Picking hand

[MetalheadMC]

Anyone else up pick as much if not more than you down pick? It's a technique that I'm majorly stuck on and can't help but not do it every time. It's mostly like meshuggah and monument style that I tend to play, but it's hard to write anything else.

I believe I up pick faster than I down pick, which I wouldn't say is a bad thing but a nuisance when I want to change it up.

Any advice on how to slow this damn hand down? I adjust the tempo of the drums and all, but it seems I just go back to what's normal no matter the tempo

 

[Lokasenna]

It's hard to find better picking-hand practice than Iced Earth.

 

[OmegaSlayer]

Anyone else up pick as much if not more than you down pick? It's a technique that I'm majorly stuck on and can't help but not do it every time. It's mostly like meshuggah and monument style that I tend to play, but it's hard to write anything else.

I believe I up pick faster than I down pick, which I wouldn't say is a bad thing but a nuisance when I want to change it up.

Any advice on how to slow this damn hand down? I adjust the tempo of the drums and all, but it seems I just go back to what's normal no matter the tempo

You probably have the same problem I had when I was young.
I practiced to play fast, fast, fast, faaaaaast, but I didn't care to practice at intermediate speeds.
You should maybe practice some exercise between 80 and 120 bpm with 1/16 and triplets 1/24.

 

[haieb]

like Omega said, practice slow. It is the best you can do. Start shamefullyP) slow and watch your hand. You can speed it up by a little if you feel really confident. Everytime you speed up, watch out for muscle tension. If you feel that you have a tension, slow it down and play on that speed for a longer time.

 

[Adam Of Angels]

There's a common misconception about starting slow and speeding up gradually - that the mechanics of high speed playing should be identical to slow speed playing, and that's just not the case most times. You should be using much less tension at high speeds because the momentum itself keeps the attack strong with minimal effort, where as at slow speeds, you have to maintain the momentum with muscle alone.

The trick is to always play with the least amount of tension that you can (in other words, how you play isn't an issue so long as you minimize effort and movement to bare necessity), rather than simply starting slow, but go back and forth between fast and slow, and try to match the techniques somewhere in the middle. It sounds unorthodox, but it's one of the best ways to break speed barriers that slow-building would otherwise stop you at.

A practical way of using this advice would be to take a pattern you are working on and playing it (slowly) at 70bpm. After you're comfortable with it, jump up to 110bpm and see if you can get a feel for it, then jump down to 75bpm and get comfortable again. Keep going back to the higher speed and note any progress or issues you run into so that you know what to focus on at the slower speeds. Just be sure not to attempt much higher speeds than you're capable of or else you'll almost certainly tense up, get frustrated, and possibly even feel discouraged.

Edit: also, I 2nd that practicing some Iced Earth stuff will help with down picking and crazy triplet-y stuff. Or dig into some Mors Principium Est type stuff (like "Finality") that has a lot of really fast down-picked Melo-Death riffs with pedal notes.

 

[Maniacal]

Quick question for you Iced Earth fans..
What is their hardest song to play on guitar?

 

[Lokasenna]

Off the top of my head, I'd go with Pure Evil or Travel In Stygian, just for how insanely fast you have to be picking. Playing through the Something Wicked trilogy (Prophecy, Birth of the Wicked, The Coming Curse) is a great endurance workout, as is Dante's Inferno.

If you're looking for technical difficulty, I'd try a different band. Most of Schaffer's stuff is straightforward, but too tight and too fast for mere mortals.

 

[Adam Of Angels]

I'm talking about right hand endurance alone - I can't think of an Iced Earth song that puts a strain on the left. In any case, I used to use "Wolf" to warm up a bit. As long as you focus on downstrokes, predominantly, it works.

 

[Maniacal]

Thanks guys.

Just looked at Pure Evil, should be a good picking workout!