Learn about the incredible power of downward pickslanting — with complete blueprints of Yngwie’s and Eric Johnson’s picking techniques.

Learn about the legendary accuracy of John McLaughlin’s picking technique, and step through the fundamentals of upward pickslanting mechanics with the awesome Strunz & Farah.

The Pickslanting Primer is Cracking the Code’s comprehensive guide to developing clean, accurate picking technique.

It is evidence-based, and derived from our groundbreaking slow-motion interviews with celebrated players.  These interviews revealed, in some cases for the first time anywhere, the remarkable mechanical adaptations that great players make to get from one string to another with a pick.  In doing this work, we standardized concepts like escape motion and pickslanting, which practically redefined how picking technique is understood, studied, and taught.  If you’ve heard these terms in use, they were created here.

The techniques in the Primer are continually tested and updated through extensive Technique Critique teaching with awesomely dedicated learners from around the world.  In the Primer you’ll learn about:

• Unlocking your true maximum efficiency and speed
• Using escape motion for clean string changes
• Different joint motions and their capabilities
• The influence of mechanics on musical vocabulary and improvisation
• Notable players and how their techniques work
• Mechanics for specific musical styles, from bluegrass to metal

…and more.  If you’re ready, let’s get started!

Andy Wood is a rare triple threat player, delivering down-home deliciousness on electric guitar, acoustic guitar, and mandolin.

The Andy Wood interview is two hours of amazing mandolin and guitar pickin’, served up with heaps of style and musicality, and a hefty helping of Andy’s irresistible southern charm. The number of tasty musical examples is so plentiful we eventually had to tell him to stop playing, or we’d spend the rest of the year writing tablature for all of it.

Not only that, but we’ve got a guest host on board in the form of the awesome Ben Eller. It was in fact Ben who originally suggested we meet with Andy, so it was only fitting that he lend a voice to this investigation of Andy’s crosspicking and hybrid picking magic.

In our continuing quest to understand more about crosspicking technique, we hooked up with flatpicking wizard David Grier, who was gracious enough to don the Magnet for an exploration of his lauded right hand technique.

Even if the closest you’ve ever been to a “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” is a dead battery on the New York State Thruway, David’s instantly identifiable blend of modern and traditional elements is a sound that any fan of great writing and playing will appreciate. In our talk, he beguiled us with over an hour of his stunning crosspicking inventions and innovative harmonic twists and turns.

Even in bluegrass circles, David is known for his ability to get across the strings in impossible ways. This is a musical community where crosspicking torture tests like “Beaumont Rag” are considered standards, so that’s really saying something. David’s agile right hand takes traditional bluegrass picking patterns and expands them with tricky string skips in a seemingly endless variety of ways. It was an honor and a thrill to see David’s playing in person, and he gave us a rare glimpse of exactly what’s going on.

In our interview with Juilliard’s Dr. Noa Kageyama, the famed conservatory’s in-house expert on performance psychology and optimal practice habits, we learned about what you can do to objectively assess your strengths and weaknesses, and focus practice efforts accordingly.

Joscho takes Gypsy founding father Django Reinhardt’s famous adaptation of downward pickslanting mechanics and enhances it with his own turbocharged take on high-speed playing.

In the interview, we discuss the classic Gypsy flexed-wrist approach to forearm rotation, including a closeup look at Joscho’s amazing chord tremolo, multi-downstroke arpeggios and scales, and more. And we also discuss Joscho’s thoroughly modern two-way sweeping and legato passages that would be equally at home on any rock stage.

With one foot in tradition and another in the stratosphere, Joscho is truly a Gypsy for the twenty-first century.

We sat down with fusion ace Martin Miller to investigate the inhuman precision of his hyper-speed crosspicking technique. What we ended up with was even better.

In a wide-ranging conversation, we got to the bottom of Martin’s stunning right-hand approach that reads like a greatest hits of modern picking technique, mixing one-way pickslanting, two-way pickslanting, and crosspicking in equal parts.

But we also get a glimpse into the thought process of an expert soloist and improviser, including composition, fretboard navigation in the CAGED system, and more.

NOTE: We’re still working on Martin’s clips, but they’ll be connected to his interview timeline soon!

If you’ve seen 10-year-old Japanese guitar phenom Li-sa-X’s YouTube performances, you’re probably as impressed as we are. Her preternatural ability on the instrument has garnered millions of views, frequent Guitar World coverage, and even a spot in a TV commercial!

Bookended by blazing shred performances, this interview provides a close up look at Li-sa’s technique, and shows her a quick student of challenging technical exercises. This is a great example of how advanced mechanical ability can develop at a young age without overt instruction.

Marty Friedman, whose command of the Japanese language now rivals the fluency of his playing, was kind enough to guest host on this one!