I don’t have special genetics for fast picking. I was never unusually good at video games or sports requiring elite hand-eye coordination. And I couldn’t play at these tempos until I figured out the concepts and techniques you’ll learn in this lesson. In fact, my primary skill is being NOT GOOD at stuff, but realizing there’s usually a trick to it that can be figured out with critical thinking and enough trial and error.

Cracking The Code seminars take a leap forward with Metronomic Rock, a new instructional series hosted by the amazing Tommaso “Tommo” Tufarelli on the Cracking the Code team. Metronomic Rock is an homage to a time when hair was big, string skips were bigger, and guitar heroes subdivided the beat with metronomic precision!  In this first installment of the series, Tommo pulls back the curtain on one of the most popular escape motions of all time:  DSX Motion.

It’s easy to assume that your playing is sloppy, slow, or fatiguing because you haven’t put in enough practice time. But what if the real reason is that you’re simply doing it wrong? How can you tell the difference?

In our latest update to the Pickslanting Primer, “Choosing A Technique”, we address the critical issue of evaluating the performance of the technique you’re currently using — or the one you’re trying to learn. This update arrives alongside a large batch of additional lessons and usability improvements that we’ve been rolling out in pieces over the last several months.

One of the biggest obstacles to achieving efficient picking motion is not even the motion itself: it’s the pick attack.

Cracking The Code players, we’ve rolled out an awesome update to our picking motion tutorials! Wrist technique is maybe the single most common picking motion in use across all plectrum instruments. But it is also one of the most complicated and misunderstood.

Trivia question: How many pallets does it take to ship 5,000 Magnets? Take a guess, and then scroll down:

After many hours of concerted h4x0ring, we finally launched an awesome feature we’ve been planning for a long time: Platform Technique Critique.

We’re back with another update on our progress with the Magnet. The photo above is our latest production sample that includes a few stealthy but important improvements.

If you look closely from the side, you may be able to spot a subtle tweak we made to the “tool”, or mold, between our last update and this one. See if you can spot it:

One of the most common requests we get at Cracking the Code is to help players identify which picking motion they’re using. In this most recent update to the Pickslanting Primer, we’ve leveraged our years of experience in studying expert players to put together what is probably the most detailed guide ever produced for figuring out which picking motion you’re using.