - you pick to create the sound - and you should start with the sound you want to create and then develop the technique to create it. Not the reverse. That's the problem with the rigid method Troy demonstrates here it's like speaking by shouting. When we speak words, unless you're on the spectrum or perhaps a 10 year old made to stand up and read out loud in front of classmates, we naturally create phrases and variations. These help to convey meaning and intent in the words we're saying, but, and this is key in musical terms, they're what makes speech or music interesting to listen to. Troy loses all of that and suggests doing this fast motion until you've removed all musicality from your playing but it feels good. Worse he suggests an even worse idea where the player is told not to focus on external things but if there's a single piece of advice that will make you a better musician it would be to stop focussing on your playing and listen to external source - preferable that will be music - a backing track or a band rather than a metronome, but the musician who is not listening to the band, not listening to his own playing and just focussed on how his playing feels will sound shit. There's no chance you'll magically play in the groove or pocket like that. If you study actual musicians of note you'll see most of them advocate starting with the aural image - the sound you want and then developing technique to serve that aim, and specifically you note someone like Guthrie Govan has a few videos where he shows the limitations of the brain-dead, mechanical picking technique. Paul Gilbert perhaps can be accused of promoting it in many of his early VHS videos, perhaps because in his day guitarists didn't know better, and it seemed like a novel thing that was exciting an audience. But he grew up and realised that the music mattered. Watch him playing today and he'll show the shredding noise almost as a joke, or perhaps to show that "I can do it but I choose not to" because many of the shredder wannabees genuinely think that the less tone deaf are unimpressed because "they can't do it", but no, it's actually pretty simple - that is one thing Troy does get right - anyone can do this if they can knock on a door, but it's not much of a skill to develop. It's much harder to create musical phrases, especially at a high tempo with variance and subtlety and nuance. e.g Guthrie explaining how he gets a flurry of notes rather like a quick roll on a snare where every note isn't articulated exactly the same precisely because if it were then it sounds worse. It sounds crap. You need to intelligently pick to create phrases with accents and dynamics and that will, quite obviously, require you to do stuff with your picking hand - stuff that Troy has told you to spend hours not doing in the mistaken belief these are "wrong" And Troy is talking about trying lots of ways to pick using positive feedback but if your positive feedback isn't the sound you're making, and you're not listening to that sound in the context of external references - whether that's references for tempo or harmony then you're going to sound bad because you can't learn to drive based on how it feels to turn the steering wheel - you have to look out the window and steer to avoid hitting things. If you crash into a tree you can't say "But the steering felt really smooth - and I practised for hours like Troy said so I could steer into the tree on demand with a high rate of accuracy" "It doesn't have to be pretty, sound good" but the only way you'll make your playing sound good is to change the way you're playing right? So if it doesn't sound good - and sounding good is your goal, that's when what you're doing is wrong. If it sounds right - well now you're onto something - if it sounds great but your playing hand hurts or something then sure, you have a technique problem to address, but if it sounds great and comfortable you can actually play and imagine how stupid a guy trying to tell you that your picking is wrong and you should practise and make it sound bad. Can you see why Govan politely turns down the chance to appear?
I found this out over time as well. You have to learn the patterns or sequences by heart slow or moderate, then when you fly over it numerous times it gradually cleans itself up. It’s actually freaky the way our brain deals with it. It’s almost like your seeing the entire run as one long string rather than a series of notes, and your brain tends to allow you to smoothen the whole run out as a unit synchronizing your picking hand with your fingering as you do.
If it doesn't hold up in practice, then it's not that useful! That's really all this is - an attempt to sort out what's real, and provide instructions for same. Thanks for watching.
This is the best channel on the nuance of practicing that I know of. It's brilliant. You should have 10x the subscribers. If I'd have had this channel when I was a young guitarist, I think I'd be so much better than I am or ever was. This is such a quality product. Thank you, Troy.
Just finished your series Cracking the code and as someone who has always idolized the picking style of Paul Gilbert I found them very informational and it introduced me to some players I had avoided before and has really had me pushing the limits of what I thought possible for myself with picking speed.
It’s good to work both methods into your routine. Jog-to-run, and sprint-to-run. Paul Gilbert was a huge advocate of metronome usage, and it’s a powerful tool for both approaches to perfection.
This works only if both hands are completely relaxed. No tension at all in both hands. I work with a metronome. Started at 60bpm with 16th notes and in one month I'm at 96 bpm 16th notes. Goal is 120 bpm. I do think starting slow is better for accuracy and articulation.
Another excellent lesson from the king of the analytical approach to physical guitar skill development! Troy's created a niche for himself in the crowded field of online guitar instruction that is both invaluable to players looking for improvement, and unique to him; an awesome feat given the abundance of guitar teachers, to be the only one digging in so deeply to examine exactly what great players are physically doing to play so great. He actually knows more about the concrete realities of high level playing than most of the great players whose skills he examines in microscopic detail! Keep it up Troy; you're providing an incredible service to guitarists who love to learn and improve!
Troy, i hope you see this because this particular video touched an old string in my mind that i had forgotten was even there. When i was a child, i used to weigh things. Rocks, tv remote, toys, books, anything i touched at that age and time... And i used to classify them as throwing-worthy or un-throwing-worthy. This might sound kinda dumb but that was the feeling i got, just like picking a stone to skip, i weighed things and sometimes got a little naughty and threw em on the wall. My point is, i had the same feeling capabilities when i started learning the guitar. It's just, by time and constant manipulative education that roams the internet, i find myself have lost this sorta talent. All i do is focusing on my 'technique' while all you say is explore your inner sensation. It's some sort of reconnection i build within myself thanks to you. i appreciate your lessons very, very much. Have a good one.
CtC is the place to be. Troy has done amazing job demystifying picking technique, for once and for all. The lessons and interviews are all great and in the very active forum one can find a wealth of useful info about pretty much everything guitar related. Raising our glasses for you Sir, a big Thank You!
Holy shit, that video made me "break through" a mental barrier I had regarding speed. I was mostly picking by rotating my wrist, and not doing deviations. Thank you so much, I think I can practice a different way!
I agree with this approach. Slowing down is beneficial too but I think it's important to try this way too. I've often started with a consistent pick strike on the string while the fret fingers stumble but like you said after ten minutes or so the fretboard fingers start to fall into place...thanks.
I joined and got the month-to-month plan to check things out. This is an incredible site and for the money, worth every penny. Thanks Troy.This entire EJ technique is like starting over but that's what I need.
You do need clear instructions for doing the motions, yes. It's taken us a long time to research and deliver these, and when it comes to wrist motion specifically, you can find one of our best videos on this subject right before this one (the USX wrist motion video). Our instructional stuff has more of that.
@@troygrady : watched that video but the thing that confuses me is: when I practice this on a single string I get good results BUT: when I have to cross strings I get trapped with this technique. How can you use this USX motion along with string-crossing? You've got that 10 degree angle but when switching between inside and outside motions you have to change the angle in the opposite direction - right?
Good observations! The pick must be escaped to make a clean string change. USX motions only work for switching strings when you play an upstroke, because that is the escape stroke. To do downstroke strings changes, you need a DSX motion. That's the companion motion. We have not posted a tutorial for that, but you can see me using it in this video right here in the slow motion shots. Keep in mind, also, not all players use both motions. Players like Eric Johnson and Marty Friedman use mainly USX, and don't play the kinds of phrases you are describing. When they use alternate, they switch strings almost exclusively during upstrokes. They also use a lot of downstroke sweeping. It's a big world out there. Any one of these techniques can be used to make a huge variety of music, even if it seems "incomplete" to you when you look at it.
This is what I did. It worked pretty well for me. Only thing I'd say is keep your eye out for bad habits. If you are headed toward bad habits with individual techniques then it's time to slow it down. And you need to be willing to do that as frequently as you honestly need to. Biggest things are either building tension in the body when you are hyper focused on pushing yourself, or cheating in really small ways. This probably sounds like a bit much but it's legitimate advice coming from an experienced guitarist, and I want you to avoid the mistakes I made.
Absolutely true. Once you get the notes under your fingers and committed to memory, attempting to play it fast will reveal your deficiencies in picking and fretting.
It's how I've always learned, and I refused to listen to people who tried to tell me otherwise. I learn how I learn. Period. It works for me. People's judgment of a 'good' learning technique is impaired if they're trying to force other people to change what works for them. That's not teaching, that's oppressing a learner, and it does nothing but discourage students.
I’ve been playing for 22 years. I struggled to build any kind of technique or speed for at least the first 15 years. I finally took some lessons from a really good player I met, and he taught me how to practice in bursts - where you play a passage slowly, then fast, alternating and mixing it up, being sure to get the hands used to the motions that they use when they play fast. That was the missing key for me, which playing slow and gradually increasing the tempo did not do. This changed everything for me. That, and practicing accenting. When I would ask my teacher to slow down something he was playing fast, it was difficult for him to do, just like what Troy talks about. Now I’m playing stuff that I never imagined I’d be able to do and also often can’t play something slow that I improvised fast. It just kinda “comes out” like magic lol. It sure feels good after all these years. This stuff works.
This is exactly how I was able to develop speed, even in my left hand. I just try to do it fast and sloppy (after I learned it of course) then breaking it down without even really breaking down but by feeling it out at fast speed because my fingers were recognizing gradually what I’m doing wrong over time.
@@troygrady Troy if I won the lottery/lotto would you spend a year tutoring me ? . I have watched 85 per cent of your content and learned hell of a lot but I need a tutor to relay my issue's back to me. I have played since 94 and gave up(gap 3 years) as the Paul Gilbert/ Malmsteen exercises killed my soul. 8 hours a day I tried but now with the internet I have become wiser and thru your accurate studies I have become slightly better. My first 15 min I can reach 220 ( Nunos wounded bumblebee?) But the harder I try the tighter my hand muscles get and my timing is lost on looking at my hands and pick. Its hell and I need to break your code
The late, great Shawn Lane used to learn how play new things as fast as possible, even if it was sloppy. Then he would try to clean up the technique to the end point of being able to play it precisely. It obviously worked for him.
That says a lot about why Shawn Lane sounded the way he did. Most of us use simple diatonic patterns we can play cleanly to focus our practice on speed. He used relatively complicated rhythmic and melodic ideas he could play fast so that he could focus his practice on cleanliness. A lot of us have gotten fast playing simple ideas. Shawn got clean playing fast complicated ideas. Mind = blown.
This reminds me of an interview with Martin Miller he actually States he practice fast even though you was told to practice slow ... and the only time you slow down was to check and see if he consistently was playing with the same technique at a slower speed. he also believes that the mind works out certain neural pathways when you're practicing fast that eventually you just get it. You stated as well, the idea is to develop a smooth movement. Thanks Troy ! Looking forward to the The Bill Hall
There is a lot to this. When taking jazz improv in college I always thought I was behind the beat. Turns out I was ahead including on Bebop really uptempo stuff. Too bad I only found out in my last semester... lol Which brings up another point. Record yourself, play it back be brutal but objective at the same time about your playing. There was a student 2 years behind me that was confident, a super nice guy, etc. Turns out he was incredibly sloppy with terrible tone. He just had no clue. They even played a gig and never got invited back to the venue because if how bad he sounded. All the right notes, just no articulation and terrible tone.
Thanks for playing clean to encourage accurate playing. Great attitude and teaching style! Love seeing the different instruments - and that's a lovely Cornford too. Great work, well done - I look forward to learning from you :)
Troy I think we are from the same generation, i was born in 1970. I was doing martial arts Tae Kwon Do Kung Fu and Hapki do , but with Tae Kwon do I did all the forms , i intended to be a full contact fighter, but that didn't pan out, I got into WTF forms, a guy i went to highschool with was on the Olympic team, and i would see him on the train, and he said, yeah, I'm doing it, he went for a BA in physical therapy, he opened a School in my hometown. When you go through all 20 Forms in the WTF you are teaching the right to do what the Left is doing, and you lose the thinking of right and left, and it becomes, a mental picture with out thinking, just doing, In Korean that is" Il yeo", the oneness of mind and body. When you speed up what you are doing slow the momentum asks for less motion, some motions work better than others fast . Some patterns of movement flow better as well . some of the forms encouraged the copy of Wind or water
Andy is the man. I meet him thru a friend. He plays here in Knoxville tn. His cover rock band is unreal . He also was dolly parton mandoline players at dollywood. Unreal on guitar also.
That's pretty much it! This is the best way to summarize what we're talking about here. It's not even about speed, per se. It's a method for knowing when form is correct, or at least in the ballpark of correct, which you can then work on cleaning up.
I ran into a compelling explanation of this the other day called "open loop vs closed loop" learning. When you go slow, it is closed loop and every motion your hand makes is controlled by a separate conscious brain signal followed by feedback to said brain when the motion has been completed. Your brain and nerves work fast, but it is not infinite, and at some point there simply isn't enough time for your brain to consciously control each individual movement, and wait for feedback from the nerves to say "done". To exceed that speed threshold you change to open loop learning where the brain is "chunking" the orders to the hand, and the feedback is not really perceived until the chunk is complete. E.g. One conscious signal to play a sextuplet, vs six separate controlled, fast movements. In a way, I guess it is analogous to reading. You don't read one letter at a time, you read chunks. So I think fast playing should also be done in terms of thinking about how you chunk groups of movements.
This guy is so underrated Jesus bro I’ve been struggling for hours and hours trying to pick fast and I saw this video and you cut those hours to 30 minutes thank you my guy
I actually applied this technique when i started playing and ive been playing for only a year and a half, and my right suddnenly became so fast at tremolo picking!
I also feel like there’s a weird sweet spot between slow and fast tempos where it’s really tricky because the hands don’t quite know if we’re going slow or fast. That the groove and time has to be spot on. Usually around 100 bpm.
For the past few weeks I've watched hundreds of speed picking videos. This seems like the only one that actually describes the truth of the journey for acquiring speed.
What a fantastic lesson. I've been playing for many years but never got that "super speed" thing and have recently been looking into it and practicing. Your video was a BIG help. One of the many reasons I subscribed to your channel a while ago.... Thanks and cheers mate.
Cool. Yeah im tryin to build up more speed and Im gaining at a snails pace. Im an alternate picking lunatic but prob mid level downpicker. Im ripping straight up hardcore and working on transitioning alot of what i play to downpicking
Found it helps to think about bouncing on the string for down picking only type of stuff. I'm sure your not really bouncing on the string but helped me to relax it thinking about it that way.
Recently commented in the CYC forums that I have some medium tempo "grey areas" where I have difficulty playing patterns cleanly and in time, while slower or faster tempos seem okay. Only one person has shimed in to say they have a similar experience. Would love to know if Troy and the CTC Team have seen or discussed this.
I have a similar problem: when I play until around 115 BPM it feels ok - 120 can feel "painful" but when I play faster it workes again (130-150 bpm) - very strange and I don't have an answer for that.
@@benbmusic88 : it seems like there is a point of transition where the technique or motion feels different. When you look at guys like Claus Levine - his picking motion looks similar at every speed. I guess that this is the way to go.
Same thing happens for me. I usually try and use my mechanics for the faster zone in the grey area. That grey area being where the slow less efficient mechanics start to fall apart...is how I look at it.
I can't move my wrist sideways like that! I find myself picking with my tricep muscle! I literally think I'm just moving my entire forearm up and down and I can't angle my pick away on the downstroke like that. Picking is like so unstable and I end up putting my last 2 fingers on the guitar to keep my distance the same to the strings. Maybe it's decades of doing it wrong. Or using .008 with thin picks? Anyway... interesting vid. I have been trying a medium pick lately. Fender shape, not pointed. Pointed catches all the time because my depth is not accurate apparently. so... I guess my lack of pick technique makes me do more legato and hammer ons instead of picking each note. still enjoy watching these analysis vids.
I used to use a thin pick, but then started using a heavier pick, and I found it gave me more accuracy/consistency, but it did take a couple weeks to get used to the change
Great instructional video brother. Havnt played my guitar in years. Working too many hours on the job. Spent about 15 years on the road back when I was younger. About to retire. Gonna get my guitars out the closet and get with it. Never got that picking style down, to the point where I felt comfortable, and totally in control of ax. Going to spend more time now, practicing on your techniques. I really want to play jazz. Is it possible, to actually correctly learn how to play jazz. Without out a teacher? Improvisation. Self taught. I don't think one can play good jazz, without a music theory background. I used to play and sing alot of George Benson s songs. Note for note. Scatting and the whole bit. I sounded just like him. But, I could never take off on my own, as well as I wanted too. Gotta have that theory
This video makes soooooo much sense. This is exactly how I learned all my shred licks. I'm really bad at downward pickslanting and when I practice it, it feels weird. I don't practice it a lot because for some reason I feel like I'll screw up the picking chops that I have but this video just made me have an epiphany... When you start playing, literally everything feels weird and it is more of a mental block rather than a physical one. I still remember when I was starting I wanted to shred so bad, but it seemed like such an impossible thing, but it's all about the thought process.
Yep, perfect assessment bro. The dynamics involved in walking and running are totally different from each other. To me the metronome is a tool to help you get things right, but if you want to play really fast you'll have to push it by yourself.
My problem with this type of advice is that it's easy to misunderstand. You first have to be able to walk before you can even think about running. Once that is sorted, yes, try runnung rather than walking faster.
Troy, you're the first person I've heard use the term string hopping. I have been struggling with this issue since I started playing, and that has been a very long time. My picking hand hops, It's no problem for many things that I play, but I can't make it go away. I pick faster and the hopping stays, and it creates a barrier that I can't get past.
Genius advice, Troy! (as usual) I think I can adapt this to fingerstyle stuff, too. I also noticed I could tap faster than I could play, which could allow more progress. Martin Miller also alludes to "flooring it" now and then.
@@troygrady Yes! And this cutting-edge research effectively rubbishes the old-school teaching methods that have been used forever for scales. Even the hitting you with a ruler part! ;)
I wanna add my own experience. I use metronome to let my internal sense of tempo and space getting used to something methodically even (precisely 80 beats per minute, for example). Until the level where I can 'guess' what tempo a song is at. When I have this consistency, mentally, then I embark for speed practice. I used my bodily sense to figure whether the speed is right for me or not, and go back to slower speed to figure out what is going on, then go full blown speed to test what I have figured. Troy is right. Start with speed, but understand your bodily constitution through some observation (slowing down to memorize), so you could find that smoothness somehow. Which is why, working with your instrument is vital, thus the saying "practice makes perfect" is only saying "try it more, to get acquainted better with your bodily sense" to find that smoothness. Thanks Troy.
i did this first year playing, FINALLY someone showing you can fly before u can crawl. obviously learn technique also, but the confidence that oneday i could have it all really helped as a 12 year old kid. great video
I already do this in rhythm power chords and single notes. The trouble is in lead in playing triplets in 8 or 16 beats above 120 bpm. Your suggestion is worthwhile. Thanks for this video. But please keep some distortion on in such videos. We are not doing polka dance or spanish folk dance where tempo easily crosses 200 with local string instruments!
Troy，I think my problem is to steady my playing, I always feel like my left hand is not as fast as my picking hand.I have to think about my left hand should catch up the right hand every time when I practice some fast licks. I confused of the synchronization for months.I do a lot of legato to help my left hand,but I still can not play some Yng style one string scale descending patterns/two strings scale patterns. Do you have any analysis of the left hand technique? I feel like everybody have problems with the picking hand,but I am the reverse,my left hand sucks... (I am a big fan of Frank Gambale,his sweep picking and economy picking influence me huge.)
Ben Eller has a few videos on hand synchronization that might help. th-cam.com/video/i_UJU1Yb1jM/w-d-xo.html Don't let the initial "ha ha!" tone get to you, he's actual a good teacher and generally drops the act after the video lead in.
bro thank you this is making sense of years of practicing I'm a jazz fusion player and I've always had this struggle. practice fast to play fast! why do so many teachers discourage this???
I almost always practiced with my metronome while picking a faster subdivision. The problem I'm facing now is identifying the beats of each instrument. I never needed to before because I had internal tempo. Now I'm finding myself comparing eighths and above to it's next slower counterpart just to always be able to identify the quarter note again.
It is a learning process for sure and each individual is different.There are multiple facets and stages to overcome before we can achieve the desired results. I have struggled with economy picking for years unable to even progress on daily basis while alternate picking was progressively rewarding.only after a thorough and honest self analysis one can eliminate the "errors' that led to the failure.Playing the motion slow will teach you what does not work and what it is you need to focus on like frethand smoothness ( maybe ring and pinky are not independent of one another), left hand is not in tempo and at a certain speed synchronization is failing. I still have problems with econo picking on the lower 3 strings while G B and E is fine. But remember that speed is a by product of accuracy and one must learn the pattern first before shredding it however i agree that once learn it is imperative to burst past the accuracy limit for a short while and go back down to the perfect execution tempo, somewhat like learning typing on a keyboard. ie if you are comfortable at 100bpm then burst to 120-130 bpm and then go down to 100bpm in a short while 110bpm will be your new norm. Rinse and repeat. Thank you Troy for all the hard work you have done, you are the man!
Great work, Troy! This is going to help so many players! I think you pretty much lay out exactly what it feels like when someone is getting their motion mechanics down. I don't think anybody has really laid it out like this and explained it in a way that is easy to understand and that everyone can latch onto. A must see video for anyone trying to get this kind of technique down and improve their overall motion mechanics and speed. Once again great work! ️ ☺️
Right on Bill. I know you have spoken about using biofeedback to make changes and that's really what we're getting at here. I think it's when we ignore the feedback that you get stuck hammering your head against a wall.
I'd like to see you explore alternative pick holding methods. I hold my pick more like a pen or chopstick with the point behind the meat of my thumb. Tobin Abasi holds his similarly- my hold is more recessed. I can tremolo pick 16th notes at 200 bpm with very little hand, elbow, and wrist motion
I actually found that playing the faster runs slowly and making sure every note is picked and hammered on right. Then jump to the fast speed helps alot. I agree with the things you are saying but playing it slowly at first builds other muscles that reflect more accuracy.
Sean Hannity does an amazing job with this video! LOL!!! No really, Troy Grady, you are a genius. Not just what you have uncovered and shown the world but the way you speak, and the ideas you convey, the thoughts, like it's pretty obvious that you are scary smart. I can't tell you how much myself and others enjoy your passion and the videos that you have elected to share with the world. Thank you very much.
I knew I was right! Every video I found while I was really pushing the speed of my playing, said to "work up" to it, and use a metronome. This is exactly how I felt about that, without knowing how to phrase it! Great job!
Just keep in mind, this advice is really for when you are acquiring a new skill, one you don't have yet. In that situation, you don't know what it's like to do it correctly, so speed is how you test if it's working. If you are already an experienced player, and you can already play quickly and cleanly, but you just want to do that same thing faster, I can't really comment on that. Personally, I have no real recollection of my playing ever getting faster than it is right now - only cleaner, smoother, more consistent, more reliable, etc.
Troy Grady, you rule. I love your depth and clear explaning, your modern approach and interesting hints for technical issues. I'm following your advice in this video, and progressing like never before. Thank. ❤️
Been watching your videos for the last 3 days decided to find where I should start and this video seems to be it. Man I suck just like 88 all over again to use all wrist and no forearm I’m at 84 bpm doing 16th notes. And smooth is not the word I would use. I wanted to shred so bad back then still do but it feels like being a career musician for the last 25 years still hasn’t helped. I’m actually slower now by a long shot than when I was at 13 when all I did was practice all this stuff. My wrists are dumb and going to stiff arm shredding has made so many physical problems in my right shoulder and neck that I’ve had to modify my playing over the years to zero shred
If I take my pinky off the pick guard like you do and try to float the wrist so it moves more freely using your all wrist technique it drops me down to 72 bpm at 16th notes to try to maintain any fluidity
I knew a guy who started drumming and immediately tried learning to play death and thrash metal. In a couple of years, he was amazing. He could play everything, no matter the speed. Band got signed to a major metal label and his drumming was the best thing about that music.
I always felt this. I’d say im a beginner, so I just listened to what everyone said “practice slow and speed up little by little”. At very slow tempos, I can do it. Then, I get to some tempo where it just feels different and I can’t do it. I remembered a video I watched where Michael Angelo Batio said to learn how to be fast, one should experience what is like being fast. I tried learning a riff by symphony x and only when I tried it fast and I focused on being relaxed, it just worked.
In general, yes. The important distinction here is * why * you can't play the phrase in the first place. If it's just because you haven't memorized the notes yet, that's fine, go slow and memorize them. But if you can't play a phrase because the technique itself is unknown to you, and you don't know how to do it, it's hard to figure that out by going slow. Nothing feels realistic at slow speeds and it's hard to tell if the motions you are using are actually the correct ones for high speed playing. These are the situations where experimenting at high speeds can give you that "aha" moment of figuring out the unfamiliar technique.
"Jarvis! Sometimes you gotta run before you can walk" Its a process called neuromuscular facilitation Troy. The wobble and your body accumulating extranious movement to pick up a technique.
Thomas Zonkowski and as a neurological educationalist, it kinda makes sense. If you ever see infants that are just starting to walk, they almost do a “run and fall” type of thing, before they slowly learn to move both feet in unison.
Totally. And that's why I think the "run before you can walk" thing is a little misleading as a common saying. As you're pointing out, kids totally try to run, and it's how they're accumulating the necessary "fails" to figure out how both running and walking work. It really looks like it's happening simultaneously.
this is an important lesson i learned from yoyoing - because the absolute limit of gravity in yoyoing, rendering the yoyo always in a state of falling, which is to say i can never truly pause in the middle tricks, i learned early on (i started as a kid) that sometimes, as the Andy Wood suggests, you need to just go for it and see what happens. the important part is to go for it, just try and do it, but after you do it you must think about the experience analytically through your physical sense feedback to make sense of it. sometimes slow is needed but it doesnt make sense depending on what the current physiological goal is.
I've been string hopping for more than 50 years and I want to change that. Of the many methods of fast picking you have discussed, which method do you think I should attempt to learn?
This is Jeet Kune Do for guitar. Repetitions and constantly evaluating your motion implementing economy of motion and chipping away the non-essentials. Bruce did not believe in natural ability per se. He believed in hard work and training both mind and body to achieve it's potential. Ultimately achieving self expression through martial art. He no longer hits, it hits all by itself. Meaning the movements have been ingrained into the sub-conscience so much that he didn't have to think, it just happened. The same is true for guitarists. We must also practice and self evaluate always making those corrections until it just plays all by itself. Troy is a finger pointing us in the right direction giving us the tools to become limitless in our own self expression. Much thanks to Troy!
Great analogy. I often think of Bruce while I'm evaluating and refining my motions to be minimal with power.
"All we're trying to do is provide clearer instructions so that the trial and error part is reduced and you can start much closer to where you want to be." - Mr Troy, you certainly are doing this and I am really grateful. You videos are really, REALLY appreciated, thanks :)
I was just checking out your videos, the guitar nerd channel we all wanted
Welcome..you discovered warm water..after more than 3 years!! still, welcome!
JoseitoEdlVodao no man I discovered you a long time ago, what I meant was I was already watching one of your videos when you uploaded this one, I occasionally re-watch your videos, it helps a lot.
The channel we may not deserve but humanity needs....lol.
titmusspaultpaul5 and yet most of the community is watching dumb guitar meme channels, only few persistent players can understand him, rightly said we don’t deserve this.
Yawar Mukhtar why don’t we deserve this? I deserve this. Also, who are you talking to? The poster who replied to you isn’t the uploader.
This reminds of how Shawn Lane described how he developed his speed. He never practiced slow, it was always fast and over time it cleaned itself up!
RIP Shawn, you will be missed forever.
That was a misconception, always brought up by rock players who want to avoid playing slow. He only plays beyond his speed when he wants to know his limits, then work it up by playing slow
@@sayanorasonic "Shawn Lane talks about speed (Radisson Hotel, 17th Apr 1993)" starting at around 2 minutes. He seems to suggest that the best method is approaching it from both directions: First you start slow and learn the lick and then you jump up to a higher tempo and start cleaning it up.
@@bamboocha63 Close! Slow speed is for memorization of fingerings. Fast speed is for discovering the smoothest way to do an unknown picking hand motion. Once you've discovered the smooth way, you go *backwards* from the fast speed, gradually getting slower and cleaner with the unknown motion, while regularly checking the fast speed to make sure the motion is still smooth. Eventually, the unkown motion becomes the known motion, and you can do it very slow with accurate expert-level form. But only at the end of the journey, not the beginning.
Matrin Miller was talking about same approach
My favorite videos are the ones that validate and expand upon things I’ve already figured out for myself.
Amazing work indeed man! One of the best and most informative channels I've ever seen to building technique! Thanks for everything!
Hey Troy, you kick ass! Thanks 🙏🏼 for all you do man.
Yes bro. You are right
This is the kind of video that always makes me glad I found this channel. This is how I learned, don't work up to speed just go for it and work on cleaning it up. I always wanted to play Buckethead stuff and well I always just kind of went fast and listened to what bits were kind of clean and what bits were horror and just worked on it. Took a while to clean up but now after 7 years I can safely say I can play with speed.
As a player with some chops, I can say this is the way I learned them.
Right on!
I'm a subscriber to your channel. It is ENORMOUSLY helpful just to hear this. After spending a lot of time trying to figure out the mechanics of picking, it's a relief to hear skilled players such as you basically endorse the Andy Wood 'rational hit-and-miss procedure' as a solution to picking mechanics. Thanks! (And thanks to you too, Troy)
Nice humble brag. Props.
That's a great way of putting it - you can't skip the "rational" part. If you're not noticing that some things work better than others, than you're not really making any changes to do things the better way. All we're trying to do is provide clearer instructions so that the trial and error part is reduced and you can start much closer to where you want to be.
@@troygrady Hey Troy, thanks for all the work you do.
Guthrie Govan does a very cool ultra-fast strumming thing here:
th-cam.com/video/mMPfYYE5CBE/w-d-xo.html
have you seen it? A vid on that would be great.
Troy, you're truly making this world a much better place. Your Michael Angelo Batio video changed my life. When I record my first virtuoso rock guitar album, I'm giving you a major shout out. Thanks for everything.
This is great advice. I wasted years doing progressive tempo picking excercizes on a metranome just to hit a brick wall at a certain point. I have more slowtwitch muscles controlling my wrist. Later found great speed by utilizing my wrist AND forearm and lightly hovering the pick over the strings. Everyones body is different and if speed is your goal, work with it to begin with.
This is EXACTLY the concept of motor learning they Charlie Francis explored in Speed Trap
(On sprinting ) and that Roman and Medveyev explores in their seminal texts on Olympic Weightlifting techniques. It is SPOT ON. Even the character Sam Mussabini in chariots of fire when describing the difference between sprinting and distance running said that sprinting was custom-made for neurotics because you have to control and hold your nerves in , which is exactly what we are talking about here, essentially trying to run at full speed actually gets a slower performance than trying to run that 90 percent speed because the latter is smoother and the muscles don’t lock up
Interesting
Yeah. Absolutely right. I learned this from John Petruccis Rock Discipline VHS tape many years ago.
Go over the limit when practicing and then dial it back. It's like using a medicine ball to warm up in Basketball.
After watching this I've honestly made more progress in my picking technique in few days than during the period of last six months. And I'm not even exaggerating.
It seems that when I start slow and speed up gradually, I'm always teaching my picking hand to do some useless extra movements, because of which I hit the "speed limit" at some point. The best way to get past that barrier seems to be just start picking fast (ignoring the sloppiness at first) and continue doing it until it starts to feel "right". And voila, there's your perfect picking technique. Quite simple really, but maybe also a bit counter-intuitive because everyone's always telling you to practice slow.
That's pretty much it. Glad you're seeing results. It does help to have instructions for the motion you want to use, though. That reduces the trial and error component of waiting for it to "feel right". But even with instructions, attempting them at a realistic speed, without worrying too much about accuracy, is the quickest way to know if you're in the ballpark. Thanks for watching.
Troy I’ve been trying to find someone with this kind of psychologically informed approach to the guitar and to practice for such a long time. Thank you for existing 🙌🏼
I'm sure this approach works great. But in the late 90s, I achieved tremendous results by practicing very slowly at first and gradually increasing speed. In my case, I was trying to find a way to improve my right hand technique without aggravating a painful right wrist. So, I made relaxation a primary goal. After gaining complete relaxation and solid, reliable execution at one tempo, I would increase the metronome by one notch. I started playing a maximum of sixteenth notes at 80 bpm, and worked my way up to sixteenth notes at 160 bpm. I remember the moment when it finally clicked that I could play sixteenth notes at just about any commonly used tempo in rock or jazz. While playing at a jam session in Montclair, NJ, I attempted a sixteenth note pentatonic run. All of the pieces fell into place. What a great feeling. After years of neglect, I'm trying to regain the technique that I had achieved back then. I'm 62 now, but I don't think it's too late. I'm still at 40 bpm (or 80 bpm, depending how you look at it) and feeling good.
I’m in the same situation and age as you. I strongly believe it’s not to late. I’m really into country and wanting blazing fast lines
I'm sure it doesn't work great - and a lot of the guitarists who perhaps didn't invent it but were certainly instrumental in making it popular have largely abandoned it - and certainly the guitar players that are heralded as the best around today do not do it - in fact perhaps the hottest around at the moment doesn't even use a pick showing what a nonsense it is to decide there's some set way of wiggling that is required to create fast notes and you obtain this by focusing on how it feels to wiggle your hand. That's a stupid way of learning to create noise.
Imagine if you wanted to speak and instead of listening to yourself you focused on how your tongue felt - or better yet think how deaf people talk because they can't hear themselves speak. It doesn't work very well does it? Many of them probably do talk how they hear themselves and others. But imagine your music is going to suck if you decide to effectively do the same thing - instead of generating the sound you imagine and want to hear, by listening to your playing, you start focussing on how your pick feels - and I'm sure you'll find myriad ways it'll feel great, but, the music won't. It's like hoping that the music you play will sound good if the patterns your fingers create look pretty or that your finger movements feel nice - that's not how harmony and melody work is it?
Study Ted Greene and he'll teach you that there's an awful lot of good music where your hands are going to have to spend a period of time uncomfortable, stretched etc doing stuff that Troy is his misguided ignorance would call "wrong" - because the pretty sound requires that set of notes that set apart on the neck. It's not a question of finding what feels nice - you can do that but it's no more likely to sound good than if you pick paints you like the smell of hoping that will create walls you like to look at.
Indeed, the biggest problem with this method is that it just leads to shredding, a mostly mechanical noise devoid of most of the elements of music that make the guitar so versatile compared with instruments like the piano - and then you'll either be stuck forever showing exercises on your youtube channel with no one interested in your music at all or you'll be wondering why your relaxed, feels nice fast notes don't sound like actual musicians and then you'll have to learn how to pick to create those kind of sounds - and at that point you should realise that there's no one way of picking that's right - you pick to create the sound - and you should start with the sound you want to create and then develop the technique to create it. Not the reverse.
That's the problem with the rigid method Troy demonstrates here it's like speaking by shouting. When we speak words, unless you're on the spectrum or perhaps a 10 year old made to stand up and read out loud in front of classmates, we naturally create phrases and variations. These help to convey meaning and intent in the words we're saying, but, and this is key in musical terms, they're what makes speech or music interesting to listen to. Troy loses all of that and suggests doing this fast motion until you've removed all musicality from your playing but it feels good.
Worse he suggests an even worse idea where the player is told not to focus on external things but if there's a single piece of advice that will make you a better musician it would be to stop focussing on your playing and listen to external source - preferable that will be music - a backing track or a band rather than a metronome, but the musician who is not listening to the band, not listening to his own playing and just focussed on how his playing feels will sound shit. There's no chance you'll magically play in the groove or pocket like that.
If you study actual musicians of note you'll see most of them advocate starting with the aural image - the sound you want and then developing technique to serve that aim, and specifically you note someone like Guthrie Govan has a few videos where he shows the limitations of the brain-dead, mechanical picking technique. Paul Gilbert perhaps can be accused of promoting it in many of his early VHS videos, perhaps because in his day guitarists didn't know better, and it seemed like a novel thing that was exciting an audience. But he grew up and realised that the music mattered. Watch him playing today and he'll show the shredding noise almost as a joke, or perhaps to show that "I can do it but I choose not to" because many of the shredder wannabees genuinely think that the less tone deaf are unimpressed because "they can't do it", but no, it's actually pretty simple - that is one thing Troy does get right - anyone can do this if they can knock on a door, but it's not much of a skill to develop.
It's much harder to create musical phrases, especially at a high tempo with variance and subtlety and nuance. e.g Guthrie explaining how he gets a flurry of notes rather like a quick roll on a snare where every note isn't articulated exactly the same precisely because if it were then it sounds worse. It sounds crap. You need to intelligently pick to create phrases with accents and dynamics and that will, quite obviously, require you to do stuff with your picking hand - stuff that Troy has told you to spend hours not doing in the mistaken belief these are "wrong"
And Troy is talking about trying lots of ways to pick using positive feedback but if your positive feedback isn't the sound you're making, and you're not listening to that sound in the context of external references - whether that's references for tempo or harmony then you're going to sound bad because you can't learn to drive based on how it feels to turn the steering wheel - you have to look out the window and steer to avoid hitting things. If you crash into a tree you can't say "But the steering felt really smooth - and I practised for hours like Troy said so I could steer into the tree on demand with a high rate of accuracy"
"It doesn't have to be pretty, sound good" but the only way you'll make your playing sound good is to change the way you're playing right? So if it doesn't sound good - and sounding good is your goal, that's when what you're doing is wrong. If it sounds right - well now you're onto something - if it sounds great but your playing hand hurts or something then sure, you have a technique problem to address, but if it sounds great and comfortable you can actually play and imagine how stupid a guy trying to tell you that your picking is wrong and you should practise and make it sound bad. Can you see why Govan politely turns down the chance to appear?
Brother wrote a fuckin novel @@michael1
I found this out over time as well. You have to learn the patterns or sequences by heart slow or moderate, then when you fly over it numerous times it gradually cleans itself up. It’s actually freaky the way our brain deals with it. It’s almost like your seeing the entire run as one long string rather than a series of notes, and your brain tends to allow you to smoothen the whole run out as a unit synchronizing your picking hand with your fingering as you do.
More smoothen
my brain must be retarded then
You never fail to impress. You're info always holds up to practical application. Thanks for what you do.
If it doesn't hold up in practice, then it's not that useful! That's really all this is - an attempt to sort out what's real, and provide instructions for same. Thanks for watching.
This is the best channel on the nuance of practicing that I know of. It's brilliant. You should have 10x the subscribers. If I'd have had this channel when I was a young guitarist, I think I'd be so much better than I am or ever was. This is such a quality product. Thank you, Troy.
Just finished your series Cracking the code and as someone who has always idolized the picking style of Paul Gilbert I found them very informational and it introduced me to some players I had avoided before and has really had me pushing the limits of what I thought possible for myself with picking speed.
It’s good to work both methods into your routine. Jog-to-run, and sprint-to-run.
Paul Gilbert was a huge advocate of metronome usage, and it’s a powerful tool for both approaches to perfection.
Troy, this channel is a true blessing. Thank you for putting together such creative and thoughtful content.
This works only if both hands are completely relaxed. No tension at all in both hands. I work with a metronome. Started at 60bpm with 16th notes and in one month I'm at 96 bpm 16th notes. Goal is 120 bpm. I do think starting slow is better for accuracy and articulation.
Another excellent lesson from the king of the analytical approach to physical guitar skill development!
Troy's created a niche for himself in the crowded field of online guitar instruction that is both invaluable to players looking for improvement, and unique to him; an awesome feat given the abundance of guitar teachers, to be the only one digging in so deeply to examine exactly what great players are physically doing to play so great. He actually knows more about the concrete realities of high level playing than most of the great players whose skills he examines in microscopic detail!
Keep it up Troy; you're providing an incredible service to guitarists who love to learn and improve!
Well said lad. Well said..
Troy, i hope you see this because this particular video touched an old string in my mind that i had forgotten was even there.
When i was a child, i used to weigh things. Rocks, tv remote, toys, books, anything i touched at that age and time... And i used to classify them as throwing-worthy or un-throwing-worthy. This might sound kinda dumb but that was the feeling i got, just like picking a stone to skip, i weighed things and sometimes got a little naughty and threw em on the wall.
My point is, i had the same feeling capabilities when i started learning the guitar. It's just, by time and constant manipulative education that roams the internet, i find myself have lost this sorta talent. All i do is focusing on my 'technique' while all you say is explore your inner sensation.
It's some sort of reconnection i build within myself thanks to you. i appreciate your lessons very, very much. Have a good one.
CtC is the place to be. Troy has done amazing job demystifying picking technique, for once and for all. The lessons and interviews are all great and in the very active forum one can find a wealth of useful info about pretty much everything guitar related. Raising our glasses for you Sir, a big Thank You!
Holy shit, that video made me "break through" a mental barrier I had regarding speed. I was mostly picking by rotating my wrist, and not doing deviations. Thank you so much, I think I can practice a different way!
I agree with this approach. Slowing down is beneficial too but I think it's important to try this way too. I've often started with a consistent pick strike on the string while the fret fingers stumble but like you said after ten minutes or so the fretboard fingers start to fall into place...thanks.
Just the best advice for playing fast!! Such a pity 95% of guitar teachers think that constant slow practise will lead to high speeds.
I joined and got the month-to-month plan to check things out. This is an incredible site and for the money, worth every penny. Thanks Troy.This entire EJ technique is like starting over but that's what I need.
You've gpt a good idea bout what is mentally required to execute motions - thanx for your observations.
You do need clear instructions for doing the motions, yes. It's taken us a long time to research and deliver these, and when it comes to wrist motion specifically, you can find one of our best videos on this subject right before this one (the USX wrist motion video). Our instructional stuff has more of that.
@@troygrady : watched that video but the thing that confuses me is: when I practice this on a single string I get good results BUT: when I have to cross strings I get trapped with this technique. How can you use this USX motion along with string-crossing? You've got that 10 degree angle but when switching between inside and outside motions you have to change the angle in the opposite direction - right?
Good observations! The pick must be escaped to make a clean string change. USX motions only work for switching strings when you play an upstroke, because that is the escape stroke. To do downstroke strings changes, you need a DSX motion. That's the companion motion. We have not posted a tutorial for that, but you can see me using it in this video right here in the slow motion shots. Keep in mind, also, not all players use both motions. Players like Eric Johnson and Marty Friedman use mainly USX, and don't play the kinds of phrases you are describing. When they use alternate, they switch strings almost exclusively during upstrokes. They also use a lot of downstroke sweeping. It's a big world out there. Any one of these techniques can be used to make a huge variety of music, even if it seems "incomplete" to you when you look at it.
Thanks for that eye opener! Transformed my playing in a day.
This is what I did. It worked pretty well for me. Only thing I'd say is keep your eye out for bad habits. If you are headed toward bad habits with individual techniques then it's time to slow it down. And you need to be willing to do that as frequently as you honestly need to.
Biggest things are either building tension in the body when you are hyper focused on pushing yourself, or cheating in really small ways.
This probably sounds like a bit much but it's legitimate advice coming from an experienced guitarist, and I want you to avoid the mistakes I made.
Absolutely true. Once you get the notes under your fingers and committed to memory, attempting to play it fast will reveal your deficiencies in picking and fretting.
It's how I've always learned, and I refused to listen to people who tried to tell me otherwise. I learn how I learn. Period. It works for me. People's judgment of a 'good' learning technique is impaired if they're trying to force other people to change what works for them. That's not teaching, that's oppressing a learner, and it does nothing but discourage students.
I’ve been playing for 22 years. I struggled to build any kind of technique or speed for at least the first 15 years. I finally took some lessons from a really good player I met, and he taught me how to practice in bursts - where you play a passage slowly, then fast, alternating and mixing it up, being sure to get the hands used to the motions that they use when they play fast. That was the missing key for me, which playing slow and gradually increasing the tempo did not do. This changed everything for me. That, and practicing accenting. When I would ask my teacher to slow down something he was playing fast, it was difficult for him to do, just like what Troy talks about. Now I’m playing stuff that I never imagined I’d be able to do and also often can’t play something slow that I improvised fast. It just kinda “comes out” like magic lol. It sure feels good after all these years. This stuff works.
This is exactly how I was able to develop speed, even in my left hand. I just try to do it fast and sloppy (after I learned it of course) then breaking it down without even really breaking down but by feeling it out at fast speed because my fingers were recognizing gradually what I’m doing wrong over time.
I've always been told to do things a specific way with the guitar. It's nice to learn there's more than one way.
Sean Owens do things your way don’t play just cuz somebody says it’s how you’re “supposed” to do it. Fire your guitar teacher.
What about the left hand (fingering hand)? Thanks
Dude I cant thank you enough for this. I really began to think I was LITERALLY unable for me to physically play fast. This has hit home big time.
As far as we can tell, "average" human ability can handle tempos in the 150-200 range, and it's really just knowledge that separates most of us.
@@troygrady Troy if I won the lottery/lotto would you spend a year tutoring me ? . I have watched 85 per cent of your content and learned hell of a lot but I need a tutor to relay my issue's back to me. I have played since 94 and gave up(gap 3 years) as the Paul Gilbert/ Malmsteen exercises killed my soul. 8 hours a day I tried but now with the internet I have become wiser and thru your accurate studies I have become slightly better. My first 15 min I can reach 220 ( Nunos wounded bumblebee?) But the harder I try the tighter my hand muscles get and my timing is lost on looking at my hands and pick. Its hell and I need to break your code
If only the fretting would follow.
Right?! Lol
Do hammer ons and pull offs. Then combine the two.
It takes some time to synchronize the two hands, but it will come.
Lower string action, dont fret hard
Yep. My fretting hand can't keep up with my top picking speed.
as someone self teaching this is exactly the sort of thing that's hard to spot on my own, this is super valuable.
The late, great Shawn Lane used to learn how play new things as fast as possible, even if it was sloppy. Then he would try to clean up the technique to the end point of being able to play it precisely. It obviously worked for him.
Where you got this info from?
I think it's this video th-cam.com/video/DhkbSBxPYcU/w-d-xo.html
That says a lot about why Shawn Lane sounded the way he did. Most of us use simple diatonic patterns we can play cleanly to focus our practice on speed. He used relatively complicated rhythmic and melodic ideas he could play fast so that he could focus his practice on cleanliness. A lot of us have gotten fast playing simple ideas. Shawn got clean playing fast complicated ideas. Mind = blown.
Shawn also stated that he visualized playing at faster tempos so that the body catches up with thought.
Shawn was a freak of nature!
This reminds me of an interview with Martin Miller he actually States he practice fast even though you was told to practice slow ... and the only time you slow down was to check and see if he consistently was playing with the same technique at a slower speed. he also believes that the mind works out certain neural pathways when you're practicing fast that eventually you just get it. You stated as well, the idea is to develop a smooth movement. Thanks Troy !
Looking forward to the The Bill Hall
There is a lot to this. When taking jazz improv in college I always thought I was behind the beat. Turns out I was ahead including on Bebop really uptempo stuff. Too bad I only found out in my last semester... lol
Which brings up another point. Record yourself, play it back be brutal but objective at the same time about your playing. There was a student 2 years behind me that was confident, a super nice guy, etc. Turns out he was incredibly sloppy with terrible tone. He just had no clue. They even played a gig and never got invited back to the venue because if how bad he sounded. All the right notes, just no articulation and terrible tone.
Thanks for playing clean to encourage accurate playing. Great attitude and teaching style! Love seeing the different instruments - and that's a lovely Cornford too. Great work, well done - I look forward to learning from you :)
If it ain't clean it ain't real! Thanks for watching.
Troy I think we are from the same generation, i was born in 1970. I was doing martial arts Tae Kwon Do Kung Fu and Hapki do , but with Tae Kwon do I did all the forms , i intended to be a full contact fighter, but that didn't pan out, I got into WTF forms, a guy i went to highschool with was on the Olympic team, and i would see him on the train, and he said, yeah, I'm doing it, he went for a BA in physical therapy, he opened a School in my hometown.
When you go through all 20 Forms in the WTF you are teaching the right to do what the Left is doing, and you lose the thinking of right and left, and it becomes, a mental picture with out thinking, just doing, In Korean that is" Il yeo", the oneness of mind and body.
When you speed up what you are doing slow the momentum asks for less motion, some motions work better than others fast . Some patterns of movement flow better as well .
some of the forms encouraged the copy of Wind or water
Andy is the man. I meet him thru a friend. He plays here in Knoxville tn. His cover rock band is unreal . He also was dolly parton mandoline players at dollywood. Unreal on guitar also.
Great lesson Troy this is great...the idea of getting feedback to know what to even work on makes sense
That's pretty much it! This is the best way to summarize what we're talking about here. It's not even about speed, per se. It's a method for knowing when form is correct, or at least in the ballpark of correct, which you can then work on cleaning up.
Something I very much need to practice. Good timing, no pun intended.
I ran into a compelling explanation of this the other day called "open loop vs closed loop" learning. When you go slow, it is closed loop and every motion your hand makes is controlled by a separate conscious brain signal followed by feedback to said brain when the motion has been completed. Your brain and nerves work fast, but it is not infinite, and at some point there simply isn't enough time for your brain to consciously control each individual movement, and wait for feedback from the nerves to say "done". To exceed that speed threshold you change to open loop learning where the brain is "chunking" the orders to the hand, and the feedback is not really perceived until the chunk is complete. E.g. One conscious signal to play a sextuplet, vs six separate controlled, fast movements. In a way, I guess it is analogous to reading. You don't read one letter at a time, you read chunks. So I think fast playing should also be done in terms of thinking about how you chunk groups of movements.
This guy is so underrated Jesus bro I’ve been struggling for hours and hours trying to pick fast and I saw this video and you cut those hours to 30 minutes thank you my guy
awesome thoughts and exploration you have done mate , i agree with a lot you say with picking , thankyou for the ideas , rock on
I actually applied this technique when i started playing and ive been playing for only a year and a half, and my right suddnenly became so fast at tremolo picking!
I also feel like there’s a weird sweet spot between slow and fast tempos where it’s really tricky because the hands don’t quite know if we’re going slow or fast. That the groove and time has to be spot on. Usually around 100 bpm.
Demian, I agree with this 100%. I feel like I can sometimes nail slow and fast but the medium speed gets all gummed up.
You. Are. Great. Thank you very much, you motivate me to play and keep searching for better playing!
For the past few weeks I've watched hundreds of speed picking videos. This seems like the only one that actually describes the truth of the journey for acquiring speed.
What a fantastic lesson. I've been playing for many years but never got that "super speed" thing and have recently been looking into it and practicing. Your video was a BIG help. One of the many reasons I subscribed to your channel a while ago.... Thanks and cheers mate.
Love your stuff, would love some focus on DOWN picking. Im having so much more muscle tension trying to straight down pick
I had this problem, I just practiced whilst totally relaxed and now downpicking is MUCH easier....! Took a while, but worth it...
Cool. Yeah im tryin to build up more speed and Im gaining at a snails pace. Im an alternate picking lunatic but prob mid level downpicker. Im ripping straight up hardcore and working on transitioning alot of what i play to downpicking
@@Sublight77 Good luck! You'll nail it!!!
@@alexspencer7170 thanks so much man. Rock on
Found it helps to think about bouncing on the string for down picking only type of stuff. I'm sure your not really bouncing on the string but helped me to relax it thinking about it that way.
Very simple and easy to understand explanation.. thanks for making it feel like a kindergarten class.. wish I had seen you much earlier
Recently commented in the CYC forums that I have some medium tempo "grey areas" where I have difficulty playing patterns cleanly and in time, while slower or faster tempos seem okay. Only one person has shimed in to say they have a similar experience. Would love to know if Troy and the CTC Team have seen or discussed this.
Hi John! I'll see if I can locate that thread now.
I have a similar problem: when I play until around 115 BPM it feels ok - 120 can feel "painful" but when I play faster it workes again (130-150 bpm) - very strange and I don't have an answer for that.
I have had that exact problem many times
@@benbmusic88 : it seems like there is a point of transition where the technique or motion feels different. When you look at guys like Claus Levine - his picking motion looks similar at every speed. I guess that this is the way to go.
Same thing happens for me. I usually try and use my mechanics for the faster zone in the grey area. That grey area being where the slow less efficient mechanics start to fall apart...is how I look at it.
I can't move my wrist sideways like that! I find myself picking with my tricep muscle! I literally think I'm just moving my entire forearm up and down and I can't angle my pick away on the downstroke like that. Picking is like so unstable and I end up putting my last 2 fingers on the guitar to keep my distance the same to the strings. Maybe it's decades of doing it wrong. Or using .008 with thin picks? Anyway... interesting vid. I have been trying a medium pick lately. Fender shape, not pointed. Pointed catches all the time because my depth is not accurate apparently. so... I guess my lack of pick technique makes me do more legato and hammer ons instead of picking each note. still enjoy watching these analysis vids.
I used to use a thin pick, but then started using a heavier pick, and I found it gave me more accuracy/consistency, but it did take a couple weeks to get used to the change
The precision n clarity of notes is just 👍
Great instructional video brother.
Havnt played my guitar in years.
Working too many hours on the job. Spent about 15 years on the road back when I was younger.
About to retire. Gonna get my guitars out the closet and get with it. Never got that picking style down, to the point where I felt comfortable, and totally in control of ax. Going to spend more time now, practicing on your techniques. I really want to play jazz. Is it possible, to actually correctly learn how to play jazz. Without out a teacher?
Improvisation. Self taught.
I don't think one can play good jazz, without a music theory background. I used to play and sing alot of George Benson s songs. Note for note. Scatting and the whole bit. I sounded just like him. But, I could never take off on my own, as well as I wanted too. Gotta have that theory
This video makes soooooo much sense. This is exactly how I learned all my shred licks. I'm really bad at downward pickslanting and when I practice it, it feels weird. I don't practice it a lot because for some reason I feel like I'll screw up the picking chops that I have but this video just made me have an epiphany...
When you start playing, literally everything feels weird and it is more of a mental block rather than a physical one. I still remember when I was starting I wanted to shred so bad, but it seemed like such an impossible thing, but it's all about the thought process.
Awesome guitar work Troy!
It's just how you can't practice running by walking faster and faster.
Charlie Andor great comparison
Yep, perfect assessment bro. The dynamics involved in walking and running are totally different from each other. To me the metronome is a tool to help you get things right, but if you want to play really fast you'll have to push it by yourself.
Great point
My problem with this type of advice is that it's easy to misunderstand. You first have to be able to walk before you can even think about running. Once that is sorted, yes, try runnung rather than walking faster.
perfect analogy
Troy, you're the first person I've heard use the term string hopping. I have been struggling with this issue since I started playing, and that has been a very long time. My picking hand hops, It's no problem for many things that I play, but I can't make it go away. I pick faster and the hopping stays, and it creates a barrier that I can't get past.
Genius advice, Troy! (as usual) I think I can adapt this to fingerstyle stuff, too. I also noticed I could tap faster than I could play, which could allow more progress. Martin Miller also alludes to "flooring it" now and then.
Martin is the best! He and I are pretty close on this subject.
@@troygrady Yes! And this cutting-edge research effectively rubbishes the old-school teaching methods that have been used forever for scales. Even the hitting you with a ruler part! ;)
I wanna add my own experience. I use metronome to let my internal sense of tempo and space getting used to something methodically even (precisely 80 beats per minute, for example). Until the level where I can 'guess' what tempo a song is at. When I have this consistency, mentally, then I embark for speed practice. I used my bodily sense to figure whether the speed is right for me or not, and go back to slower speed to figure out what is going on, then go full blown speed to test what I have figured. Troy is right. Start with speed, but understand your bodily constitution through some observation (slowing down to memorize), so you could find that smoothness somehow. Which is why, working with your instrument is vital, thus the saying "practice makes perfect" is only saying "try it more, to get acquainted better with your bodily sense" to find that smoothness. Thanks Troy.
This is perfect timing on this, I was just working on my right hand speed yesterday. Thank you!
i did this first year playing, FINALLY someone showing you can fly before u can crawl. obviously learn technique also, but the confidence that oneday i could have it all really helped as a 12 year old kid. great video
I already do this in rhythm power chords and single notes.
The trouble is in lead in playing triplets in 8 or 16 beats above 120 bpm. Your suggestion is worthwhile.
Thanks for this video. But please keep some distortion on in such videos.
We are not doing polka dance or spanish folk dance where tempo easily crosses 200 with local string instruments!
Bro imma write this in every video i see of yours. You’re awesome!
Troy，I think my problem is to steady my playing, I always feel like my left hand is not as fast as my picking hand.I have to think about my left hand should catch up the right hand every time when I practice some fast licks.
I confused of the synchronization for months.I do a lot of legato to help my left hand,but I still can not play some Yng style one string scale descending patterns/two strings scale patterns.
Do you have any analysis of the left hand technique?
I feel like everybody have problems with the picking hand,but I am the reverse,my left hand sucks...
(I am a big fan of Frank Gambale,his sweep picking and economy picking influence me huge.)
Ben Eller has a few videos on hand synchronization that might help. th-cam.com/video/i_UJU1Yb1jM/w-d-xo.html Don't let the initial "ha ha!" tone get to you, he's actual a good teacher and generally drops the act after the video lead in.
bro thank you this is making sense of years of practicing I'm a jazz fusion player and I've always had this struggle. practice fast to play fast! why do so many teachers discourage this???
They haven't figured it out and were also misinformed, like most guitarists.
I almost always practiced with my metronome while picking a faster subdivision. The problem I'm facing now is identifying the beats of each instrument. I never needed to before because I had internal tempo. Now I'm finding myself comparing eighths and above to it's next slower counterpart just to always be able to identify the quarter note again.
I absolutely love your work Troy and I didn't always like it for a long time I didn't but I don't know why, this is helpful
Your a great teacher an I love your videos . I have a 1967 fender mustang identical to your an it’s a great guitar
It is a learning process for sure and each individual is different.There are multiple facets and stages to overcome before we can achieve the desired results. I have struggled with economy picking for years unable to even progress on daily basis while alternate picking was progressively rewarding.only after a thorough and honest self analysis one can eliminate the "errors' that led to the failure.Playing the motion slow will teach you what does not work and what it is you need to focus on like frethand smoothness ( maybe ring and pinky are not independent of one another), left hand is not in tempo and at a certain speed synchronization is failing. I still have problems with econo picking on the lower 3 strings while G B and E is fine. But remember that speed is a by product of accuracy and one must learn the pattern first before shredding it however i agree that once learn it is imperative to burst past the accuracy limit for a short while and go back down to the perfect execution tempo, somewhat like learning typing on a keyboard.
ie if you are comfortable at 100bpm then burst to 120-130 bpm and then go down to 100bpm in a short while 110bpm will be your new norm. Rinse and repeat.
Thank you Troy for all the hard work you have done, you are the man!
Great work, Troy! This is going to help so many players! I think you pretty much lay out exactly what it feels like when someone is getting their motion mechanics down. I don't think anybody has really laid it out like this and explained it in a way that is easy to understand and that everyone can latch onto. A must see video for anyone trying to get this kind of technique down and improve their overall motion mechanics and speed. Once again great work! ️ ☺️
Right on Bill. I know you have spoken about using biofeedback to make changes and that's really what we're getting at here. I think it's when we ignore the feedback that you get stuck hammering your head against a wall.
I'd like to see you explore alternative pick holding methods. I hold my pick more like a pen or chopstick with the point behind the meat of my thumb. Tobin Abasi holds his similarly- my hold is more recessed. I can tremolo pick 16th notes at 200 bpm with very little hand, elbow, and wrist motion
I actually found that playing the faster runs slowly and making sure every note is picked and hammered on right. Then jump to the fast speed helps alot. I agree with the things you are saying but playing it slowly at first builds other muscles that reflect more accuracy.
Sean Hannity does an amazing job with this video! LOL!!!
No really, Troy Grady, you are a genius. Not just what you have uncovered and shown the world but the way you speak, and the ideas you convey, the thoughts, like it's pretty obvious that you are scary smart. I can't tell you how much myself and others enjoy your passion and the videos that you have elected to share with the world. Thank you very much.
"I never use the middle pickup". This guy really means it.
I knew I was right! Every video I found while I was really pushing the speed of my playing, said to "work up" to it, and use a metronome. This is exactly how I felt about that, without knowing how to phrase it! Great job!
Just keep in mind, this advice is really for when you are acquiring a new skill, one you don't have yet. In that situation, you don't know what it's like to do it correctly, so speed is how you test if it's working. If you are already an experienced player, and you can already play quickly and cleanly, but you just want to do that same thing faster, I can't really comment on that. Personally, I have no real recollection of my playing ever getting faster than it is right now - only cleaner, smoother, more consistent, more reliable, etc.
Troy Grady agreed one hundred percent! You’re absolutely right, and I feel the same way. I’m just not playing at your speed or as clean yet. Haha.
Troy Grady, you rule. I love your depth and clear explaning, your modern approach and interesting hints for technical issues. I'm following your advice in this video, and progressing like never before. Thank. ❤️
So much logic and positivity here
Been watching your videos for the last 3 days decided to find where I should start and this video seems to be it. Man I suck just like 88 all over again to use all wrist and no forearm I’m at 84 bpm doing 16th notes. And smooth is not the word I would use. I wanted to shred so bad back then still do but it feels like being a career musician for the last 25 years still hasn’t helped. I’m actually slower now by a long shot than when I was at 13 when all I did was practice all this stuff. My wrists are dumb and going to stiff arm shredding has made so many physical problems in my right shoulder and neck that I’ve had to modify my playing over the years to zero shred
If I take my pinky off the pick guard like you do and try to float the wrist so it moves more freely using your all wrist technique it drops me down to 72 bpm at 16th notes to try to maintain any fluidity
This video is the work of genius. Bravo.
Exactly what i was looking for! Thank you very much!
I knew a guy who started drumming and immediately tried learning to play death and thrash metal. In a couple of years, he was amazing. He could play everything, no matter the speed. Band got signed to a major metal label and his drumming was the best thing about that music.
I always felt this.
I’d say im a beginner, so I just listened to what everyone said “practice slow and speed up little by little”.
At very slow tempos, I can do it.
Then, I get to some tempo where it just feels different and I can’t do it.
I remembered a video I watched where Michael Angelo Batio said to learn how to be fast, one should experience what is like being fast.
I tried learning a riff by symphony x and only when I tried it fast and I focused on being relaxed, it just worked.
In general, yes. The important distinction here is * why * you can't play the phrase in the first place. If it's just because you haven't memorized the notes yet, that's fine, go slow and memorize them. But if you can't play a phrase because the technique itself is unknown to you, and you don't know how to do it, it's hard to figure that out by going slow. Nothing feels realistic at slow speeds and it's hard to tell if the motions you are using are actually the correct ones for high speed playing. These are the situations where experimenting at high speeds can give you that "aha" moment of figuring out the unfamiliar technique.
"Jarvis! Sometimes you gotta run before you can walk" Its a process called neuromuscular facilitation Troy. The wobble and your body accumulating extranious movement to pick up a technique.
Thomas Zonkowski and as a neurological educationalist, it kinda makes sense. If you ever see infants that are just starting to walk, they almost do a “run and fall” type of thing, before they slowly learn to move both feet in unison.
Totally. And that's why I think the "run before you can walk" thing is a little misleading as a common saying. As you're pointing out, kids totally try to run, and it's how they're accumulating the necessary "fails" to figure out how both running and walking work. It really looks like it's happening simultaneously.
Austin likes eating potatoes EXACTOMUNDO!!!!
Really good lesson, taught Cleary and concisely. You sir, have earned a sub. 🎸
Thanks!
12:00, that's exactly how I do it. I feel too much resistance to hit the string. What am I doing wrong??
I've seen a couple videos now. Really fantastic stuff. Looking forward to getting better!
this is an important lesson i learned from yoyoing - because the absolute limit of gravity in yoyoing, rendering the yoyo always in a state of falling, which is to say i can never truly pause in the middle tricks, i learned early on (i started as a kid) that sometimes, as the Andy Wood suggests, you need to just go for it and see what happens. the important part is to go for it, just try and do it, but after you do it you must think about the experience analytically through your physical sense feedback to make sense of it. sometimes slow is needed but it doesnt make sense depending on what the current physiological goal is.
This guy has helped my playing so much. Thanks so much for the videos.
I've been string hopping for more than 50 years and I want to change that. Of the many methods of fast picking you have discussed, which method do you think I should attempt to learn?
Your lessons are great. The detail,camera angles ext. excellent!