Comments

• Twang New

  September 2020 Posts: 417

  Well if you can’t beat em join em!😁

  
• everett san francisco✭✭✭

  September 2020 Posts: 156

  a pro tip that I think Doug Martin told me back in the day was to practice with a 9v battery in the picking hand. It's like a micro workout for your wrist muscles, and it also keeps your hand in a good floating position. I do this when practicing waltzes trying to build my speed up. I've gotten used to holding it and some days just hold on to it for the whole practice session.

  I also did a workshop with Lolo Meier where he showed us how he practices this...pretty straight forward, but he just frets a minor 6 chord and starts the tremolo fast, as even as he can play it, then he just moves the chord around in some pattern that's in time. Focusing on relaxing the muscles and breathing.

  Do this everyday for 30 years and you can be as fast as him.

  
• billyshakes NoVA✭✭✭ Park Avance - Dupont Nomade - Dupont DM-50E

  September 2020 Posts: 1,403

  https://djangobooks.com/forum/discussion/comment/103560#Comment_103560

  Yeah, Lollo always used to stress to me how this was very important (tremolo). I've been practicing at least 15 years....still suck!

  
• mac63000 Fox Island, WANew Geronimo Mateos Jazz B

  September 2020 Posts: 248

  I've been mulling this thread over since it was first posted, and I was away from my guitar so I didn't have the best of memories for describing the technique. So now that I have my guitar, here it goes!

  I definitely turn my wrist so the tip of the pick is not hitting flat against the strings, but rather coming in at an angle so it glides across the strings instead of plucking them.

  I also take back (somewhat) what I said about a light grip on the pick, as I noticed I maybe grip it a little tighter to better hold the pick with the wrist rotation. That being said, a tight, tense grip is not what you want overall, just enough to keep the pick in place.

  Lastly, one thing we didn't touch on was that strumming a little closer to the bridge will give you more control since the strings don't move as much, and combined with the wrist rotation your pick moves across the strings with more ease, resulting in a more even tremolo.

  And for a bit of an aside, it's interesting how the term tremolo has been misunderstood by guitarists for decades! Even reading this thread at first we had to clarify which technique we were discussing. Google tells me tremolo and vibrato are commonly interchanged when they really shouldn't be. The "tremolo" bar on a stratocaster, for example, should really be renamed to a vibrato bar. The things you learn!