Troygrady.com > BlackInMind's Profile > Technique Critique > smoothing out motion/hand sync/speed

smoothing out motion/hand sync/speed

Description

Hey guys! Doing my first Technique Critique. Backstory: When I discovered Troy and CTC I had pretty poor right hand abilities. My alternate picking wasn't great, although I had learned to do some decent sweep picking. I mostly stuck to legato and tapping, which I excelled pretty well at. In August of 2019, I decided I was going to make a shift in my style, and I wouldn't practice tapping anymore, deciding to focus 100% on getting my right hand up to snuff. Through tremolo tests I discovered I moved best with a wrist based motion, despite desperately wanting to have forearm rotation movement (mostly because I think it looks cooler and you can play with the strap lower). My favorite players around this time (and still) are Michael Schenker, Yngwie, Marty Friedman, and Gary Moore. Since I was good at sweep motions, I started with "down down up" patterns players like Schenker, Marty, and (I think Gary) do a lot and got pretty fluid with these, as you can see in the economy pentatonic video. I wound up mastering a lot of Schenker's most well known solos and started to move on to Marty and Yngwie, and this is where I started hitting some plateaus. The title of my Critique "smoothing out motion/hand sync/speed" sounds like three separate things, but I have a feeling that they are all connected, hence one critique. Basically, I'd like to get my overall speed, but particularly my tremolo speed, faster. I do burst practice *a lot* mostly with single string ideas. As you can see in the attached videos of my tremolo and my single string Yngwie 6 bursts. When I'm bursting I can hit over 120-130 BPM sextuplets, but I have difficulty sustaining passages that last more than a bar or two at 106-110 unless there is some legato or economy thrown in. I think hand sync is an issue, because I can ride on one note longer and easier than I can when adding my left hand. I'm not sure how to fix this. If I need to practice slower instead of doing bursts, or medium speeds for endurance or whatnot. I'm also hitting some plateaus with my economy that are preventing me from getting some of Marty's faster lines, like the harmony in the bridge of Dragon Mistress, up to speed. I'm also noticing that when I do mix in legato and economy with my alternate picking that the movement feels like its shifting. Not tense or string hoppy, just that it feels like I'm clicking from one gear when I'm alternate picking on one string, and then clicking into a different gear when I'm economy picking cross strings. I feel like if I could get my single string alternate to operate from the same "gear" as my economy then I'd be streamlining my movements and would be able to increase my overall speed. I also included a chromatic thing to show my alternate picking across strings. I don't really practice large string crossing scale patterns since I figured my focus would be best getting my speed up on one string, but maybe thats the wrong approach. I do notice that I'm hitting a "speed bump" when I move from the D/G string pair to the B/E pair, and I think this might be a result of poor string tracking. Again, something I'm not sure how to fix. So basically I'm hoping you can help answer these questions: 1. How do I smooth out my alternate picking and economy movements (re: Yngwie 6 + economy and economy pentatonic video, also tremolo video so you can see what my single string trem looks like) 2. How do I improve hand synch so it doesn't feel like adding my left hand slows me down (Yngwie 6 burst video). Should I stop practicing bursts to a metronome or do it more? Should I go slower? medium? Basically I have no clue what the right tempo to practice at is. Thanks for reading all that! Eager for your response!