How to Practice Troy Grady Style Alternate Picking

Three exercises to help you switch between pick slants while alternate picking.
www.sardismetal.com
Instagram @kevinhasselquist

[@tuckerguthrie]

Mad respect for the Stryper shirt, great playing man!

[@kevinhasselquist]

@@tuckerguthrie thanks!

[@ourclarioncall]

EXCELLENT video. One of the best , if not the best I’ve seen on how to practically apply pickslanting I’ve watched lots of vids including Troy Gradys stuff. I work as a guitar teacher and am currently considering the best ways to teach this stuff and what you have shown in this video is very similar to what I concluded were the most important areas . If you don’t teach guitar already then I think you would make a very good teacher 👍 Greetings from Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

[@kevinhasselquist]

Thanks!

[@NathanLaBee]

This was super helpful man we need more this stuff 🤘🏻

[@kevinhasselquist]

Thanks dude!

[@semiproj]

The exaggerated motions was key to image type learning. Thanks so much for making it look easy🍻

[@kevinhasselquist]

Glad you found it helpful!

[@bartm5485]

Thanks Kevin; breaking this method down is very helpful, I am going to follow your lesson , Only 1 yr playing, and just starting to pay attention to my right hand.....

[@kevinhasselquist]

Awesome! Good luck dude!

[@richardroskell3452]

Great explanation Kevin. Thanks!

[@igorperic5232]

Hey Kevin :) How fast can you perform alternate picking on metronome? Is this 150 bpm, 160bpm 16th notes or higher - lick you played at 0:08 ? :)

[@SDesWriter]

You know it's funny.....I struggled with picking for 34 years and did most of my fast stuff legato (or messy picking). I came across Grady and then Ben Eller talking about Grady and finally fixed my picking. I am now playing Lynch, Gilbert, Yngwiee, Vinnie Moore and others with limited difficulty. But the weird thing is that I got really good at the downward slant but couldn't figure out how to upward slant (except for specific things like pedal tones) so I just do everything downward slant and have no difficulty playing at a pretty high speed accurately. The last thing I want to do now is introduce ANOTHER new technique into something that's finally working after 35 years.

[@clintonblake1436]

Seems like a lot to think about for the right hand when playing longer runs/phrases. How do you remember all of this when playing longer phrases or runs that may change all over the place, especially when playing fast? I hope you understand my question. Thanks for posting this. It is helpful.

[@kevinhasselquist]

Well yes I suppose it is but mostly it's no different than learning a new chord. It's really awkward at first and it requires a lot of focus but when it becomes muscle memory your brain just says, "hey make that chord" and you don't have to think about where your fingers are, you just feel it. Thanks for the comment, I'm glad you found this helpful!

[@saadshah7857]

Clinton: the basic building block of a two way pickslanting lick is practiced and memorized. Then you simply chunk the block to create longer runs. The player isnt changing slants on the fly. Its programmed in advance.

[@johndurrant9262]

Thanks for a nice clear example...

[@HalJikaKick]

I teach people this left hand sequence and it automates your left hand.

[@raphexe]

I’ve always been upward slant and working on my downward slant feels really weird, doesn’t feel natural at all. Plus very hard to mute.

[@valebliz]

I have the exact problem. Upward feels very natural, downward is weird and I can’t mute the low strings.

[@bso6371gt]

Man that was great. Thank you!!! I will subscribe

[@irti_pk]

Great video! You remind me of Shredmaster Scott just without the demonic laughter.

[@satchrules101]

bro ur video was the icing on the cake for me ,I can finally do it ..might sound crazy but this took me like a good 2 years to feel the movement and playing the nots clean and fast... the low E and A strings gave me hard time ...but i just kept at it! Thanks for this great lesson ...and i love ur vibrato when u land on the low strings!

[@jamesjordan3192]

With two way pick slanting do you change the the slant on the last note before changing strings or gradually change the slant ?

[@ChrisBrown-es4hf]

Thank you this was incredibly helpful!

[@BasedRaven96]

Upward pickslanting is more natural for me, but working a lot on the downward pickslanting now!

[@wonton549]

Do you pick slant when playing fast on the low E string? I guess an example of what i mean in song would be Sylosis - Awakening at around the 2:50 mark.

[@kevinhasselquist]

Yeah, I pretty much always have a downward slant unless the specific part I'm playing has to switch. But if that is the case, I usually try to find a different left hand fingering first that will let me keep my right hand the same. Occasionally that doesn't really work though and that's when I would switch.

[@richardrrockenzburgh8469]

i have lost most of my right hand control , im trying to reteach my hand to work i can pick down but back up i have no strenth in my hand i can close it but cant open it . i was a finger picker for 30 years now i cant finger pick at all... take care of you hands my friend .guitar was what kept me sane and now im losing that ability and its crushing my soul . god bless man i hope i get back use of right hand no isea whats going on with it . thank you god bless love the shirt

[@kevinhasselquist]

Sorry to hear that, man. If you're not already, you might look for some physical therapy suggestions on youtube. That's out of my wheelhouse so I have not recommendations but there's so much free info out there, surely something will be helpful. In any case, I hope this video was helpful and I wish you the best!

[@richardrrockenzburgh8469]

@@kevinhasselquist thank you man i have been looking alot i think i pinched the same nerve as dave mustane but noy sure yet going to call dr get it fixed i hope

[@dakidd729]

Great Video!! Thanks

[@mikemiller6628]

Troy Grady is a picking wizard.By the way I miss seeing you guys play ,damm covid 19.

[@kevinhasselquist]

Thanks Mike! I miss playing! Awful year for musicians for sure. Hopefully this year will be better in that regard! By the way, did I ever tell you about the other project I started, Savage Logic?

[@ourclarioncall]

This was the idea I came up with It’s very similar to your one on the b and e strings. -- PICKSLANTING EXERCISE FOR 3 notes per string Keep it simple so you can FOCUS on you PICK Play frets 5 6 7 on B string then 5 6 7 on E string, for a nice six note pattern that can be repeated over and over to get a nice flow with pickslanting. DPS - download pickslanting NPS - neutral pickslanting, no slant UPS - upward pickslanting This will give you an easy 3 note per string exercise with one string change . Start with DPS for first note (pick is now trapped) NPS for second (pick is still trapped ) UPS for third (this slant allows the pick to escape an get ready for next note on e string) UPS for 4th note NPS for 5th note DPS for 6th and final note (this will let you escape back up to B string again where you begin the sequence again ) MAKE IT EVEN EASIER Don’t play any notes Just mute the strings so you can COMPLETELY FOCUS on your PICK and the movement pattern of the slants

[@peronlan]

Thanks so much for making this vid, super helpful!

[@kevinhasselquist]

Happy to help. Thanks for watching!

[@JustinRothberg]

So there’s a Troy Grady how to pick video series. And now there’s a how to pick like the Troy Grady how to pick videos?

[@ourclarioncall]

I think a lot of people struggle to know how to understand and practically apply pick-slanting. Two octave scales are a bit much in my opinion for those trying to develop this. A 6 note pattern on two strings is all one needs. Just muting the strings is better still , then you can give 100% laser like focus on the guitar pick and angles People say that the free Troy Grady content on KZbin is quite long and lacking in substance. I personally think it’s excellent. And it’s free. I’m sure the paid for content would be fantastic although I haven’t purchased it myself as I seen to have picked up enough information through trawling KZbin/internet. This video is very good at boiling everything down and getting to the point quickly , also at clarifying and giving simple patterns to develop the slanting movements.

[@JustinRothberg]

@@ourclarioncall i have done the free stuff and paid for a few. I have to say the paid is better. its not very much money when you consider how much you get out of it and how much guitar lessons cost with a great teacher. Worth it....

[@ourclarioncall]

@@JustinRothberg sounds good !

[@lhzx]

I find blending in finger motions brings it to the next level.

[@anthony27436]

I just noticed your comment could you explain what you meant by 'blending in finger motion' the thumb & index finger of picking hand?

[@lhzx]

@@anthony27436 It's the use of finger movement. Just like circular picking, you mainly use your picking fingers to guide your pick instead of arm or wrist. Since the 6-note alternate picking pattern only happens between 2 adjacent strings, this way can minimize the overall movement and achieve better control and speed.

[@anthony27436]

@@lhzx could you upload a video or your performance of this technique .. it would be helpful! Thank you

[@lhzx]

Sotirios Agelopoulos Sry I cant do videos recently due to personal reasons. Please search kelley simonz and watch how he picks. I remember there are many others illustrating how its done on youtube.

[@anthony27436]

@@lhzx thank you .. the video of Kelly Simonz was amazing! That was probably the best explanation of Yngwie's picking technique ... I wouldn't doubt Troy Grady ran into this video years ago ... Thank you!

[@johnnewman3221]

well said, always work with the smaller stuff.

[@NikolaiMusicChannel]

Nice video :-) Just a little comment about the start-slow-and build-your-way-up-method: Troy Grady (and other people in his course, like Andy Woods), explicitly advice against starting slow and building fast picking technique from a slow tempo. This is because the motion actually changes in fast tempos, and practicing in a mechanically slow tempo might not be practicing the technique you need for fast tempos. This is why Troy invented The Magnet, to get a good look at what actually happens when excellent players play fast, and often the technique changes drastically in the fast tempos! Often, the technique demonstrated in slow tempos in instructional videos are actually not what the players do when playing fast, as shown by Troy in his courses on playing like Eric Johnson, Michael Angio Batio and many more. They are often not aware of this them selfs! It also looks like your technique changes when you go from slow demonstration speeds into actually playing the alternating pick slanting runs, but hard to tell without The Magnet and slow motion footage ;-) Troy Grady (and Andy Woods) advice to rather start at a reasonable high tempo (160 bpm + for 16th notes), test things out, slow it down again to fix whats not working, then up again and so on. I do agree that practising with a metronome is great for timing and also stabilising your technique, but staring in a fast tempo is essential to hacking the right technique, even though it sounds counter intuitive :-)

[@kevinhasselquist]

I've heard him talk about that and in general I agree, and for speed building in broad terms that's how I would teach it. Obviously I can only offer my own personal experience in the videos I make but I have found that starting fast works very well if you have a mental grasp on the mechanics you are trying to achieve but not so well when you don't have a way to picture it mentally. Imo slowing the motion down helps with getting a mental picture of what needs to happen at any speed. I am actually primarily an exclusively downward-slant player so this video was the result of me coming up with a way to practice (and understand) it myself. For me when I jumped into it fast to begin with I found that I was consistently making the same error every string change and I couldn't weed it out at fast tempos. In any case, that's definitely good information. Thanks for sharing!

[@NikolaiMusicChannel]

@@kevinhasselquist I agree :-) It's important to slow things down to conceptualise the movement, my input was just about the start-low-go-slow kind of practise, I generally have had best success with trying fast, slowing down to try to see whats wrong, and then try fast again, slow again, fast again, and so on and so forth, instead of trying to build my technique from a slow tempo 1 bpm at a time. One doesn't have to start at 200 bpm, 160-ish is usually fast enough to be forced to use the right kind of technique/movements :-) I then proceed to go down 5 bpms at a time to find where i think thinks the lick/technique sound smooth, and then try to analyse what I'm doing right, then go up again :-)

[@madProgenitorDeity]

DWPS example at 8:20 thx for the video

[@bidhanniraula655]

in a 3 notes per string are we supposed to switch it after the ending note of the first string or 2nd note of the second string just before we need to swap?

[@kevinhasselquist]

I'm not sure I'm understanding your question exactly but just go slow and if you find that the point of the pick is between the strings when you're trying to switch strings, you need to rotate the pick before that. Hope that helps!

[@saadshah7857]

For 3nps, you have time enough to play three notes while you rotate the slant. Meaning as you play the three notes you are rotating the slant. On the fourth note, when you switch the string, you are already in the rotated posture. As you play the next three notes, 4 5 and 6, you reverse the slant.

[@ourclarioncall]

Play notes that are neutral . Half way between downward and upward. This will help get a smooth transition. If you play a 6 note pattern on the B and E strings like the one shown in the video play 1. DPS (trapped) 2. NPS (helps transition smoothly) 3. UPS (now escape to get close to e string) 4. UPS 5. NPS 6. DPS then repeat over and over

[@bso6371gt]

Isn’t there another way that you don’t have to roll your hand?

[@kiss.tornado]

6:37 задіває дві струни... ееее ;)

[@marks4470]

A white guitar pick probably would have been a better idea for this video.

[@bodhidharma2600]

🌞🌞🌞

[@premiumfill2801]

Ur voice sound like Rick

[@ThePhotomusicguy]

Sorry, but I can't see the difference