Cracking the Code: Troy Grady's documentary on speed picking – a technique must-see!

carlos

Seems to be working alright (practicing this evening). Rotating wrist when ascending and descending makes a difference. Can accurately say that my down and upstrokes all sound the same, whether I'm slanted one way or another. Just being able to be aware of it and visualise it makes a lot of a difference. 

carlos

Practised for a few hours yesterday and then played a show in the evening. I can definitely hand on heart say that upward pickslanting was a revelation. I was using the same pick shape both ascending and descending, and running into problems when descending. Problem fixed, or at least patched. Spend time with it, and be very critical of yourself when doing it.

thomasross20

Big one for me was "swiping" - because when you do a really fast run there isn't the time to change hand direction minutely or even THINK about up/down slanting... instead actually intentionally hitting a "wrong" string (muted) on the way to play another makes things much faster and you can keep the same slant. I do this a lot but never realised it before. Not always, though!

musteatbrain

This guy should be knighted

thomasross20

It's a great series - I think you pointed me to it, right? Agreed, amazing how something so simple yet fundamental had gone unnoticed for so long.

bingefeller

To be honest I think the Masters in Mechanics series is way better than the Cracking the Code episodes.  I'm waiting for the Death By Sequence one.   

matt1973

I have to say, I've been completely win over by the free content. Pretty sure I'll be subscribing to this.

@bingfeller how does Masters in Mechanics differ to CTC?

bingefeller

@matt1973

It goes into far greater depth than CTC.  You see Troy playing the licks with his fretboard cam and they are also slowed down.  You get tabs for all the licks too.  I only have the Seminar 1: Antigravity.  Troy also plays with his pick in different ways - such as upward pick slanting, downward pick slanting and he combines them.  

The thing is, I feel, is that Troy has obviously been practicing alternate picking for such a long time that it doesn't really matter what way he holds his pick as he has the basic wrist movements down.  

This series is great for showing you the finer points of holding your pick and you can experiment until you come up with something that feels comfortable for you and try it out and hopefully get good at it.  

matt1973

Thanks for pointing that out. Had a look at the free content and I think it would be more my cup of tea than CTC. Not bad value at $15 per month.

carlos

CTC actually put me off because I thought it was too self-indulgent and didn't really go anywhere. I don't know Troy personally so his journey through shred geekery is not that interesting to me. The Masters series is where it gets really interesting.

bingefeller

georgenadaintl said:

CTC actually put me off because I thought it was too self-indulgent and didn't really go anywhere. I don't know Troy personally so his journey through shred geekery is not that interesting to me. The Masters series is where it gets really interesting.

I think the CTC part was like a prelude to the Masters in Mechanics series.  It's obvious that Troy likes what he does but I also feel he's out to grab as much money as possible (I mean looking $55,000 in a Kickstarter for a camera mount....is he trying to pay off his mortgage as well?)   

If you understand the upward pick slanting and downward pick slanting thing there's not really much more to it than that. 

If you bought the first Masters in Mechanics pack at $70 you would have enough info to work from.  The rest of the episodes are probably going to be a variation on that with some "licks in the style of" in tab format.  

At the end of the day, it is very interesting to see how these players work, but it doesn't matter.  When they were learning they wouldn't have had the luxury of slow motion videos and in depth analysis.  They just did whatever was comfortable to them.  There are so many different fast players and a lot of them hold the pick differently so there's no real right or wrong. 

Hootsmon

episode 1...."get down for the upstroke"

at 2:40 there is a wee animated diagram explaining downward pick slanting......anyone know if there is a similar animation for the UPWARD pick slanting technique? 

http://troygrady.com/code-s2/

Hootsmon

anybuddy?

ElectroDan

If you have a grasp on what downward pick slanting is, the upward is pretty much a reversal of that. Where an up stroke goes into the plane of the guitar and a down stroke comes away from the guitar leaving it free of the strings and able to switch easily.
Some players pick like this most of the time according to Mr Grady (Vinnie Moore springs to mind). Most downward pick slanters that sweep, will switch to an upward pick slant so there is less resistance as they sweep in the upward direction.
Hope this helps.

Hootsmon

Dan.....Dan.......

where I get concussed confused is .....take the downward slant thing...if the guitar was flat on your lap say, and you played the downward slanty thing, the tip of the pick in the upwards stroke motion would be heading towards the ceiling, yeah?

ElectroDan

Not towards the ceiling so much, just away from the body of the guitar. I just drew this lets see if it will work.

ElectroDan

This is looking from the head-stock down the neck (of a right handed guitar). The red thing is obviously a Jazz III.

I've been playing a long time and have used almost no upward pick slanting. I'm checking it out at the moment just to see what I can get out of it. All new techniques open up new licks and ideas, so I'll see how it goes.

The diagram above is just for you to be able to visualise the direction of the pick travel. It's not that perfect in reality. In the image above the pick is contacting the string parallel with it. Most players will put a slight turn on the pick so that one edge of it contacts the string first (on a down stroke, the edge nearest the headstock for me. The egde nearest the bridge for Clarky.).

So there is no one way of doing things. Just try them out and see what works for you.

Hootsmon

Dan...Dan....

thanks for that Bro.....one other question for you.

I watched the rotation mechanics clip and he was on about the forearm rotation motion when doing these pickin' techniques and what threw me was the direction of the arm/hand....he says when using an upstroke on the guitar the hand rotates AWAY from the face of the guitar and the opposite for the downstroke......this is kinda the reverse of a general strumming/rhythm technique, yeah?

ElectroDan

There is a difference between which parts of the arm/wrist players use to pick.

Some use a side to side motion of the hand by moving at the wrist. Others pick by using a rotation of the forearm. I am in the latter camp. There is a definite turning motion to the hand that you can see in some of Troy Grady's slo-mo clips of players that do this.

As far as I can see, I adjust at the elbow to move up or down when changing strings. I also use the elbow a little more when strumming, but the forearm rotation seems pretty much the same just slightly more exaggerated.

My strumming is quite compact compared to most busker type strummers who have to generate volume. They look to be using largely an elbow movement. I sometimes try to make it look like I'm putting a huge big effort of a strum when I play live, just for entertainment purposes. But really, the picking is quite precise and measured (I never break strings). My hand would probably not move more than 8" - 9" without the showboating!

DLM

Super in-depth interview with Grady here:

http://canebrakeandtortuga.com/canebrake-interview-Troy-Grady.html

Some pretty bizarre stuff in there, and a heavy academic slant, but great background.