Al Di Meola Lesson: Mechanics for Mixed Fingerings (Antigravity, Chapter 20)
Vložit
- čas přidán 6. 09. 2024
- ➠ Join the Cracking the Code Community: troygrady.com/...
➠ Browse our products & free downloads: troygrady.com/...
➠ Head to the forum for questions!: forum.troygrad...
---
Chapter 20 of Antigravity explores the incredible mechanical independence of Al Di Meola. Watch the entire Antigravity seminar: troygrady.com/...
Funny true story about AL DIMEOLA and how he came about to mute the strings when playing runs and chords.
He stated that when he was younger he was VERY self conscience of his playing and did not want anyone to hear him play
so he would not plug into a amp or would use a acoustic guitar and mute the strings to keep them from sounding real loud.
This is what AL himself said in Guitar player back in 1977
Hard to believe a guy that plays as great as he does would be self conscience about his playing but then again
alan holdsworth said this about his own playing "i think my playing is terrible and i am embarrassed to hear back a solo in the studio" Wish i played as "terrible" as holdsworth! lol
Why is it funny?
@@monsterzero1965 racist
@@___and_memes_for_all How is he racist?
@@user-tf5lg7fc9s racist
@@beaf8411 So?
Al is so good it's scary. I think the scariest thing about him is that his strumming/comping techniques are just as scary good as his picking. Thanks for this vid!
his strumming sucks! listen to friday night in san francisco he was so stiff and choppy like a robot whose batteries were dying! Paco danced around di meolas bumbling rhythms!!!
You are the best technical teacher in the web ! Thanks Troy Grady !
Thanks! Best is a strong word, but if we can make a contribution we're happy to do do.
I'm glad you said 'they don't think to teach it' because after all the hot licks videos, etc. I bought 3 decades ago I'm like 'but HOW are you doing this???' All they do is 'here is the lick' and I can get tab back then from guitar magazines (I figured all of it out by ear back then anyway) but HOW are you accomplishing it? I never learned ANYTHING from those 90s videos because they never even showed you how they hold the pick much less the mechanics of speed picking (whole hand, wrist, elbow, slant) to me I was just happy to see them play and just continued to muddle through in my cover band playing ZZ Top/classic rock 70s 80s and top 40 lol
Al is fantastic! "the Wizard" from his first solo album (1976) shows us how amazing he is. A great lesson of shredding hands together with melody and felling. I went nuts the first time I heard that... amazing player! one of my favorites.
One of the most amazing things, among all, is the ability Al DiMeola has to pick a string of 16th notes, insert a single 16th note triplet, all while picking every note, and immediately return to 16th notes. To do this it seems he would either have to insert two sequential down strokes to keep the down stroke on the beat or follow the single 16th note triplet by an upstroke which would have him playing an upstroke on the downbeat upon returning to the 16th notes. He does this near the beginning of this video. Troy, do you know what technique he is using to do this?
David D , he keeps alternating, so he plays an upstroke on the downbeat upon returning to the 16th notes.
It is not that hard once you muscles are used to the movement.
Good example is of how smooth Al can doe this the second part of Suite Golden Down from the Midnight Sun album with the great Jaco Pastorius on bass.
In my opinion the way al picks is the best way to do it. As Troy explains he is constantly switching between downward and upward slanting on every stroke.
But i do not see it as downward or upward slanting, it is just the rotation movement of the forarm which causes the pick to move that way. If you can minimize and control this movement you do not have to think about upward and downward slanting, it is more a kind of crosspicking but with minimal movement.
Al DiMeola - a GOD among men. A true legend. A real virtuoso. About time Al DiMeola is given kudos.
Like the triplets Jason Becker does in one section of Air about two and a half minutes in:
1st: 9-7-5
2nd: 9-7
3rd: 9-6
4th 9-7-6-7-9
3rd: 6-9
2nd: 7-9
1st: 5-7-
then repeat for about ten minutes a day. After a week your control goes WAY up.
+Troy Grady so Are we basically saying here, that it doesnt matter if you have odd number of notes per string, none of it makes a difference in alternate picking as long as you can rapidly change your pickslant accorddingly??
Only recently started picking the guitar back up after an 18 month period of no playing at all. This channel has helped me so much with my picking techniques as it's really hard to get back on the wagon. I've never really delved too far into arpeggio/sweep/alternative arpeggio techniques because other than to learn songs. Thank you so much for this great content and knowledge.
Love your videos - thanks for putting so much work into breaking down these techniques, and explaining them so freaking well! I don't think I've ever seen anyone explain a technique any better.
Vinnie Moore and Chris Impellitteri were both sued for their instructional videos encouraging stiff wrist picking. Many of the people who bought the videos back in the 80's developed tennis elbow and hired lawyers and then all the videos had to be recalled off the shelves in music stores. That is when Mike Varney had too much legal fees and grunge came in and dominated the rock scene. It was all because of Vinnie Moore and Chris Impellitteri teaching improper picking techniques or at least not explaining that they were left handed and playing right handed with an inefficient picking technique. Impellitteri mustard up the courage to start picking from the wrist but by that time is was too late.
Any links you can provide for the lawsuits you mentioned?
Let's be honest. Most shredders had no business teaching people how to play, I've seen some of the vids and they all don't know what the fuck they are talking about. The only instructional vids that are somewhat good are Reb beach and Frank Gambale. Kotzen, Gilbert, and other shrapnel artists were trash.
by far the best instructional guitar series!
Al has speed and feel and taste! 👍
Amazing! The first DiMeola solo is exactly like Vinnie Moore's solo in Saved by a Miracle (Mind's Eye album)
Re: Your final statement: Its not amazing that they don't know it. That's understandable. Its amazing that you discovered it! Worthwhile work Troy! Thanks much and don't stop now brutha!
I can't take all the credit here -- I'm sure many players have noticed this stuff over the years. But we have the internet now, so we win!
I think one thing this getting lost ' in translation ' here is total relaxation. Troy, if I may be so bold...the one ' key ' element here is to have your forearm, wrist hand etc etc TOTALLY relaxed when executing this picking technique. Watch his ( Troy ) picking hand and other artists picking hands as well...( except for maybe Bato ) they are totally relaxed...I believe it's key to this technique.
YOU HAVE TO DO JOHN MCLAUGHLIN..!
FOR THE LOVE OF KRISHNA, DO A MCLAUGHLIN VIDEO
what about Paco?
@@alexanderpodkopaev6691
Paco is finger style and beyond the scope of this series.
omg 3 mosters of fast playing together, that day a lot of guitar players probably quit or got super hyper inspire lol
I like the idea of Directional picking the Di Meola 3 string riff .you will still change the wrist to an upward pick slanting motion but pick less notes
Wow, that section from 3:10 onwards is so similar to the Dance of Eternity! Makes sense, JP is a huge Al Di fan.
Al is still the best picker by far
Saw him live. Got to meet him and see him rehearse the guys. A true genius.
Troy, I really enjoyed when you were playing the pattern with the gain rolled off. Your technique is very clean, and you can really hear that when you play with lower gain.
Years ago, I went from playing a guitar with humbuckers to a Stratocaster w/ nothing but single coils. The different EQ coming from the pickups, as well as the reduced gain showed me where my technique was lacking. It was a really important lesson. I would encourage your students to study your exercises, and play them through a clean, dry amp so that they can develop the cleanest technique possible.
Great stuff as always, and to reiterate, your clean playing was stunning!
Troy has given credit to gypsy-style guitar playing on a number of occasions, and a comment someone made on a Ben Higgins video really made sense to me.
Quoting "In the western hemisphere the flatpick was reinvented about 200 years ago. In India and the middle east they've been using flatpicks for more than 2000 years. So it is a good idea to take a closer look at those cultures who had so much more time to develop their technique to an optimum. Guess what: All of them play with this angle on the wrist exactly the way you do! And so do the gypsy-players who are based on the Indian tradition. Check out Bireli Lagrene or Nasser Houari."
czcams.com/video/6vfT0k7nPNs/video.html&google_comment_id=z13zxn2j4ujxgf42323zsd44swfjy3wkq
Fantastic video Troy, I have been checking out your videos for a while. Very much enjoying them and kind of relate to them in a way. For a long time, I have been baffled with the way Paco's techniques worked. I have been progressing very well over the past year and was wondering if you would be interested in doing an analysis of those at all? Be good to hear from you.
Thanks, Masoud
Troy, recently I discoverd your channel and is terrific!!!, the way you do this stuff is superb. Many jazz guitarrist player use economic picking mastered by Frank Gambale. It will be good if you make videos about him (he is the master of sweep picking too!!). But It would be from other planet if you try to explain the things ALLAN HOLDSWORTH do!!! All the best wishes for you!! (Excuse for my writing Im from Perú 😛)
Awesome vids mate. Ive always battled to play these lines as fast and fluently as these guys and yourself for years and years. Downward pick slanting has made a huge difference instantly thank you ! Now that frustration can go and I can just focus on playing and enjoying music
Awesome glad to hear it!
That approach to the pentatonic scale sounds like what zakk wilde uses for his technique.
Zack has spoken that he got inspired by Al Di Meola.
Check out Marshall Harrisons video on the repeating sixes patterns. He starts with an upstroke and picks one note with his finger also. It sounds different and is face meltingly fast and effective.
Al D is one of my earliest influences on guitar, I first heard him back in 1979 when i was played
land of the midnight sun and the track "The Wizard" just floored me!
I was Hooked! I loved that Spanish flavor his electric playing had!
He was the first guy i heard use the Phrygian mode with distortion, then shortly after i got hooked on ULI ROTH
I believe first is the pick tilting, and then the slanting, the upper will come naturally once you accomplished the down slant motion
5:30 i would "Gambale" this riff .
E String> Down Up>
(B string ) Up ...Pull off...
G String > Up /Pull off/hammer" Down pick the hammered note"*****
B String >Down Hammer ..
.E string Down up Pull off .
On the top string you could also do 3 notes starting with a DOWN Up Down UP /Pull Off
I'm not even really a guitarist but I enjoy watching your videos quite a bit. Great stuff !!
Thanks again this has definitely shed light on my own antigravity upward pick slanting
And how I can trick my hand just enough to become a down ward pick slanter only for a moment to get the job done
Mark O'connor has a new guitar cd coming out this month (April 2021). Master flat picker!! Now would be a great time to analyze his style.
That's correct, there is a little Zack Wilde in this pentatonic scale, it's because Zack loves 2 notes per strings pentatonic. It reminds me of Eric Johnson too, because Eric has a two way pick slanting too and make some crazy odd groupings of 5, 4, 3 and 2....Like Shawn "Yoda" Lane and Gambale. The two way pick slanting with Lane is more obvious because he reversed like Al his wrist and snapped the strings. With Gilbert and giants like Buckethead and Vai, it's more difficult to see it because they use some thumb rotation to twist the pick slanting. I remembered Pebber Brown said that during the years Meola has changed a little bit his technique " ultra rigid wirst" for a smoother approach like indian guys. Mc Laughlin told him he will save some energy and could play for hours with not any fatigue. Well, we can see it now compared to his first 70's vids with his middle finger stretched like a Mofo :). I have big hands I learn two way pick slanting like Gilbert since 1 year. I make some crazy progress but I have issues with my palm muting. So hard to stay clean with a wrist anchor above the bridge and I'm sure this is the best technique of all time when I see those guys and other like Yngwie who has some serious timing issues because of his "cheating" alt.p.
Eric Johnson is actually a one-way pickslanter! He handles odd-numbered groupings with sweeping -- same as Yngwie. Shawn was also a one-way pickslanter 99% of the time. Same solutions -- sweeping for odd-numbered groupings.
Well, I may be wrong but in Shawn Lane Power Solos REH video, he says, and we can see clearly that he starts for a descending lick with an upstroke...Then we could see a "Pepsi lick like" with a string skipping (G string 9 11 14 and E string 9 12 16), I'm pretty sure he used a two way pick slanting with an uptsroke on the high E. No sweep, just pure alternate slap picking. And I saw him do a 3 notes per string with pure alt p. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe it's like Yngwie it's too fast and I can't see the sweeps. Btw, thx for the vids and all the Grady.com club, it helps me a lot, my journey is long and this is a free train ticket !!
Inglorious Kam You're not wrong! I know the segment you're referring to, and there is indeed a little two-way swing to those 3nps scalar sequences -- good catch. But there's also legato, particularly on the ascending side, so the slight 2wps that exists is redundant since the legato already buys him enough time to get over the string. It's the "Spanish Fly" approach of one downstroke and two hammers.
Most of the other examples on both videos are straight up Yngwie-style dwps. Shawn never really got all the way with 2wps but it's clear from the "proto 2wps" that we see in his technique that he was starting to figure it out, at least to the extent that he needed to. Of course, he was a genius, we all know that. If you locked him in a room and forced him to play a straight scale with picking I'm sure he would have figured it out eventually. Not that it matters -- his stuff sounded great and that's what's important.
Thanks for watching!
Now that I think I understand practicing the two way pick slanting, I realize practicing it is not easy at all lol. Hopefully after practicing for a while it will start to be a bit more natural to make the switch
Nice to see Al DiMeola & John McLaughlin get their due as 2 of the first electric 'shredders'. Back when Fusion was really popular, so many of my buds were swooning over Van Halen. A fine player, but compared to Al & John? I know, I know.....2 completely different types of music. But I couldn't understand the outright dismissal of those 2 fusion masters. "Why do you listen to those guys??? They're Jazz!!!" I listened to them because they were amazing, and because every other guitar player was zeroing in on the tapping/whammy-bar stuff........which got overplayed, old, and dated real fast. In my mind, I wanted to fuse their technique with rock music. (Yngwie beat me to it..........) Having seen both Al & John play live (I was mere feet from John!), I can attest that their picking hands barely moved. As I watched both of them ripping like madmen I kept thinking: "....How-the-f**k....?"
Nice investigative work, Mr, Grady!
Don't worry. you're friends don't know but all the guys that they worshipped actually we're fanboys of the original G3
7:53 Nice Missy Elliot reference.
Thank you Troy for this awesome analysis! :)
Could you please put light on Al's motion mechanic for picking? Is it rotational(yngwie style) or wrist-oriented(clock-like motion)? I reason it is the latter but would love to have your opinion.
Swamit Kher It looks like wrist deviation to me (the clockface movement), with forearm rotation for the change in pickslant.
***** Thanks for replying, Troy. That's what I think too. He probably anchors his hand heel behind the bridge, dorsiflexing his hand.
But when I try the clockface movement, I find I might struggle to keep the tone consistent, for the anchored hand heel in one position makes the pick reach different strings at different angles. Simply put, It becomes typical edge picking on the higher strings and a relatively flatter picking on the lower strings.
I wonder if the clockface approach requires one to shift the 'anchor' after every 2 or 3 strings. But then again, the bridge comes in the way , for the hand heel was earlier anchored on the body of guitar and now you lift the hand heel to let it sit on the bridge. And bam! you do it all while speed picking. Argh!
Is there a way around it? Does the masters in mechanics series analyse this aspect? I'll buy it anyway after my exams. :)
Great Lesson!!!!
Will you be doing a separate study of McLaughlin? Thank you for everything so far, you are a bonafide guru and a huge source of inspiration. I remember your old videos way back where you were testing a Hellcat in a store and so on...
I would love to see this too
Priceless...once again. Thanks.
I can alternate pick pretty fast on one string with upward pickslanting, but when I try to do the same thing with downward pickslanting it feels pretty awkward and it's a lot slower and less reflexive.
Have you made any connection of Al's left shoulder raising and his mechanic changes? They seem synchronized in this clip. Might be a good sign for other videos when looking for "extra effort" from Al.
Hey Troy, would it be possible that you write a guitarbook with all the stuff you're doing? I'm less a video guy but more into books just for a sum up of important information. Watching through the videos takes a lot more time than open a book.
Saw Al at Central Park NYC, summer of 1978.
Opening act: UK.........with Allan Holdsworth!!!!
Halfway thru Allan's 1st solo, me: "HoleeeeeShiiiiitttttt! How is DiMeola gonna follow this guy??"
Al did just fine.
Now that sounds like a concert!
Well I just discovered you yesterday and I think i might be a natural upward pick slanter, except that when switching strings, i've never had much success. For the last month(before discovering you) I've been working on the Paul Gilbert lick for 'outside' picking. Now that I know about two way pick slanting, should i keep trying to develop it or should i try to develop my upward pick slanting?
Troy, so the rotation of the wrist occurs when you go from an upward pick slant to a downward one, or vice versa...and as a consequence of that, the pick is usually slicing through the string at some type of 45 degree angle...is that correct? I reason I ask is because I play the bass with a pick, and fingers but mostly a pick....but I don't have the luxury of a slice angle because of the amount of noise it would generate....so as a result I have to hit the strings with the pick at a 90 degree angle in order to get a decent tone...in an article in guitar world...in 1978 Mclaughlin (my hero) was asked if he circle picked...and he said that he didn't even know what it was ...he just flat picked straight on up and down thanks!
Actually there was Barney Kessel..Herb Ellis...Charlie Byrde Did the Great Guitars. These OGs We have them props..
I see you using outside picking here on those up and down licks. Can you swich picklsanting somehow to make the lick be an inside picking lick. I have played all my life with insidepicking(4-5 years) and i struggle with outside.
For me, I can play both of these using dwps very easy, I can play them pretty well using uwps but as far as switching inside of the run I cannot at the moment . Thought I would share that I found it odd I could dwps the meola chunk all downward
Thanks for the subtitles!!
sorry for my limited english comprehension: that means when you have outside picking upstroke the slating is upward (end of the motion far from the guitar..), when you have inside picking upstroke the opposite. And everything opposite for downstroke...it that correct? thanks all!
that's really interesting, cos i use a lot of other pentatonics (dom7, min7, min6 etc) and can never quite get the same speed as 3 notes per string playing. i had never thought it'd be upward pick slant for ascending and downward for descending simply because of the mechanics of the guitar suggest the opposite: downward slant when you're going physically down (ascending the scale), and then the reverse...
how do you work it on 3 note per string patterns?
Any chance you can take a look at the main solos from John McLaughlin's "New York on my mind" or The Dark Prince"?
The speed and sequencing in those are nothing less but incredible.
Paco and John were by far the best ever.
But what's a good pick diameter? why does it seems that not all pick plays the same for me?
Have you ever seen Marty Friedman's technique (best known for his preformance in Megadeath). He has one of the most exaggerated pick slanting techniques. He does a column for Guitar World called Full Shred, so a lot of footege can be found on www.guitarworld.com/ or the guitar world youtube channle. I hope you find something interesting.
When I first saw Marty's technique, I thought of it as "attacking the bottom of the strings" rather than "slanting the pick downward", though I now think those essentially mean the same thing. I had naturally leaned towards a Marty-esque technique at one phase in my own playing, in part because it correlated better with the wrist position I used in Van Halen style tremolo picking. At the time I didn't think about it in terms of Troy's discussion of moving the pick in and out of the plane of the strings, but I could feel the difference. Over time I transitioned to a different grip with more of an upward pick slant most of the time (with the tell-tale "thumb bump" Troy mentions in the Vinnie Moore chapter), though to me the amount of slant is so slight that it feels almost neutral rather than "upward".
Nik Manolov ich
I love this stuff troy, Is this being made into a purchasable download ? because I would love to buy this content !
Cring0r Thanks! We're going to have a couple ways of watching Antigravity, and we'll be sending out an email about this soon.
With his right-hand muting technique, Al has a more extreme staccato feel than just about anybody, but at top speed he basically has one way to shred, which is with triplets. John, on the other hand, has about a hundred different ways to shred at top speed with impeccable precision, and his top speed may actually be even slightly faster than Al's. You've got to do a serious analysis of John's playing. He was at his best in the 80s and 90s on nylon strings, but the Shakti stuff in the late 70s deserves some attention too.
We've looked at John a fair amount in some of our instructional stuff. The short story is that in super high speed mode, both players have similar restrictions imposed by their mechanics in terms of what lines will work out cleanly. And those restrictions are actually pretty similar. Al's technique would work well for a lot of John's super fast patterny things, like his four-note pattern. Here's one of the chapters we did on John, and you can actually play this with a free account on our site: troygrady.com/primer/upward-pickslanting/john-mclaughlin/
Tom Hazelton actually, whilst John does have great chops, one way he appears to break out of standard 16th, 16ths triplets is his understanding of konnakol , the South Carnatic language of rhythm.
He breaks down how he plays his phrases and rearranges his rhythmic groupings using the method in his dvd set
Most wannabe shredders miss the point with Al. Yes he can play fast. But the most important thing is the rhythm, being in control and control of dynamics. Also most people who can play fast on electric guitar cant pick that fast on acoustic guitar and have some force/volume on the notes/picking. It just becomes blurr, mess and wimpy sounding on acoustic usually. Listen Al's Splendido Sundance =)
"We can flip it and reverse it".. Dude youre the best..
Great!! Which pick do you use????
I saw them In concert during that time.
Hi can u share which guitar strings, cables and picks are used by al ?
hell yeah, subscribed
Such fascinating stuff, thank you for sharing! Would you ever consider doing an analysis on Tony MacAlpine?
My picking style is probably closest to his among the Shrapnel guys, so it would be cool to get a bit of vicarious feedback :)
Tony's great! I'm sure we'll get around to him at some point.
Thanks a lot for this!
What are you playing through? Sounds killer.
Love to know how he did that blistering run on Race With The Devil.
This pick slanting stuff is starting to stick! Thanks man
Excellent!
I recommend to check the Mr. Fastfinger
Thanks for the reference :)
Troy Grady, is there a course for the master mechanics site. If so could you send me a link that I might consider the personal ability to pay for it and take the course
Ha ha. I noticed the Pepsi lick, too.
Whats the song name at 0:17 ?
Troy, why slant the pick at all? Aren't you expending more energy by rolling your wrist?
stupidusername38 The question is, more energy than what? As Graydum points out, the only alternative is to just bounce the pick around, and as you can see from the Batio Lamborghini clip, great players quickly abandon that method once they speed up. Pickslanting is the only efficient solution for switching strings at high speed, and all history's elite players have used it. It is simply the way the guitar is played.
that seems strange to me. In the Vinnie Moore method in your other video he works on picking slowly yet uses a different method yet when he speeds it up. Surely this isn't really the best way to learn as you're not putting into practice the method you used at a slow speed
stupidusername38 It's not intentional -- these guys are athletic geniuses who play by feel. When they speed up, they click into their high speed system, because they can feel that it's more efficient. They're not always aware they're doing this, but that's true of most great athletes. Ichiro is one of the best batters of all time and he studies himself relentlessly with video analysis to understand his own technique. We shouldn't expect anything different from elite instrumentalists.
Ok, i;m going to give it a try and see if the pick angle variation improves my alternate playing
stupidusername38 As Troy observes, this is one of the difficulties in trying to learn from a tape like Vinnie's "at face value". The "slow" technique displayed by Vinnie was employed by him for didactic purposes and almost certainly doesn't occur frequently in his own performance or practice. That is: Vinnie's slow demonstration is not truly representative of the technique he employs at high speed. He changes technique as he speeds up, whether he realizes it or not. And as Joe Satriani has observed (though he's better known for his legato playing), the picking attack required for fast alternate picking is not sonically desirable in all scenarios. So there are valid reasons for practicing picking techniques other than those necessary for fast alternate picking, we just need to be aware that those other techniques are separate from the movements required in fast alternate picking.
I think what insights like Troy's do is allow us to break down the atoms of what is happening at high speed, and if necessary, try to mimic those atoms at slower speed while we learn the movement.
But I also think the role of physical momentum and the small distances involved mean that the muscle activation in the fast version of the "optimal for high speed" movement will be necessarily at least somewhat different than the muscle activation when we slow the movement down to practice a slow version of the "optimal for high speed" movement. Think of snapping your fingers. Once you've learned to snap your fingers, it's a fast movement that comes easily, but even once you've learned to snap your fingers, it's surprisingly difficult to perform a "slow" finger snapping movement that faithfully replicates all the subtleties of the fast movement. And children typically don't learn to snap their fingers by perfecting a slow finger-snapping movement, then gradually speeding it up. They learn the basics of the movement (and maybe some heuristics about starting position and how it should feel), then they practice ad nauseam at "full speed" until they get it. While guitar picking is more complex in some respects, I think there are important conceptual similarities from a motor learning perspective.
The good thing about CZcams is, when he slows it down so u can really see what's happening, you can slow it down more to 0.25x on here to really! Know whats happening lol
great! thanks!
Really good
Gracias por traducirlo al español :)
I saw Al in 1980 and went out and bought an Ovation guitar with my life savings $650 but it never sounded like his😢
TAke my MONEY!
I'm not so sure about this.
I looked closely at the video.
3 minutes in... there is an old video of Al playing something which you disect.
Then you do a close video of the way you're playing it.
I see something that's NOT even close to the same.
Stevie Ray Vaughn described himself as a flat picker if I'm not mistaken.
He had good results of course.
I think maybe what Al was doing in this video is not the same as your own approach to the same thing.
In the video... the neck of AL's guitar is more or less dead level with the floor.
In your video, you have the neck held up high at near to 40 or 45 degrees.
Turning the pick on axis can be more than one thing of course.
If the pick is level to the floor and the neck is level to the floor, then the up and down strokes are changed accordingly for each note.
However...
That's not the same as angling the pick on a second axis.
If I then take my pick and turn it again due to the angle I'm holding the neck at... then it's a new style.
I'm not saying you're playing anything wrong, just that I'm not sure the video of all playing that riff is the same as what you're describing.
Hell I'm amazed I just sat here and typed all of this but I am pretty well lit.
Rum is a good thing at time.
It also in some instances makes me pay closer attention to tiny details I might have not noticed otherwise.
(Y)
If I'm wrong, then it's going to take work to prove it to me because what I see makes sense in my mind. lol
Maybe you should take another look though?
Just sayin is all.
Entirely different posture there.
Troy, have you ever seen or heard Adam Rogers play? He's got a very interesting right hand technique where he turns the pick so that downstrokes are hit with the right side of the pick and upstrokes with the left side, the opposite of what's traditionally done. It sounds incredibly fluid and it would be very interesting to see you break his technique down. I think you'd have to take into account the kind of pick he's using though as a Jazz III pick or any other kind of "shred pick" won't have the same mechanics as a D'andrea pro plec 1.5 mm (that's what he uses) when you turn it the way he does. Here's a good video with a closeup shot of his right and left hand if you're interested to at least check it out. /watch?v=M0wPHaKit9s
Steve Morse is another example of a player who plays downstrokes with the "bridge" edge of the pick, upstrokes with the "neck" edge.
severalpaperclips
From watching some Steve Morse clips I can't say that I can see him doing that, looks like the way he angles his pick is more like the "traditional" way of using the "bridge" edge of the pick for upstrokes and downstrokes with the "neck" edge like you called it. It just looks like he has less of an angle than most people. George Benson on the other hand is a player that's known for reversing the pick angle and that kind of picking has sometimes been called "The Benson Technique".
HlynurS You're right. I just looked back at some Steve Morse video and despite his unconventional grip, his pick angle never seems to go back past parallel, and also seems to be increasingly traditional on the higher pitched strings. Not sure how long I had the misperception. And yes, I'd agree George Benson is the definitive example of the "reversed" pick attack. I vaguely recall reading or hearing something about Paul Gilbert using a Benson style attack in the past, but changing because he found it was causing pain in his thumb.
severalpaperclips Yeah Steve Morse's picking technique looks kinda strange when you look at it because he's got such a unique style. I'm not really sure how he can be that accurate with this kind of technique as it looks like his hand is hopping all over the place, must be some kind of secret behind it. I've heard the same thing about Paul Gilbert, I think he mentioned it in an instructional video but I can't remember which one it was. Also I just remembered Shawn Lane who used to reverse his pick like that and he managed to play ultra fast lines with that kind of technique.
Adam Rogers, fantastic player! That's trailing edge picking that you're referring to. It's not really that unorthodox -- George Benson plays this way, Shawn Lane played this way. I started out this way when I was younger before switching to leading edge, which we talk about in the show. Edge picking in general is a key component of picking technique, and even though leading edge is more commonplace, the observation here is that most players use edge picking to some degree, however small. It's just very difficult to play fluidly when only the flat face of the pick contacts the string.
There is plenty of nice licks and techniques Troy could speak about in the "Wizard" track from A. Meola: czcams.com/video/6xcGg2QbVTU/video.html , at 3:39 Al comes with a nice repeating lick, and at 4:40 and on Al unleashes the fury!! :)
Zakk Wylde would be awesome for the pentatonic scale work presented in this video
The godfathers of shredding were probably Les Paul, Jimmy Bryant, and Django Reinhardt.
I love you
Fab
But...but...ok...
You do the upward slanting, the downward slanting, the finger-speed mechanic, the elbow mechanic, the rotation, the gypsy, the sweeping...and...how long did it take you to learn all these different styles...did you just obsess over each one until you had it...? None of your techniques seem to hinder the development or execution of the other ones...did you have to unlearn over and over...or just keep making modifications...? I get that you had a few 'aha' moments...but...sweet baby jesus... you seem to have EVERYONE'S technique down! LOL
jenniferlacex It sounds like you're referring to motion mechanics, i.e. the way the pick is moved back and forth. This DiMeola clip is really about string switching and pickslanting. The key thing to understand here is that the motion mechanic is not your picking technique, it's just one part of it. String switching is another. String tracking is another. And so on. But yes, as you point out, you can learn any number of motion mechanics, and there is massive learning advantage in doing so -- as there is in multi-sport athletics, being multilingual, and so on. This idea that similar things will somehow fight each other in your brain is a ridiculous superstition, and the exact opposite of what really happens.
***** Your outlook on guitar can be credited to your expanded cerebral cortical functioning.. Alot of people havent abstracted the guitar as you have.. So while your brain may see the songs + the instrument + the player's techniques.. As a whole.. Realize that the average brain learns their songs in minute parts.. Which is usually first and foremost the part that makes them feel good. Not the mechanics as she's describing.. Which i think she means when she's asking you what she's asking..
Ya, I think that's accurate for Akili to say. With Mastery comes perspective. At a certain point of aggregate knowledge one would discern the subtleties both differing and shared between an array of techniques and combinations thereof. I can see Troy's point that breakthroughs though specific in nature can lead to greater CONTEXTUAL comprehension and once a facility is acquired/realized, others - thought seemingly unrelated - may simply be seen as parts of the greater whole which was heretofore unseen as a result of focusing on the minutiae of one technique/aspect. I think we see this all the time in the playing and attitude of 'Masters', or those who have reached a certain facility which is rooted primarily in muscle memory. Often, we see these amazing players say "Nah, I don't practice that much." or "When I practice it's on writing, not so much playing."...and they've reached a level of ability to finally EXPRESS themselves the way they feel they want to. Others, say Petrucci, or maybe John 5 or even Morse, will say "I practice all the time"...or 'regularly'...and they are not simply invested in the ability to write what they want, but also the expansion and furtherance of said abilities to push their own limits - and maybe explore the limits of the instrument itself. We hear simplicity and patterns in ALMOST everyone's styles, Morse, Johnson, etc...and these are transitional devices between newer or more recently developed ideas. But someone like Van Halen has played like an master acrobat...and is so simple compared to some of these very advanced players...and yet his skill is in the combination of his rhythm and soloing skills and the overall flow in service of what is often a truly catchy SONG instead of a playing star-turn. The more I read Troy's answer and looked at the whole thing, the more clear it became that there isn't just a technique to grasp but an overall awareness of motion and timing - a greater contextual awareness of playing in general - within which all the techniques may be better understood. Perspective.
It’s nothing compared to gypsy rest stroke which takes years to develop. It’s like relearning the guitar
Wait! Paco de Lucia died?
awhile ago yea
弦に当るピックの角度が斜め過ぎて、弾くというよりも擦っているに近い。
そのやり方ではアル・ディ・メオラのような音のクリアさは出ない。
ディメオラのフレーズとは違う印象を受けた。
listen to some early country guitar players before these guys.
pretty good
Jamie Corbett Jimmy Bryant!
Don't forget tommy Tedesco
Troy, there's this video of Al DiMeola explaining his picking technique and saying that it's impossible for him to play a three-string singlenote lick with alternate picking.
I wonder if you can tell why that is and if - with your method - there would actually be a way of playing it. Check it out (at about 8:40): czcams.com/video/Q5QQXplG7sw/video.html#t=524
We have talked about this exact clip in the live Antigravity seminars. And the video you're looking at right here has the answer. Think about what he says. He doesn't say 1nps playing is impossible. He says something much more specific: "To think you can go from down here, and hit the middle string on an upstroke, it's impossible." So he says you cannot play a downstroke on the top string and then an upstroke on the middle string. Well, we know that's not impossible at all. Because right here in the descending sixes lick, he's doing it! And he's doing it super fast, perfectly clean, because he is using the correct pickslanting movements. And this is an important point. You really can't take these types of statements at face value because guys at Al's level play by feel, using natural athletic gifts that are one in a million. The best thing to do is look at the hand movements they actually use to understand what's really going on.
***** Good point!
Another thing I thought of today:
String hopping isn't just imprecise as you righteously point out here, the problem is really that it takes twice as many movements as alternate picking.
When you alternate pick you make one movement per note, just the pickstroke. But when you stringhop while changing strings you actually have to do two movements for each note: lift the pick above the string you just picked and then lower it back below to be able to catch the next one.
So when playing at your top speed you can actually only play half as fast with string hopping as you can while alternate picking on a single string because it takes twice as many movements. It's like trying to play the same line with downpicking only, which, when you try to do it as fast as you can alternate pick, will be sloppy as you say and mostly impossible.
Your work is really thought provoking. Keep it up, Troy :)
Fda Fdsa by the way, when's the next Cracking the Code episode coming out?
yes an amazing concert, but paco was not on his top, he was too young in the concert, didn't learn yet that exist musical theory so he was playing by ear on the concert.