WhyISuckAtGuitar.com - Reducing Picking Hand Tension - Part 2

[@717deathmetal]

Ive been shredding for 5 years, I can play 170-180 bpms, it impresses people, but I know im tense, sloppy, and a clean run is all up to chance. After years of horrible technique for the sake of "speed". I have to say this man is a life saver, what tension is good and what tension is bad never made sense until these large movements, thank you so much.

[@fendrman9582]

I've never really thought to look at the "bigger motions" that my picking hand makes. I've always concentrated on making small movements with the hand, but this totally makes sense to me now! Thanks a bunch!

[@lickmyfuckinnuts]

I could listen to this all day. Thank You.. please More.

[@Whyisuckatguitar]

No worries. Problems with string crossing are usually an indicator of a problem with moving the weight of your arm around. Try, at slower speeds, to feel the weight of your arm moving "through" the string. Downward for downstrokes, and upward for upstrokes. If you try to cheat these movements, your hand and arm will lock up because you're trying to move in two directions at once... like a deer in the headlights.

[@Whyisuckatguitar]

I love reading comments like this. Glad you found my videos helpful.

[@alandzavalamederos1783]

Always there's something to learn even when not all the points your agree with... Would you speak about economy of motion? Thanks for your videos!! Stay well

[@Whyisuckatguitar]

I am planning on making a "guitar myth busting" video on economy of motion. Spoiler alert... fluidity of motion is way more important than economy of motion.

[@SilentAwareness01]

Thank you for helping me erase years of bad technique.

[@assafyi]

Great lesson! Now that I watched both the fretting and picking series, I could really benefits from a lessons about the synchronisation of picking and fretting hands. Do you have anything about synchronisation?

[@Whyisuckatguitar]

Nothing specifically on that topic, although I will say that I think that the concept of "synchronization" is backwards. It's not about getting your hands to do things at exactly the same time, it's about getting each hand to the point where it can act independently of the other... in other words, the movement of one hand doesn't affect movement of the other.

[@SaintsCheat]

Fair enough. My apologies. I just have problems with inside picking, hence I have tried to develop the Randall Padilla (very weird but super fast and clean player check him out on youtube if not familar) style of only using thumb and forefinger to do inside picking, with wrist movement i get 'stuck' so I was looking at your vid to see if there were any pointers for 'fairly' advanced players to conquer that step. I apologize again and ment nothing personal.

[@alandzavalamederos1783]

I'm wondering how many guir players are traying to conquer that point 😂

[@Whyisuckatguitar]

Thanks, 717deathmetal. Glad the lesson helped.

[@ComradeBucket]

I have been working on the tension in my picking hand for years. This is good advice but I still hit the exact same problems. I can play at slow and medium-slow pace and feel extremely relaxed in both of my hands and be able to play very comfortably, but as soon as it starts getting faster I just tense up again anyway. I know exactly why I'm tensing up, but I just cannot stop it when it gets to those higher tempos.

[@notoriousfunk7959]

Going to release a 2 hour video all talking about how to really relax your R hand, more or less they are all flamenco studies using a pick. I fall down and had to rebuild my right hand tecnique because i couldnt pick as before. There are a few tricks to cheat your brain because it is all in your brain if you can't go in sync. First of all do not play, play it only in your mind, if you can play it in your mind (without cheating!) there is no reason to not be able to play it. Anyway, if you want come check my channel in the next days. Ciao.

[@Whyisuckatguitar]

There's more stuff on the website itself if you haven't checked it out yet. Any specific topic(s) you'd like me to cover?

[@assafyi]

Great

[@Whyisuckatguitar]

You're missing the point. The work you do at slow speeds will influence everything you do technically with the guitar, at any speed. The point it that we need to teach our bodies how to make these movements without excess tension. If we can do that, speeding up those movements is seldom problematic. If excess tension is not a problem for you then you don't need to be watching this video. But if tension is a problem for you then don't say it sucks until after you've tried it for a while.