Thinner picks and thinner strings for me. Thick picks and cables as strings were great at first...

I cannot emphasis how much expression I gained after going back to lighter strings(.11s), and importantly roundwounds.

Last edited: Apr 13, 2013 15:53:41

One thing to work on, getting double picking down in time is of course essential, but don't limit yourself to just straight 16th notes (or 32nd notes or whatever fraction double picking tends to be). That is, don't just play a rapid tempo, but vary your picking a bit by holding off on some strokes, accenting others, throw some gallops and triplets and the like into the mix. Again listen to Dick Dale on this - he did a great job of accenting his double picked songs, and I think it's a bit of underappreciated detail when people pull it off.

Miserlou
The Victor

To my ear this approach sounds way more interesting than just straight-ahead double picking, and even serves to give you little micro rests if you're getting tired. Straight double picking is of course great too - I think it's a bit more balls to the wall, and sadly it seems Dick seems to favor this approach heavy-handedly these days where he used to practice a lot more fitness on many of the old classics.

I also don't prefer super heavy picks for trem picking. For me, an ergo friendly way of holding the pick (some call it the 'jazz' grip) has helped my trem picking immensely. I used to have a very ham-fisted self-taught grip. I basically re-taught myself how to hold a pick a few years ago because I was getting such incredible hand pain from trem picking. Now, I can pretty much trem pick endlessly. It's the best thing I've ever done for my guitar playing...

I went from holding a pick kinda like this:
image

To something more like this:

Ryan
The Secret Samurai Website
The Secret Samurai on Facebook

Thanks Ryan and Danny for the tips!

Ryan, I have recently changed my pick grip as well. I was holding the pick with my middle finger and thumb with the ring and pinky finger curling up underneath. This made it difficult to grab the trem bar, and plus my hand was cramping a lot after extended play time.

So I switched to using my index and thumb and keeping the rest of my hand open and loose. For the last 4-6 months my playing has been very frustrating. I've had to re-learn a lot of basic things with my right hand, which has slowed down my learning on my left hand and just in general. But now it is getting comfortable and no real hand cramping. I am still slower than I was, but the accuracy is finally getting better.

Which now leaves me with trem picking. Its something I struggle with. I can trem pick like a beast on the top 3 or 4 strings for about 2-3 mins. Then my arm falls off. When I try to trem pick on the bottom 2 strings, it just doesn't work. I would think that it would be easier, but somehow I jack it up.

I've been using my palm as an anchor for my wrist when I trem pick, and I just cant get down to the first strings that way. So I tried using the tip of my pinky finger as an anchor with some limited success on the bottom strings, but not so much on the top strings.

Also, with the palm anchor I tire and cramp up almost immediately, so I take it I shouldnt be using it, right?

Should I be using any anchor at all? I try without any anchors and I fly all over the place.

That pic Ryan posted is interesting, I might try that. hmm...

Last edited: Apr 15, 2013 10:37:11

This is from Tommy Tedesco's book "For Guitarists Only"
There are a lot of valid approach's just find what's most comfortable.

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http://coffindaggers.com/
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To pick fast enough for this song--and span several different strings for the notes--I had to develop rapid alternating picking with only my fingers, not my wrist. I could not play fast enough otherwise. The fast riffs start 52 sec and at 1 min 57 sec into the song (Surf Wall Street, on Insanitizers' "Wild Surf Guitars" CD):
http://www.musicxray.com/xrays/908960

On other songs of similar speed, when I rarely change strings while picking rapidly, I can use mostly wrist action for speed.

Incidentally, with string lubricant picks last much longer than without. This is evidence of less friction and thereby less resistance to rapid picking.

Insanitizers! http://www.insanitizers.com

Last edited: Apr 21, 2013 23:34:00

not an expert but if you want a note don't ring you must stop it ringing
then when you move to A to D you must mute with your right hand the A and at the same time attack the D
normally your right hand must be at the bridge just before not behind cause if you where behind you can't mute easely
picking at fast tempo is hard ,speed picking is really hard cause your arm and wrist need to move immediatly and with the good direction to avoid rythmic fluctuation (hazard ,if you pick the wrong direction you will loose the tempo or increase it)

for some pattern if i go too speed my picking became anarchy then there is all the note ,but it will move on the tempo then need to recatch it
slowly and after speed if you can play a licks at 60 and after 80 without mistake you can increase the tempo but slowly cause when tempo increase mistake appears often ,for me with eight note it works ,triplets it works 16 th note need to look what i am doing with my picking cause if not i invert often the movement at string change

Last edited: Jul 05, 2014 16:25:08

Lots of playing ! Of course...

Practice with songs that require continuous trem picking on multiple strings (example: Dont practice with miserlou riff on singular high & low E string)

Try holding your pick at different angles that can increase your attack and smoothness. You'd be surprised the difference simple technique adjustments can make!

Hold the pick just soft enough not to drop it. Find YOUR sweet spot.

When playing real fast, I find you can keep a good "pick hit consistency" by sharing the motor of the picking between your elbow and wrist as each needs rest.

I find it pretty interesting how all of you differ in playing style. I myself am currently playing on 11-48's, .50 Tortex, and mostly wrist with some slight forearm movement to not fatigue my wrist. I hold my pick with index, middle and thumb. And choke up on the pick quite a bit (to the point that I flatten my middle finger's nail out and wear it thin with any heavy strumming). The lighter pick seems easier to me than the green or blue thick tortex I used to play 10 years ago. They also have a brighter sound that I like. One thing I do for tremolo picking is to make sure the pick doesn't travel very far past the string. When I first started, I was moving the pick almost to the next string and back both ways. I learned to keep the movement as close to the string as possible, bouncing the tip of the pick off the top of the string, and gained speed eventually by cutting half of the travel out of the movement. That was key for me, and was not as fatiguing when keeping the pick as close to the string as possible. And as everyone else has said... PRACTICE. Sit in front of the tv unplugged if you have to and practice.

It's all in practice, repetition, practice. That's all I've done, sitting here in the evenings, with a little metronome click coming from Garageband on my iPhone to "keep me honest".

Technique-wise, I notice I hold the pick at a slight back-angle, with my index finger cupped back under it just a skootch. I seem to play more from the wrist than my entire arm. I tweak the angles and distances, and how the heel of my hand sits. I started very slow, and just worked up. When I play now, I purposely gallop/accent things in weird places, just because I can and because it feels like I'm "exercising"/improving. I've yet to experience any sort of discomfort or pain in my picking hand/arm, so I figure I'm doing it right? No forearm pain like I hear about in others. I'm new to this genre, but not to playing...so that helps. I think I've worked out the underlying mechanics/details already, I'm just learning some news ones that fit into this surf stuff.

My biggest thing, coming from 25+ years of a country/rockabilly background (I was a James Burton/Telecaster guy in my previous life ;) ), is to just use the pick and not my other fingers. That's been a neat transition, and I've picked up a whole new way of playing (because I've always done the hybrid style). So it's nice to just lay into something, pick only, for once. And this tremolo playing never really came up for me until I got into this music.

I'm not totally where I need to be yet, but I'm certainly getting there.

Last edited: Jul 15, 2014 17:16:31