Struggling to achieve alt picking speed

Littlejonny

I’ve been watching these Troy Grady videos and having a go at some fast picking. I’m actually beginning to understand the subtle complexity of right hand picking movements. It really is very complex compared to the classical finger style technique I grew up on. There are so many variations and variables. 

That being said, I’m not sure which approach I should be practising - upward slant or downward slant, or indeed no slant like Carl Miner? I can’t say one of these produces more speed and less tension than another in my hands. 

digitalkettle

Littlejonny said:

...

That being said, I’m not sure which approach I should be practising - upward slant or downward slant, or indeed no slant like Carl Miner? I can’t say one of these produces more speed and less tension than another in my hands. 

Carl Miner obviously belongs in the flatpicking/bluegrassing bit of the Venn diagram...he's probably using an arcing 'double-escape' motion because he's moving across strings more than he's playing on a single string.

To see whether you favour upward or downward escape*, is one more comfortable at top end speeds? Have you tried filming it...is one more direct than the other? Can you switch between them on-the-fly?

* I think CtC deprecated the use of 'slant' terms in favour of 'escape motions' a while back...downward pick slant (DPS) = upward escape (USX) and UPS = DSX.

roberty

Littlejonny said:

I’ve been watching these Troy Grady videos and having a go at some fast picking. I’m actually beginning to understand the subtle complexity of right hand picking movements. It really is very complex compared to the classical finger style technique I grew up on. There are so many variations and variables. 

That being said, I’m not sure which approach I should be practising - upward slant or downward slant, or indeed no slant like Carl Miner? I can’t say one of these produces more speed and less tension than another in my hands. 

Really for string skipping with alternate picking you should be able to switch between the two but most people have a default or dominant slant. Given a choice I would go with down simply because that makes 2nps starting on a downstroke easier

Lewy

Littlejonny said:

I’ve been watching these Troy Grady videos and having a go at some fast picking. I’m actually beginning to understand the subtle complexity of right hand picking movements. It really is very complex compared to the classical finger style technique I grew up on. There are so many variations and variables. 

That being said, I’m not sure which approach I should be practising - upward slant or downward slant, or indeed no slant like Carl Miner? I can’t say one of these produces more speed and less tension than another in my hands. 

It’s quite easy to miss the point with Troy Grady’s stuff….it’s not fundamentally about choosing an approach to work on and saying "I'm going to become a double escape player", it’s about identifying which movement is your natural fast motion and then working on and around that, maybe trying little variations and additions do it. Your hands and what they want to naturally do is the starting point. All the other stuff is to help you understand and enhance. One reason it's easy to stray away from that focus is it seems he can do all of it equally well!

Littlejonny

Thank you so much for these responses. Again, coming from a classical perspective, I have been expecting there to be a ‘correct’ way. It turns out, it’s ‘whatever works’ but we can learn from each other.

As for myself - I’m still not sure, it seems that the anchored wrist, downward escape motion is the fastest and most accurate for me, but I can see the benefit of the anchored fingers upward escape motion has advantages in letting the strings sustain.