Question on pick angle, 'horizontal axis'.

robertsaunders

I'm trying to be more attentive to keeping a 45 degree angle now at all times. But it makes tremolo-ing at high speed very difficult especially if I focus on doing the movement from the wrist. Should I be trying to maintain that angle even in my tremolo?

pallopenna

Rob,

I see what you mean about the videos not being viewable. I'm using a Mac and Quicktime used to load them in my browser, but now all I get is a black avi screen. He may not be actively maintaining the site, since the band broke up.

-Paul

spud

I find it hard to keep the pick at this 45 deg angle on upstrokes. downstrokes are fine but for upstrokes my wrist wants to rotate to reangle the pick at 45deg in the other direction.

MichaelHorowitz

robertsaunders wrote:

I'm trying to be more attentive to keeping a 45 degree angle now at all times. But it makes tremolo-ing at high speed very difficult especially if I focus on doing the movement from the wrist. Should I be trying to maintain that angle even in my tremolo?

The angle should make tremolo easier....actually I sometimes get and almost a 90 degrees angle for tremolo. That way the pick just slides easily over the strings.

'm

robertsaunders

Michael Horowitz wrote:

robertsaunders wrote:

I'm trying to be more attentive to keeping a 45 degree angle now at all times. But it makes tremolo-ing at high speed very difficult especially if I focus on doing the movement from the wrist. Should I be trying to maintain that angle even in my tremolo?

The angle should make tremolo easier....actually I sometimes get and almost a 90 degrees angle for tremolo. That way the pick just slides easily over the strings.

'm

So an exception is made in the 45 degree angle rule when doing single-string tremolo—which answers my question. I hold a 90 degree angle when doing chord and multi-string tremolo of course, but then I hold my hand floating over the strings. So the 45-degree angle must be designed to build rest-stroke and sweep-stroke technique. I realize I sound repeative, but to misunderstand the tiniest aspect of this technique is to fail at mastering it.

MichaelHorowitz

I do the single string tremolos more at 45 degrees.....but chord tremolos get more of a 90 degree angle.

robertsaunders

Michael Horowitz wrote:

I do the single string tremolos more at 45 degrees.....but chord tremolos get more of a 90 degree angle.

Ha! LOL, I knew that if I persisted I'd get to the bottom of this. Glad to hear this latest, because I have actually been getting some results lately tilting my pick 45 degrees for single string tremolo, which actually integrates smoothly with fast single-note picking, particularly Django's long chromatic runs. Where I got confused was in not differentiating between single-string and chord tremoloing.

Thanx, Michael!

R

a

speaking of eric johnson:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=8_y_kft_3IU

robertsaunders

a wrote:

speaking of eric johnson:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=8_y_kft_3IU

He's great. The only thing I'd have liked is if he could have stated the theme of Cliffs of Dover more clearly in the beginning so I could have comprehended how his improvisation related to the theme, like Mozart's variations do. The guy clearly has chops up the wazoo.

Alex, is that a Gitane DG-255 you're playing on your myspace page? Sounds good.

Bones

Michael,

By 90 degrees do you mean that the plane of the pick is perpendicular to the direction of the strings?

Thanks