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It definitely is. Getting there can be be several months to several years process depending on how much time is put in it. The players who are good at it, you can tell that there is no tension whatsoever in their wrist.
Fair enough, I'm definitely rushing things then. Thanks!
Amati Schmitt and these fellas are ridiculously fast. Watch them here. No tension whatsoever:
Top grade boeuf. It's something I'm unlikely to achieve, but watching it up close reveals what we all have heard and know: the right hand is king.
Christiaan van Hemert covered this style of picking extensively in his YouTube videos. This is one of them but there are several more
I wouldn't say the technique in itself will reduce tension, I think with any style you want to avoid being too stiff and holding the pick too tight. Good posture and ergonomics go a long way in improving playing form, which also help loosen things up as you get comfortable with the style.
One thing that helped me make a small breakthrough (though I still have ways to go) is to take a difficult picking passage with lots of consecutive downstrokes at the high tempo and play it, more like plow through it only paying attention to how relaxed my right hand wrist was even if the picking was a mess. At the same time I'd spend some time playing at half speed playing cleanly. After awhile I felt I can start cleaning up the quality of the picking while the wrist stayed relaxed. Not sure who long this took, maybe a month or so but at this point I was in it for a long time already.
Latest challenge is this etude Aurelien Bouly posted a few years ago explaining Stochelo's triplets
I have been working on this exercise for the last couple of months and it has helped immensely. I use Practice Mode on the Pro Metronome Android app. I have it increase by 6 BPM every 30 seconds and I go from 100-190BPM. The whole thing takes about 8 minutes so it is a good picking endurance exercise as well. I am usually okay until about 160BPM but I keep going and playing at a speed that is outside of my comfort zone. I do this about 2-3 times a week. I used to have trouble just at 140BPM, but now I can go up to 170BPM on a good day.
I do the exercise in front of a mirror so that I can watch my technique. I also pay attention to muscle tension (in my arm, wrist, shoulder, etc.) and try to relax once I feel it then go back to working on the exercise. Sometimes I take video of myself and analyze it.
Another thing that I've learned is to watch for tension building in your jaw muscles. It seemed strange to me at first but there's something about clenching/tightening your jaw that makes the rest of your body tense up. Sometimes when I'm really focused on learning something I'll notice that I'm doing it, and once I relax those muscles I feel like the rest of me relaxes as well.
In one of my lives I was a classically trained actor. At one point I lived and worked at a place called The Mount, Shakespeare & Company. Nightly, sometimes twice daily performances to audiences upwards of 800 or so, outdoors - no ceiling, no space to contain sound and help the voice; only the infinity above.
No way in hell to do that without blowing body and voice over the 4+ month season, if there is any tension held, anywhere. I spent 3 or so years in conservatory and private training working through all this.
Among the things studied, I cannot overstate how helpful Alexander Technique, which applies to all performers, was to me. Per Mac’s comment we hold tension in long-habituated places. So much so, we may or even know where. It’s helpful to know where, so that we can let them go consciously.
Just a thought triggered by Mac’s comment. My demon is my upper back, and of all crazy things, my feet. I have to keep playing, scan and release. It’s a constant thing for me.
pas encore, j'erre toujours.
For me, here are some things I've noticed that work. I hold the pick moderately loosely, and keep the middle finger next to the index finger. Never use thumb and index finger muscles as part of the picking stroke. Keep a constant relaxed hold on the pick, regardless of whether or not you're plucking a string or just between strokes. Don 't tighten as you actually pluck the string. Instead, pick only with your wrist -- sort of "lob" or "toss" your hand, and release the tension. Don't try to "stop" the pick on the way down. Let the next string down do that, as well as the backs of your middle and ring fingers that may touch the strings.
Relax your wrist (forearm muscles, actually) as you pick down -- before you engage the opposite muscles to pick up. (If you pick down twice, same concept but don't touch a string on the way up.) Make sure you feel down muscles relax before up muscles contract. Slightly bend your wrist, and pick "into the guitar" -- i.e., "downward pick slanting" -- the next string works better that way as a backstop.