If you have watched any Cracking the Code, you have no doubt heard about pickslanting. But “slanting the pick” only works when the picking motion matches the pickslant. It is absolutely possible to do one and not the other, and this is where things go wrong.
Pickslanting vs Escape Motion: What’s the Difference?
Pickslanting is really a two-part system: diagonal pick + diagonal escape motion. They are not the same thing, and they have to agree. When they don’t, you can get the dreaded garage spikes problem where the pick snags on the strings and can’t get through. Here’s a downstroke version:
Notice how the upstroke is smooth, but on the downstroke, it snags badly. This causes a noticeable delay before the sound is produced, as the pick shuts down the string vibration by leaning against it. It also feels unsmooth, like there is too much string resistance.
Using The “Smallest” Amount Of Pick
You might be tempted to solve this by trying to “use less pick” to hit the string. But this would be a mistake. As the Magnet footage shows, garage spikes is not really a pick depth problem. The problem is that half the motion digs more than the other half. So the goal is to balance both sides. Andy Wood’s DSX technique shows how this works:
In Andy’s reverse dart wrist motion, the string moves equally in both directions, so the attack, feel, and sound is balanced. He does not need to use the smallest possible pick on the string to achieve this. This makes the string an easier and more reliable target. He’s not threading a needle here.
In other words, smooth pick attack is just what happens when the pick’s orientation lines up with the way it’s moving. So it’s not a posture problem, a pick grip problem or a picking motion problem: it’s all of those things. They all have to work together as a system.
Stopping The Spikes
Known “good” picking techniques like Andy’s already solve the garage spikes problem. They were probably discovered most often through trial and error by generations of self-taught players, shredding away in their bedrooms – or in Andy’s case, at elite bluegrass flatpicking competitions! When you land on one of these combinations, the technique “just works” and you don’t have to think about pick attack.
The “small amount of pick” myth has persisted for years. Like a lot of common wisdom, it endures because there is a kernel of truth there: in theory, if you use “too much pick”, you won’t be able to get through the string. The problem is that this is just not what happens most of the time. Garage spikes is much more common, and the fix is to use a known working combination of overall form, pick grip, and picking motion.
Get Critiqued
In Technique Critique, we see and fix garage spikes issues daily. Along with stringhopping, speed issues, hand sync, and a lot more. If you want us to take a look at your playing, it’s still included in the membership as a standard feature, and we’re happy to do it! Sign up right here in the Cracking The Code Store:
Quick and easy one-pager on garage spikes with some cool illustrative GIF animation loops to really make this obvious. We also make these for players who hit us up in Technique Critique, and it can really drive the point home in a simple way when you see this in your own playing.
More generally, before I started doing this for a living, I never would have guessed how common certain basic problems are. Stringhopping, for one. It was something I encountered only when trying to switch strings against my (most likely) self-taught USX technique, which I was unaware of at the time. But on a single string I don’t think it really happened. It never occurred to me that some players might learn this even on a single string, on every note, as their actual full-time primary picking motion. And two, garage spikes. Super common – maybe the most common picking problem alongside stringhopping.
What’s particularly problematic about both of these is that they are radical early gates. If they happen, you either can’t play very fast, or you can’t play at all. It’s clear there are probably lots of players who hit these roadblocks early and made significant choices in response: maybe switched to legato / sweeping, maybe switched to keyboards, etc.