Picking speed question

[gunslinger_burrito]

How do you all like to position your arm/hand/wrist when you pick faster passages, whether it's scales, single string, tremolo picking? I'm trying to get faster with alternate picking and finding the best position for me has been tough. I feel like once I hit a certain speed I HAVE to tense up my wrist and hand but I see plenty of shred dudes who obviously aren't. And yes, I have been watching a shit load of Troy Grady videos. I'm more just curious about everyone's experiences.... Can anyone here pick real fast (like for black metal, for instance, or thrashy palm muting and shit) without getting super tense? I can't see how black metal guitarists could play what they do unless they kept their hand loose....

thx dewds

also, I have been working with a metronome, and it has been helping...

[gnomethrone]

I've been out of the unholy blackened thrash game for awhile and lost most of my speed but what I used to do was visualize my hand moving as a vibration. Trying to force up and down motions id get tense but if i think about it as one vibration you can sort of flow with it. Or maybe I'm just too new age for life lol.

[gunslinger_burrito]

hmm when I think of it like that is when my arm turns into an unbendable knot... I just keep seeing all these dudes on youtube who look relaxed as fuck while they're playing this super fast stuff...

[ChetMagongalo]

if you wanna play fast you CANNOT tense up, the reason these dudes look relaxed when they play is because they are. just takes a lot of practice with good relaxed technique

[goroth]

I'm not great at super fast shit, but one limiting factor for me is my upstrokes. Compare how fast you can do eighth-note downstrokes, and how easily, to eighth-note upstrokes. If you're anything like me upstrokes will be significantly slower, less tight (rhythmically) and less relaxed. So that will stop your speed from progressing.

Another factor is guitar tone. I love the sound of distortion when you dig in with the pick and get fuckloads of attack. But playing like that makes it really hard to go fast. You need smaller movements, which means you either need to use more gain to compensate or your fast stuff is just less brutal. It's a difficult trade off.

If you are doing any cross string speedy shit then your cross string mechanics are going to make a difference too. Inside contra outside picking. If this makes no sense - try playing high e and high b, e with an upstroke, b down, for like a bar or two of sixteenth-notes. Then try downpicking the e and up-picking the b.

And yeah. Metronome or die.

Gotta get back into this stuff. Ugh...

[gnomethrone]

or just follow my picking technique:
smoke hash, get fat and play slow

[gunslinger_burrito]

I've smoked and played to a metronome

I totally get the attack thing. It sounds way gnarlier with lots of attack and faster picking. But clarity doesn't seem to be an issue even if I don't pick hard. Troy Grady's videos with Martin Miller and Michael Angelo Batio were particularly helpful for me to learn to play across the strings better. Watching close up how some of those dudes play in Troy Grady's videos is really cool. I'm just trying to figure out the most relaxed and comfortable arm/wrist/hand/finger position....

[goroth]

Marty Friedman is evidence that what is biometricly most efficient is a highly individual quality

[voerking]

i find that angling my wrist downward (towards the floor) slightly, so that the pick is angled upwards where it contacts the string helps quite a bit.
i think it might be a matter of that being a good position for me to fall into using just my wrist in a loose, relaxed fashion for the picking motion, as opposed to letting my arm tense up.

[hbombgraphics]

maybe a dumb question but how are you gripping the pic,
back when I played faster (I think) alot of it came down to having a good pic grip, minimal edge of the pic sneaking out past index finger, when I play heavy music for a few hours a day I never have to cut the nail on my index finger,

I found that part of the reason I was tight in the warm initially was because the pic didn't feel secure or grip well so you squeeze harder

[repoman]

Try really thin picks, Paul Gilbert uses .60s
Being tense is what is slowing you down, bring your attention to focus on the tension when doing exercises
Set the amp completely clean

[gunslinger_burrito]

I'm not gripping the pick in quite such a way that there's barely any tip touching the string, like Goroth was saying, I like more attack.... If I'm understanding Voerking correctly, that's what Troy Grady describes as "downward pick slanting," and yeah it helps a ton. What I learned from TG was that if you keep the pick in that position, it makes it harder to cross strings from high to low, so you have to change strings after your upstrokes.

What has really been helping me is the stuff from this video in particular. Especially the parts on finger/thumb position.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MVXbCzAV7Q

[goroth]

Jazz iii for life! Fuck thin picks and Paul Gilbert too!
(No seriously, he's rad).
Was thinking about picking up a gravity pick the other day.

[repoman]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTq3YtZ5H7U[/youtube]

Heres the Paul Gilbert vid for pick speed

shred

[gunslinger_burrito]

Shred heads are nuts!

For some reason I'm not seeing any youtube links correctly.... all I see is a black rectangle that I can't even click on..... It did that when I tried to post my last link here