Pick Slant discovery....

[mirth]

Somehow got on one of those Troy Grady videos last night. I kind of was looking to work on something I hadn't worked on before. I recall seeing his video about the downward pick slant and how that was basically the world that EJ and Malmsteen lived, and all the reasons why it was amazing. I also recalled that it ended up being very awkward for me.

I got it in my head last night to sort of nail that EJ descending 5s thing, but even with Troy's wisdom on the downward pick slant, I only failed slowly and miserably (not that I shouldn't work on it more). So then I saw another video talking about how people like McLaughlin were actually upward slant pickers...this required that instead of using an upstroke for all string changes, as an up picker, down strokes were what was used for string changes....and wouldn't you know it, this was my bread and butter.

It's amazing that I never really looked at it before, but I'm definitely an upward slant player.

So about the EJ descending lick thing, well I got that too. I had to change it slightly though. Basically the way EJ plays it is something like this:

e: 15d - 12u---------------
b: --------15d -- 12u------15d 12 etc....
g: ----------------- 15d
d:-----------------------


So starting with 2 notes on a string. Unforunately doing this with an upward slant is basically impossible. It puts the pick in a weird direction. HOwever, changing one thing makes a big difference....start with 1 note on the first string with a downstroke....

so this:


e: 15d-----------------------
b: ----17u--15d-------------15d
g: -------------16u----14d


etc....


Hopefully that makes sense, for me it made a world of difference. It also made me evaulate my ascending 2 string playing, by having me start on an upstroke instaed of a downstroke. It makes a pretty big difference.

Pretty fascinating...Now I guess the ultimate is having the 2 way pick slanting which I will also work on, but not that big of a deal to me now that I know about the upward picking slant...and to think that's McLaughlin's schtick...I never tried to mimic anyone, but if I were going to mimic any picker it would definitely be McLaughlin (he's so handsome afterall).

Anyways...how about the rest of y'all? What's your pick slant or not?

Also, I got to give it up for Troy Grady, those videos are pretty darn valuable he really seems to be on to something. Despite the cheesiness of some of it, it is a really thorough investigation into the mechanics of picking and guitar playing unlike anything I've seen at least.

[therookie]

I have seen some of the Troy Grady videos in the past. There is no denying that his videos have excellent production quality. I remember watching his Malmsteen part and being very impressed at the attack of notes on the screen. He manages to reach a somewhat large audience as well. I was playing any easy song for a friend one time and he commented that I didn't have enough pick slant, like he had seen on the YouTubes. His videos can actually feel a little over done for me.

I hear you on the "Aha!" moment as well. This came for me not with pick slanting , but thinking about where I specifically put me right hand in relation to the bridge and keeping it more or less locked in that position. I find when playing this way I naturally slant the pick, It's sort of the way electric guitars are meant to hang.

I did experiment with the heavy pick slanting as shown in his videos, but it wasn't much of a revolution for me. I've made better progress by just practicing sequences and allowing my hand to figure it out on it's own.

Being able to start with an upstroke is absolutely key though, and it's one of those things that I had to practice for a bit, and now I don't really think about it, except maybe when I'm approaching a new riff/sequence. I am actually now experimenting with trying to reduce my pick slanting on all but the two heaviest strings.

What kind of pick do you use?

[mirth]

Used to use jazz 3 (in many flavors for years) but not a fan of how they sound I've recently switched to D andrea pro plek and love the soft ness of the sound.i like the pick to be a little slower actually I like feeling the grip on the string.

In general, the last thing I need to do is play faster. It's interesting, straight alternate picking has actually come relatively easy to me. I've worked hard to be able to pick most anything, though fast 2 note per string things were always a little awkward. The 3 or 4 note per string stuff has been a lot more quick for me to use.

I definitely find the fact that I upward slant helps me understand why certain shapes never worked very ray for me, but others do. I also helps me make some more considerations for my note choices....err... line shapes.

[mirth]

I would say too,k that despite trying to do heavy pick slanting, downward slanting, it didn't feel good at all, but came to realize I already do upwards slanting. Which meant I needed to change how things are played to opposite of what most people do. Which explains a lot to me.

[sonicdeviant]

I love Grady's epiphany moments in those videos, where he stops and stares at his right hand as if he's discovered he has a new appendage. Haha !!! 😄

Downward slanting feels more natural to me--how my arm kind of wants to rest on the guitar. But some things are easier to play with upward slanting. So like most things, I probably should sit down and give it time, which I don't have a lot of at the moment.

[therookie]

Aug 2, 2017 23:08:50 GMT -5 mirth said:

Used to use jazz 3 (in many flavors for years) but not a fan of how they sound I've recently switched to D andrea pro plek and love the soft ness of the sound.i like the pick to be a little slower actually I like feeling the grip on the string.

In general, the last thing I need to do is play faster. It's interesting, straight alternate picking has actually come relatively easy to me. I've worked hard to be able to pick most anything, though fast 2 note per string things were always a little awkward. The 3 or 4 note per string stuff has been a lot more quick for me to use.

I definitely find the fact that I upward slant helps me understand why certain shapes never worked very ray for me, but others do. I also helps me make some more considerations for my note choices....err... line shapes.

The D'Andrea Pro Plec is a cool looking pick, I may check it out. I'm sort of between picks at the moment.


I hear yah on the two notes per string, I should probably try to learn some Eric Johnson stuff. I feel really rusty at two notes per string, because I haven't practiced it in a while. The only scale I knew for years was the one shape pentatonic scale, so I was really burned out on it when I finally decided to actually learn to play guitar outside of cowboy cords and the blues scale.  

[mirth]

They are definitely amusing.

There was one thing he said in the Michangelo video that I thought was particuarly worthwhile, he mentioned how the standard violinist (1 in a 100,000) could play scales like nothing compared to guitarists, and that there were only a handful of guitarists actually able to match that kind of speed. There is something to this, imo. It's not that speed is important, just that other instruments seem to do it so effortlessly, guitarists then seem to dwell on speed a lot.

I play with a lot of sax players and they never ever talk about speed, it's basically a non-issue. They can all burn past guitar players when they've only played for like a year. Of course, its a much more nimble instrument, but they aren't sitting over there with their metronome's slowly increasing speeds, etc... You talk to a lot of other instruments and it's basically not an issue.

I think this is for a few reasons actually....

1.) guitarists don't learn music. We learn some tunes and whatever, but we tend to dwell on patterns and what not when we "really" practice. We aren't playing pieces. Sure we'll play some rock tune or whatever, but it's not really a study of music to get better. Most every other instrument practice by learning music. They play Bach pieces, or go through a ton of repertoire for their instrument. This music often includes long scaler passages along with arpeggios etc... but done in a musical way. Guitarists seem to practice exercises.

2.) Guitar doesn't have as long of history of good pedagogy with a pick. Their is a pretty thorough analysis of finger picking classical guitar, but it just hasn't been investigated well enough on the flat pick route. So many more guitar techniques to catalogue. Violin bowing has many schools with hundreds of years of investigation and discovery. I think some of this Troy Grady stuff actually could become guitar picking canon, well as long as it's proven to work. Particularly the pick slant stuff. Now if it ends up being BS...

Either way...I'm still happy with my upward pick slant discovery. It's not so much that I was doing it, it's more that it has me investigating the need to only change strings on a downstroke, and see how that affects my picking accuracy. It has demystified some of the 2 string mishaps I had. It's already made an impact on strategy. It's very subtle too, I don't have that much of a pick slant, but it definitely exists and explains why most of my alternate picking is pretty effortless at speed.