Problems with tremolo picking & string skipping

swing_gitan

I 'm sure such questions have been already posted somewhere else in the forum, but I cannot find the topic.

One year ago I made the decision to commit myself to rest-stroke picking. After a lot of hard work (including going through all open-string drills in "Gypsy picking" and relearning all my scales / arpeggios / licks) I have fully incorporated this technique into my playing. Although I see a significant improvement in my tone, articulation and phrasing, there are a few problem areas on which your opinion would be greatly appreciated.

1. Tremolo picking: Although I have been practicing tremolo picking for awhile, I don't seem to get it right. At slow or medium slow tempos (below 140 bpm), my wrist position is exactly the one shown in Michael's book and I can execute the tremolo quite cleanly. However, at higher tempos my wrist starts to flatten and when I reach my "top speed" (a pathetic 170 bpm or so) my wrist locks and most of the motion is generated from the forearm, as it was before I switched to rest-stroke picking. I would appreciate any suggestions to remedy the problem.

2. String skipping is a nightmare. Although I understand that the rest stroke technique is not particularly well-suited to string skipping and cross-picking, I would still like to be able to deal with string skips and classical-style arpeggios at least up to moderately fast tempos. What I am thinking about is to take my old alternate-picking book ("Right-hand development for jazz guitar" by R. Hoover) and try to play the exercises with the rest-stroke technique. Any other suggestions would be welcome.

I should also mention that I practice on both acoustic and electric (strung with .012 or .013 strings) and I mostly use a 1.5 mm jazz-style pick rather than a Wegen.

Thanks in advance

MichaelHorowitz

swing_gitan wrote:

One year ago I made the decision to commit myself to rest-stroke picking. After a lot of hard work (including going through all open-string drills in "Gypsy picking" and relearning all my scales / arpeggios / licks) I have fully incorporated this technique into my playing.

Congrats!

However, at higher tempos my wrist starts to flatten and when I reach my "top speed" (a pathetic 170 bpm or so) my wrist locks and most of the motion is generated from the forearm, as it was before I switched to rest-stroke picking. I would appreciate any suggestions to remedy the problem.

You answered your own question....don't lock your wrist and avoid forearm motion. Watch me do some tremelo here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psclKWRBhR8

Just keep relaxed....

2. String skipping is a nightmare. Although I understand that the rest stroke technique is not particularly well-suited to string skipping and cross-picking, I would still like to be able to deal with string skips and classical-style arpeggios at least up to moderately fast tempos. What I am thinking about is to take my old alternate-picking book ("Right-hand development for jazz guitar" by R. Hoover) and try to play the exercises with the rest-stroke technique. Any other suggestions would be welcome.

Just depends what you're doing....but generally it just takes a lot of practice. Some things just don't work with rest strokes, or need to be re-fingered. But you'll be amazed how fast you can do downstrokes on string skips...just takes some time to train your hand. The transcription of Just Relax in the Unaccompanied Django book has the ultimate arpeggio workout....very nimble baroque style arps played at blinding speed!

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Jazzaferri

Congrats and all of what MH said.

I too am in the process of this change although it seems my change is not as big as for some as my style was perhaps more of a hybrid.

The key to speed is to practice really slowly lots and lots and lots until the muscle motion and feel is so ingrained that it doesn't change as one speeds up.

After a month or so most of which I practice at quite slow pace 60-80 bpm ..... I can do simple two to three string scalar 6-10 note runs that I know well at eighth notes at around 180 without mistakes.

I find skipping strings not to be as much of an issue as I thought it would be based on what I read. It is all just practicing enough to have it in muscle memory.

The real reason for all my wombling on is to convey two things ... the first is that SLOW is way more important for getting speed than trying fast ....very counterintuitive I know ... the second is that as soon as you feel any tension in your stroke at all back off the speed until that nice combination of relaxed drop (and then push if moving onto next string) and bounce up for the upstroke happens. Relaxed slow *relaxed slow *relaxed slow = fast accurate picking

sjl

And what about the tremolo in only one string?
Have I to apply a different technique?
I've found I am faster with the wrist on the top and not floating while doing the tremolo in one string.

Jazzaferri

Practice Tremelo is different from sweep but it is still better to do it correctly Start slowly with the correct technique on one string and build it up till you feel tension and then back off til younrelax

Using the B string gives you a string to rest against at first.