Thanks for learning how to diagnose your pick slant with me! Click the link here to get access to the practice tracks, Guitar Pro files, and the 23 minute extended cut of this video! www.patreon.com/posts/79771378?
Hey Ben was wondering if you had any problems with swiping to the next note , because wrist extension iup stroke is not high enough? Hope that made sense .
Thank you Uncle Ben for this revealing insight. I'm 70 f'n years old and am left handed playing right handed. For 55+ years I never could play certain stuff because I couldn't pick it! Just trying to play Reelin' In The Years was an impossible task! I may finally solve at least some of my clumsiness thanks you your passing along this info. I'm forever indebted to you!
This is one of the best things you can do to advance your alternate picking the fastest. Realizing your natural strengths, and focusing on improving those first, will almost always result in having more confidence sooner. You can always go back and struggle through the other techniques later, once you've mastered your own style. I think alot of people try'n do too much, too soon, and this holds them back. For me , the most rewarding part of learning guitar is when I realize there's an easier way to do almost everything. It doesn't have to be a battle all the time!
I used to be a downward pick slanter for the first few years of my guitar playing, then after trying to play and master some Michael Angelo Batio and Dream Theater stuff, somehow I switched to upward pick slant. I only realized this after the fact, after watching Troy Grady's videos. There were things that I used to play easily before and were now much more difficult, and vice versa. Nowadays I try to incorporate both sometimes, but naturally I do lean on the upward pick slant if I'm not paying attention.
The level you're pitching to is way beyond my ability, but your explanation makes perfect sense and something I will keep on mind. Thanks, biological step dad.
I have been playing guitar for 30 years and this video changed my life. Thank you Ben... seriously... this taught me more about my strengths and WHY they work than any teacher.
I’ve been playing guitar for over 20 years, and this is the first time I’ve ever heard the idea to play riffs and licks to my dominant pick slanting method (downward like you). This is eye opening stuff Ben! I just picked up my guitar and went back to several licks that have always given me trouble…but this time I ended each string on an UP stroke. Instant improvement! Thank you for the highly detailed and informative video, like always! I’d call you Uncle Ben but we are the same age!
This absolutely blew my mind! I'm a downward pick slanter and I'm now gonna write riffs with 6nps and just in 10 mins of trying it I'm already seeing smoother faster licks coming out! This is so awesome! Thanks uncle Ben! ❤️🙏
I found Troy Grady a few years ago and it legitimately changed everything for me. I honestly don't think I would be where I am with music today if it wasn't for him. I know that probably sounds like a testimonial but I am genuinely so grateful to him and everyone who worked on CC.
Slight upward pick slant naturally but I use the motion of transitioning the pick slant within my playing. I got incredible gains in efficiency and accuracy from recognizing the motion and leaning into changing between them as needed. It’s really interesting how we are talking about movements on the order of fractions of a millimeter and timings on the order of 100ths of a second to get this all right.
This was a very enlightening video, Ben. Thank you. I've been playing a looong time and I can haul ass on ascending runs picking every note and using economy picking on string changes to the adjacent sting, but descending runs are not nearly as fluid and I have trouble economy picking with an upstroke. If you've never heard of the four levels of competence, go read about about. I have unconscious competence on ascending and conscious incompetence on descending runs, meaning going up is second nature and going down I have to concentrate to be decent. Descending runs will usually incorporate a combination of picking 2 notes and pulling off the third (down-up-pull, down-up-pull, etc). I'm obviously a downward pick-slant player, but I've been working on reducing the amount of slant. It seems like you only want enough slant to clear the current string, but catch the adjacent string with the next stroke. Playing to your strengths while you work on your weaknesses is great advice. Playing guitar is a lifetime of learning. I've never heard anyone else explain this all so concisely, so thank you, again.
I'm a DWPS for sure. UWPS just feels awkward to me, and slows me way down. May need to work on that a bit more to even out my picking speed. Great lesson, Ben!
I find it depends a lot on where the guitar sits on your body, as well as how you hold the pick. When I play on my left leg classical style, DWPS works pretty well for me but on the right leg or standing up with a longer strap, I somehow can't get my hand to feel comfortable without UWPS.
Wow, this was enlightening! I first started playing those runs without paying close attention to the marked picking directions. I found I naturally did economy picking at the turnarounds to get the picking direction realigned with what I'm naturally comfortable with... and I seem to always want to play downstrokes on the fifth fret, regardless of whether I'm ascending or descending. So, the first pattern was less comfortable descending, and the second was less comfortable ascending.
I fret with my left hand and pick with my Right... My Dad was Right Handed but I am Left Handed. So I had to learn playing guitar Right Handed when I started playing 40 years ago... I appreciate your picking techniques videos Ben.
the absolute best technical improvement that made my alternate picking come on leaps and bounds in a fairly short space of time was from watching a drum tuition video (yes i know, a totally different instrument), but the principles that i learnt are applicable to the guitar. Why? the simple reason is that like a snare drum head a guitar string also vibrates. It generates kinetic energy. If you grip your plectrum really tight that kinetic energy is transferred to your pick and you'll end up gripping the pick harder to fight the string. Don't do this! This is more exaggerated with drummers as the head of a snare or tom is a bigger surface. If you've ever played drums you'll find that if you hit the snare, the stick bounces back, that's the kinetic energy. You cannot fight against this otherwise over time you'll develop an injury (and kill the tone of the snare). Drummers are taught to hold the stick at the fulcrum point, which is literally balancing the stick with the thumb and the joint of the index finger. You'll notice a good drummer never grips the stick like a club, if he did the stick would not be able to move and all that kinetic energy would be absorbed by the hand/forearm. Its the same with the pick, you have to loosen up the grip , don't be rigid as that creates resistance against the string. Once i implemented a much more relaxed using less of the finger to hold the pick i found i got instant speed result as i was relaxed and not fighting against the string
Whoa! I recently changed my pick grip and in doing so was able to hold it looser. After that my alternate picking licks with two way pickslanting and picking in general took off. I guess what you're describing must have played a role in that. Thanks for the insight!
@@davidzamora9973 yeah it makes a big difference, being relaxed and letting the pick have slight movement each time you pick the string. You can still be as dynamic as you want. With a bit of practice you can gauge how much grip you need to ensure you don't drop the pick
@@stupidusername38yea, I'm also able to be way more dynamic now too! Before it was just loud. Now it's like I have a volume knob in my hand that wasn't there before.
thanks for that lesson i realize why i had a hard time coming up the pentatonic, is when my picking was switching since i wasn't doing 4 notes on the last string
So I never jumped on the pickslant bandwagon. Like I literally just never slanted my pick. Never had a problem with it. In fact when I tried slanting my pick I felt like it made me have more of a pick edge to play through and therefore required more follow through that I didn't want when I'm going for speed. So I actually hit the string pretty much flat and just follow it through. It may seem like a bad idea but I've never had a problem with it I just had to build up hand strength and speed over time. It seems to me though that if you're gonna pickslant you'd be better off changing your angle depending on the direction you're heading either up or down the strings that way you're adept at all patterns. Most shred licks I've seen don't bounce between different directions at fast speeds.
I am upward slant and this is the only way that makes sense. Because we need to mute upper strings with right hand but you cant do that if you are downward slant guy because your right hand gets lifted off the guitar string.
I wish I had had all this nerdy information when I was just starting out. I always had to figure out what was best for me starting a speedy lick on an up stroke or downstroke and I always felt like I was cheating because my friends who took lessons were doing specific alternate picking exercises and I was just trying to keep up. The resources new players have now are fantastic and I love the nerdy guitar mechanics broken down to a microscopic level. The video of Troy Grady and MAB is fascinating. Troy: How do you play that so fast MAB: You mean like this? I just do it like this. Then they put the clamp on and watching MAB’s hands in slow motion is proof of intelligent design. The dude has zero wasted motion and the human hand was “designed” to perform tasks like that.
Guess this explains why I could never get Mastodon riffs down. I knew that starting with an upstroke was easier for me but I always thought it was a shortcut that would result in shoddy technique further down the track.
What I've found out from these exercises is that I had the same top speed in both. Turns out I'm using both slants - upward pick slanting on the thick strings, downward pick slant on the thin strings, and neutral in the middle. It's like fan-shaped. The first exercise was difficult in one half of the strings, and easy on the other. The other exercise was the opposite. I've been wondering for so many years why I plateued my picking speed - turns out i didn't even have a consistent slant. So keep this in mind while doing the exercises - you can have both slants at the same time, as I did. Thanks alot for this vid!
That series opened my eyes and made me diagnose what the hell I do. Through the rabbit hole I learned I do Sarod picking when playing faster and Mustaine knife edge when doing rhythm, I didn't even know just felt right.
'Mustaine knife edge' please elaborate. I've never seen anyone really discuss Mustaine's picking. When it comes to thrash rhythm the topic is usually Hetfield and his three finger grip.
@@d0ysh464 Keep your finger straight across the bridge like a knife edge to mute your rhythm. Think Sweating Bullets chorus,Train of Consequences or watch live videos of Megadeth from the 90's. He talked about it in a early 90's guitar mag thats where I picked up the term from.
Great video! And agree that this stuff is a game changer. I’ve been a long time cracking the code subscriber (almost as long as I’ve subscribed to this channel). And it’s only recently that one learned that the “upward vs downward pick slant” terminology was actually working against my progress. This is because it’s the upward or downward escape of the pick trajectory when changing strings that matters. And one should set their pick slant according to the escape motion they naturally lean into. Which is why Troy Grady and Co. have changed the language they use on the site as well
Exactly. But I think the value of their insights is that certain kinds of phrases can only be played via certain escape motions, which are often made possible by a particular pick grip and slant. The Eric Johnson pentatonic 5s pattern can only be played using an upward escape motion using a downward pick slant. Part of my issue that was discovered using their magnet and technique critique feature, was that I was using a downward pick slant but my escape motion was too flat to make it work consistently. It required adjustments
Fun to have a study and definition to this detail of playing! Looks like I'm an uppy. I've found learning other people's solos often feels awkward and I rarely bother. Sometimes if I really want to play the part I'll make myself start with an upstroke so it snaps into place for me. I only play for fun anyway but it's cool to think about it in a left or right handed type of context. It makes so much sense!
I'm left handed but play standard guitar. I've tried all palm anchorings but the only way that worked for me is to NOT anchor! Like Michael Angelo Batio. His right hand wierd shape and slanting is the best for me! BTW thanks to your amazing stuff!
So, after some analysis, it turns out that I pick almost dead parallel, slanting very slightly up or down as needed. I suspect it is partly because of the way I hold the pick...in a flattened fist, and with only about 3mm of the pick tip exposed. Interesting stuff.
I keep my pick fairly straight, but #2 feels way more natural to me. What's funny is that I noticed years ago I tend to start a lot of lines with up strokes instead of downs. Uncle Ben right on the money.
Great lesson! The first song I ever wrote gave me a hard time playing it properly. Although it seemed to be quite simple there was one pattern, that droved me nuts until I came to the idea to invert the initial stroke. Boom, flawless! You "only" have to remember to start against your natural instinct. It still feels weird to this day, though.
Yeah, I’m a natural upward pick slanter. I always wondered why two notes on a string pentatonic ideas were nearly impossible at high speeds. So, I started all my two two note ideas with an upstroke and…..boom…..perfection.
for me the easiest way is to ups my way up the scale and dps down the scale with as much economy action as possible. i hope this means only good things! 😂 gotta love UA-cam, i've been playing for about a year now and i strated straight out of gate with all these excellent lessons and i think i've managed to achieve pretty nice and robust technique straight from beginning. i want to learn to ups and dps to both directions though! but it doesn't make sense to me to come back with ups in lick#1, because then i'd miss the economy turnaround at the high e string. so i just upward slant to there, turn around with economy motion to b string and continue going back towards low e using downward slanting. this is how i've practiced my scales and what not. i'm pretty impressed with myself if i may say 😂 gotta still learn probably to only use one or other, or maybe i should just do what uncle Ben says and play to my strengths and use the mixture of both slants and economy picking whenever i can. is there any downside to using only ups going from low e to high and vice versa? if there isn't i'm not gonna change anything 😂 i'm not fast at all yet btw, just getting some coordination to my hands. i can pick scales cleanishly doing 16th notes at 70bpm, and not so cleanly maybe 100 or 120 at max. but i think i got pretty solid foundation! I'm just made te decision to allocate the next decade of my life to only guitar playing and then i see if my skills are enough to work playing guitar or do i need to get a JOB. the job will be with music anyway though. but first i try to get in some music school here in finland, maybe in five years or so is my inital plan to git gud enough to apply. let see what the guitar brings to this mildly autistic nephew. you, uncle ben are one of the big inspirations in my journey and i cannot thank you enough. cheers from 🇫🇮🇫🇮🇫🇮!! ps. just threw a buck at you in the form of your patreon and am LLLOVING it!! your humour is just up my alley and you're a superb teacher. maybe i dare to take a snype lesson with you someday, but in the mean time i proceed to do less clicking, more picking. would love to see some feedback on my style of picking i just explained! but i get it if you can't, you got way too many nephews trying to get your attention. feedback from anybody is greatly appreciated :)
When I alternate pick, I turn the pick slightly sideways to increase speed, not sure of the angle though. I’ll have to run through the exercises and see which one I prefer.🤘🏻❤️🎶
I apparently do both, but the slanting is minimal. I saw the entire Troy Grady series a long time ago and tried to figure everything out. Too much of a slant just feels weird to me. I noticed that when I'm going low to high, I down-slant. When high to low, up slant. I have some nerve damage, so I learned to economy pick as much as possible. Because of that, an even number of notes per string and I couldn't do it at all. For the last year or so, I've been practicing strict alternate picking to try to overcome that limitation.
Awesome video. Thanks a lot. I didn't even know that... I also would like to know about some picking attack styles. Always wonder for example how Marty Friedman can be so good with such an awkward way to place his hand on the strings... Any video about this topic, please?
I hold my pick like a pencil and brace my pinky on the guitar. Most of the really fast guys seem to hold the pic in a fist-like position, (like you do), but if I don't brace with the pinky it's hard to stabilize my hand position. So I can only get moderately fast, but I've just sort of accepted that... I guess I'll be an above-average stepdad for the remainder of my life...
@@dannyspitzer1267 definitely not lol. I've never really been a super fast player. Always just kinda was the riff guy. Been focusing on lead playing and theory and techniques lately though because I'm seriously lacking in those areas. But guys like Ben Eller, and Bernth , and Marty and all the UA-cam guys definitely helped a lot. I can't shred with them boys yet, but my playing has improved significantly over the last couple years. Keep up the good fight brotha! 🤘🤘
Above-average step-dads unite! Hard as i try i cant get up the the super fast shred down, but thanks to Ben and some other guys the speed is picking up.
Michael Angelo Batio anchors his pinky ( it looks like he anchors his ring finger as well) and he plays very fast. I anchor my pinky for most of my playing but when I do fast runs I keep an open hand but lift my pinky off the guitar.
Hi Ben, I like to improvise solos over various backings and with a wide range of scales, and I can't pre organize my picking in these manners because I could think of so many ideas on the spot, so I simply use pendulum picking, also I like using fretting hand techniques because I like the sound of that and the variations I can get from that, and I also love the good old pentatonic scale as well, so what this amounts to in my playing is creativity, the ability to improvise over anything, and the ability to improvise in and of itself, but I have to admit that I am far from being the fastest player, but I do put in some sneaky fast phrases here and there, and with all of this said, I am not completely satisfied, I would like to be able to play faster things, however, that would really mean taking a whole lot of steps back in order to train myself to play in the manner that you are presenting here , also I am very familiar with Troy Grady and I understand all the concepts, what would your advice be to me, for my situation, thank you
Oh wow this is perfect I'm just now practicing better picking habits and I know my pick slant is not consistent. I'm an intermediate guitar player. Been getting fairly advanced at drums for the last 15 years now and I've been on guitar for last 5 years just doing fundamentals but just enough to be able to jam live with people doing basic things in time. My left hand is very coordinated but my picking hand is just basic right now. I find myself doing rudiments with my picking hand in up down variations. Lol it's helped me get better but it's created a bad habit in my mind as far as lacking creativity.
Nice work Ben, an important topic that no one covers :) When youtube guitar instructional vids became a thing, tring to improve/change my style after 20 years made my playing worse. Definiatly agree with work with your natural style even if it a mix of hammers, ecconomy and whatever else. Eg, I usualy only pick the first 2 notes per string and hammer/pull the 3rd on 3 note per string runs to aviod having to change pick slant
I've seen the video from Troy Grady about how Michael Angelo Batio alternates his pickslants in the middle of a lick to be able to do his machine like speed. Just amazing stuff
I'm a frontal slanting guy, I crush into the next string no matter what so I always play CHORDS when others play single notes so I'm great at campfires.
After much close looks, I ‘discovered’ Joe Bonamassa often switches from downward slanting to upward slanting, somewhere in the middle of his fast penta runs. It’s the moment where exclusive downslanters would do a double down, Joe keeps alternating, so the rest of his run is an upward pickslant party. It is almost invisible when you look at his picking hand, his ‘slanting’ is very subtle…
I've been working on Troy Grady's ideas for years. I've gotten to a point where all of your licks in this video are comfortable to play and not too difficult.
I'm mostly an upward-slanted picker but I will down-slant as well depending on what I'm doing.. I never thought about it back in the day, I just did whatever felt natural at the moment. I think being a drummer before I was a guitarist helped out with that. My fretting hand is another story, I focus on what it's doing more because my left-hand mobility is less-than-average due an injury I experienced at age 12.
I think you need both, just shredding through a regular 3 note per string scale needs both downward and upward escapes. So youll need to make sure you implement those so you dont get stuck inside of the strings. It will become more natural as you play.
Most players downward pickslant. I tend to naturally upslant and it's annoying to learn some licks (Mastodon licks like the final section of Megalodon are specially annoying). I ended up minimizing the slant so I can transition better when I need to (small rotations). On trem picking I end up smashing through the strings and muting everything so there's no noise (sort of like Mile High Shred does). I'll definitely need to try inverting the picking like you suggested.
Thirty years of playing and I've never understood why I find some techniques relatively effortless and others impossible. When a player of your calibre says what you did at 6:05, it all makes sense. This is the most useful UA-cam guitar video I've watched. Thank you, Uncle Ben! Also explains why I'm f***ing hopeless at playing Dream Theater tracks.
Am I the only one that is thinks upwards vs downwards labelling is backwards? For downwards, the tip of the pick is pointing upwards. I guess it's supposed to be relative to the non-pointy end of the pick, but that just seems weird to me. Oh well.
Upward sweeping comes easier than downward for me which suggests I'm naturally a UPS. However, recently I have been focusing on DPS and it feels like my brain has to concentrate a lot more. I think for me how I most comfortably hold the pick predetermines what type I am, as it would others. If I can get the DPS technique sorted I'm hoping it may give me more freedom on note choice. Great video Ben as always 👍
What worked for me was the first bar of lick #1 and the second bar of lick #2. The second bar of lick #1 and the first bar of lick #2 felt completely unnatural to me. I'm kind of confused :) Very interesting lesson!
I think I mainly use upward pick slanting when doing strick ulternate picking. However I use economy picking mixed with intermediate legato in almost all my guitar solos. I did try the 6 note per string down a scale and didn't have any trouble. I think I hyper compensate though so it don't sound laggy after that last up stroke. Something new to work on!
Upward pick-slanting seems to be the "left-handed" of guitar picking styles, with fewer people doing it, and most of the instructional material naturally (and unwittingly) biased against it. Thanks to Troy Grady, I discovered that I fall into the minority camp, which helped explain a lot, but your video helps explain even more, Ben! I hardly play the guitar these days, so never really was able to adapt or refine my picking subsequently. But being keen to pick it up again (see what I did there?), I wonder whether it's an opportunity to reinvent my picking technique in the majority fashion, or simply exploit decades of muscle memory and build on my current technique with new knowledge?
I was pretty confused over this but this is how I found out what I was - I elongated my stroke (pause for mom joke) and I noticed that when I did a downstroke, my pick was free of the next string, but when I did an upstroke, my pick hit the string above.
At this point, why not just directional pick? This pick slanting thing made me give up on alternate picking a d switch to directional picking But great content as always
I have a video I put out a while back about alternate versus economy picking. Long story short, alternate picking is just ALWAYS more groovy. Think about the time feel of Paul Gilbert (alternate) versus Eric Johnson (mixed economy).
@@BenEller for some reason I wasn't able to alternate pick very well Mainly because I had played only for like a month or two by then I started directional picking really eaely on so maybe that's why I feel absolutely comfortable with it I am guessing you did alternate picking as you were told by teachers since beginning and hence find it much more comfortable and groovy
@@BenEller lol I've played some paul gilbert and I directional picked everything Like stuff he played live in tokyo a couple of decades ago and some of his other stuff
@@hon8177 what? I don't exactly understand you Please elaborate Also if done properly, alternate and economic picking have no audible difference as prooved by a youtube channel howtopracticeguitar
@@hon8177 one thing I should mention, not sure if its relevant or not but when comparing stuff, record and hear them without knowing which one is which. Human perception is flawed
I ended up back here with Uncle Ben, after falling down a picking rabbit hole. I've been struggling for years to play Mastodon songs like Megalodon and Oblivion, specifically the 2-note-per-string alternate picking parts. I just realized I naturally pick with a slight upslant. This makes downpicking easy and tight (like your mom) but even-note-per-string runs nearly impossible (like your sister). Downward slanting just feels so awkward to me and I lose any speed or finesse with my picking when I try it. The best I can do is slightly roll my wrist to where the pick is perpendicular to the strings, but I still have the issue of grazing the string during the transition after an upstroke. This makes my Mastodon riffs sound sucky :-( Is there any hope for me? If you have a solid video about this issue on your patreon (and perhaps a way to solve it), it would be more than worth it for me.
Thanks for learning how to diagnose your pick slant with me! Click the link here to get access to the practice tracks, Guitar Pro files, and the 23 minute extended cut of this video! www.patreon.com/posts/79771378?
Micheal angelo batio
Hey Ben was wondering if you had any problems with swiping to the next note , because wrist extension iup stroke is not high enough? Hope that made sense .
Hey Ben. How do you feel about double pick escape motion? Troy did a vid on that. It's something I've noticed I use a whole lot.
Do you have a community that I can interact with if I become a patron?
“For more details, ask your mom.” That takes me back to your old videos 😂
😁
I miss that Uncle Ben.
@@gainbear8853 our uncle Ben is growing up. 🥲
Haha yup, classic Ben
I got 99 problems but the pinch ain't one
I asked my mum about what my right hand was best at. And she slapped me. Some mums just can't take a joke.
Thank you Uncle Ben for this revealing insight. I'm 70 f'n years old and am left handed playing right handed. For 55+ years I never could play certain stuff because I couldn't pick it! Just trying to play Reelin' In The Years was an impossible task! I may finally solve at least some of my clumsiness thanks you your passing along this info. I'm forever indebted to you!
This is one of the best things you can do to advance your alternate picking the fastest. Realizing your natural strengths, and focusing on improving those first, will almost always result in having more confidence sooner. You can always go back and struggle through the other techniques later, once you've mastered your own style. I think alot of people try'n do too much, too soon, and this holds them back. For me , the most rewarding part of learning guitar is when I realize there's an easier way to do almost everything. It doesn't have to be a battle all the time!
I used to be a downward pick slanter for the first few years of my guitar playing, then after trying to play and master some Michael Angelo Batio and Dream Theater stuff, somehow I switched to upward pick slant. I only realized this after the fact, after watching Troy Grady's videos. There were things that I used to play easily before and were now much more difficult, and vice versa. Nowadays I try to incorporate both sometimes, but naturally I do lean on the upward pick slant if I'm not paying attention.
The level you're pitching to is way beyond my ability, but your explanation makes perfect sense and something I will keep on mind. Thanks, biological step dad.
Love the Troy Grady stuff. I geeked out on it all pretty hard a few years back. I love these types of videos.
Glad you enjoyed!
I have been playing guitar for 30 years and this video changed my life. Thank you Ben... seriously... this taught me more about my strengths and WHY they work than any teacher.
I’m so glad to hear that!! Thanks!
My younger Uncle continue to educate his underachieving, older Nephew. Thanks for the great lessons!
I’ve been playing guitar for over 20 years, and this is the first time I’ve ever heard the idea to play riffs and licks to my dominant pick slanting method (downward like you). This is eye opening stuff Ben!
I just picked up my guitar and went back to several licks that have always given me trouble…but this time I ended each string on an UP stroke. Instant improvement!
Thank you for the highly detailed and informative video, like always! I’d call you Uncle Ben but we are the same age!
So happy to help!
This absolutely blew my mind! I'm a downward pick slanter and I'm now gonna write riffs with 6nps and just in 10 mins of trying it I'm already seeing smoother faster licks coming out! This is so awesome! Thanks uncle Ben! ❤️🙏
I found Troy Grady a few years ago and it legitimately changed everything for me. I honestly don't think I would be where I am with music today if it wasn't for him. I know that probably sounds like a testimonial but I am genuinely so grateful to him and everyone who worked on CC.
Great video!! Most guitarists you named are downward pick slanters... can you name a few that are upward pickslanters?
solid gold!!! Good job nephew Ben.
Thanks for making the video i have added several differenttypes of picking pratice many of the ones you show us
Slight upward pick slant naturally but I use the motion of transitioning the pick slant within my playing. I got incredible gains in efficiency and accuracy from recognizing the motion and leaning into changing between them as needed. It’s really interesting how we are talking about movements on the order of fractions of a millimeter and timings on the order of 100ths of a second to get this all right.
Top-shelf lesson and content, Ben!
Love the Batman shirt
This was a very enlightening video, Ben. Thank you. I've been playing a looong time and I can haul ass on ascending runs picking every note and using economy picking on string changes to the adjacent sting, but descending runs are not nearly as fluid and I have trouble economy picking with an upstroke. If you've never heard of the four levels of competence, go read about about. I have unconscious competence on ascending and conscious incompetence on descending runs, meaning going up is second nature and going down I have to concentrate to be decent. Descending runs will usually incorporate a combination of picking 2 notes and pulling off the third (down-up-pull, down-up-pull, etc). I'm obviously a downward pick-slant player, but I've been working on reducing the amount of slant. It seems like you only want enough slant to clear the current string, but catch the adjacent string with the next stroke. Playing to your strengths while you work on your weaknesses is great advice. Playing guitar is a lifetime of learning. I've never heard anyone else explain this all so concisely, so thank you, again.
I'm a DWPS for sure. UWPS just feels awkward to me, and slows me way down. May need to work on that a bit more to even out my picking speed. Great lesson, Ben!
I find it depends a lot on where the guitar sits on your body, as well as how you hold the pick. When I play on my left leg classical style, DWPS works pretty well for me but on the right leg or standing up with a longer strap, I somehow can't get my hand to feel comfortable without UWPS.
Great lesson! Thanks!
Wow, this was enlightening! I first started playing those runs without paying close attention to the marked picking directions. I found I naturally did economy picking at the turnarounds to get the picking direction realigned with what I'm naturally comfortable with... and I seem to always want to play downstrokes on the fifth fret, regardless of whether I'm ascending or descending. So, the first pattern was less comfortable descending, and the second was less comfortable ascending.
I fret with my left hand and pick with my Right... My Dad was Right Handed but I am Left Handed. So I had to learn playing guitar Right Handed when I started playing 40 years ago... I appreciate your picking techniques videos Ben.
Weekend so good it starts on Thursday! Thanks Uncle Ben :)
I finally learned today why I suck at guitar, thinking I naturally played downward pickslanted when I wasn't. Thanks Uncle Ben
the absolute best technical improvement that made my alternate picking come on leaps and bounds in a fairly short space of time was from watching a drum tuition video (yes i know, a totally different instrument), but the principles that i learnt are applicable to the guitar. Why? the simple reason is that like a snare drum head a guitar string also vibrates. It generates kinetic energy. If you grip your plectrum really tight that kinetic energy is transferred to your pick and you'll end up gripping the pick harder to fight the string. Don't do this!
This is more exaggerated with drummers as the head of a snare or tom is a bigger surface. If you've ever played drums you'll find that if you hit the snare, the stick bounces back, that's the kinetic energy. You cannot fight against this otherwise over time you'll develop an injury (and kill the tone of the snare). Drummers are taught to hold the stick at the fulcrum point, which is literally balancing the stick with the thumb and the joint of the index finger. You'll notice a good drummer never grips the stick like a club, if he did the stick would not be able to move and all that kinetic energy would be absorbed by the hand/forearm. Its the same with the pick, you have to loosen up the grip , don't be rigid as that creates resistance against the string. Once i implemented a much more relaxed using less of the finger to hold the pick i found i got instant speed result as i was relaxed and not fighting against the string
Whoa! I recently changed my pick grip and in doing so was able to hold it looser. After that my alternate picking licks with two way pickslanting and picking in general took off. I guess what you're describing must have played a role in that. Thanks for the insight!
@@davidzamora9973 yeah it makes a big difference, being relaxed and letting the pick have slight movement each time you pick the string. You can still be as dynamic as you want. With a bit of practice you can gauge how much grip you need to ensure you don't drop the pick
@@stupidusername38yea, I'm also able to be way more dynamic now too! Before it was just loud. Now it's like I have a volume knob in my hand that wasn't there before.
thanks for that lesson i realize why i had a hard time coming up the pentatonic, is when my picking was switching since i wasn't doing 4 notes on the last string
So I never jumped on the pickslant bandwagon. Like I literally just never slanted my pick. Never had a problem with it. In fact when I tried slanting my pick I felt like it made me have more of a pick edge to play through and therefore required more follow through that I didn't want when I'm going for speed. So I actually hit the string pretty much flat and just follow it through. It may seem like a bad idea but I've never had a problem with it I just had to build up hand strength and speed over time. It seems to me though that if you're gonna pickslant you'd be better off changing your angle depending on the direction you're heading either up or down the strings that way you're adept at all patterns. Most shred licks I've seen don't bounce between different directions at fast speeds.
I am upward slant and this is the only way that makes sense. Because we need to mute upper strings with right hand but you cant do that if you are downward slant guy because your right hand gets lifted off the guitar string.
Dude, you just completely changed the game for me.
Great topic Uncle Ben!
Glad you liked it!
I wish I had had all this nerdy information when I was just starting out. I always had to figure out what was best for me starting a speedy lick on an up stroke or downstroke and I always felt like I was cheating because my friends who took lessons were doing specific alternate picking exercises and I was just trying to keep up. The resources new players have now are fantastic and I love the nerdy guitar mechanics broken down to a microscopic level. The video of Troy Grady and MAB is fascinating.
Troy: How do you play that so fast
MAB: You mean like this? I just do it like this.
Then they put the clamp on and watching MAB’s hands in slow motion is proof of intelligent design. The dude has zero wasted motion and the human hand was “designed” to perform tasks like that.
Uncle Ben does not miss
Man what a video, thanks for the help uncle ben! :)
Happy to help!
Nobody is talking about how beautiful that Minotaur is, and it is criminal. CRIMINAL. Thanks for the tips, Ben.
Thank you! I love it!
Guess this explains why I could never get Mastodon riffs down. I knew that starting with an upstroke was easier for me but I always thought it was a shortcut that would result in shoddy technique further down the track.
What I've found out from these exercises is that I had the same top speed in both.
Turns out I'm using both slants - upward pick slanting on the thick strings, downward pick slant on the thin strings, and neutral in the middle. It's like fan-shaped.
The first exercise was difficult in one half of the strings, and easy on the other. The other exercise was the opposite.
I've been wondering for so many years why I plateued my picking speed - turns out i didn't even have a consistent slant.
So keep this in mind while doing the exercises - you can have both slants at the same time, as I did.
Thanks alot for this vid!
Very nice! That's really what i was looking for... Thanks!!
That series opened my eyes and made me diagnose what the hell I do. Through the rabbit hole I learned I do Sarod picking when playing faster and Mustaine knife edge when doing rhythm, I didn't even know just felt right.
'Mustaine knife edge' please elaborate. I've never seen anyone really discuss Mustaine's picking. When it comes to thrash rhythm the topic is usually Hetfield and his three finger grip.
@@d0ysh464 Keep your finger straight across the bridge like a knife edge to mute your rhythm. Think Sweating Bullets chorus,Train of Consequences or watch live videos of Megadeth from the 90's. He talked about it in a early 90's guitar mag thats where I picked up the term from.
Pinky and Ring finger across the bridge not rigidly but like an edge to mute strings... to clarify further...sorry Im high..
@@Custom6string Gotcha. Thanks.
Love Ya, Uncle Ben!!👍
Great video! And agree that this stuff is a game changer. I’ve been a long time cracking the code subscriber (almost as long as I’ve subscribed to this channel). And it’s only recently that one learned that the “upward vs downward pick slant” terminology was actually working against my progress. This is because it’s the upward or downward escape of the pick trajectory when changing strings that matters. And one should set their pick slant according to the escape motion they naturally lean into. Which is why Troy Grady and Co. have changed the language they use on the site as well
Exactly. But I think the value of their insights is that certain kinds of phrases can only be played via certain escape motions, which are often made possible by a particular pick grip and slant. The Eric Johnson pentatonic 5s pattern can only be played using an upward escape motion using a downward pick slant. Part of my issue that was discovered using their magnet and technique critique feature, was that I was using a downward pick slant but my escape motion was too flat to make it work consistently. It required adjustments
Fun to have a study and definition to this detail of playing! Looks like I'm an uppy. I've found learning other people's solos often feels awkward and I rarely bother. Sometimes if I really want to play the part I'll make myself start with an upstroke so it snaps into place for me. I only play for fun anyway but it's cool to think about it in a left or right handed type of context. It makes so much sense!
I'm an upward pick slanter too. It's really limiting. Needing to change strings on an odd note is not rhythmically convenient.
Heretic.
@@JediCrackSmoke Nothing new
Upward for me, when I try downward my wrist seems to lock up and lose all speed. Great intro as always Uncle Ben;-)
Same here its hard to get it when been playing certain way for years I've been plying on off for 20 + yers
Playing to your strengths is a good mindset to have for everything in life. You can't have it all.
I'm left handed but play standard guitar. I've tried all palm anchorings but the only way that worked for me is to NOT anchor! Like Michael Angelo Batio. His right hand wierd shape and slanting is the best for me!
BTW thanks to your amazing stuff!
This lesson is gold!
So, after some analysis, it turns out that I pick almost dead parallel, slanting very slightly up or down as needed. I suspect it is partly because of the way I hold the pick...in a flattened fist, and with only about 3mm of the pick tip exposed. Interesting stuff.
Yes, I'm a natural ambi dexterous... I suck at both.
I'm also ambi disaterous
I keep my pick fairly straight, but #2 feels way more natural to me. What's funny is that I noticed years ago I tend to start a lot of lines with up strokes instead of downs. Uncle Ben right on the money.
Thanks Ben. SG shape is my bag and now I need the Dunable ...
Any other sexy 3rd party SGs? Haha
Super helpful vid, as usual Ben!
Great lesson! The first song I ever wrote gave me a hard time playing it properly. Although it seemed to be quite simple there was one pattern, that droved me nuts until I came to the idea to invert the initial stroke. Boom, flawless! You "only" have to remember to start against your natural instinct. It still feels weird to this day, though.
Mine slants down and I always thought it was straight until now
Uncle Ben wearing a Batman shirt is all I need right now
Upward pickslant heathen rise up!
Yeah, I’m a natural upward pick slanter. I always wondered why two notes on a string pentatonic ideas were nearly impossible at high speeds. So, I started all my two two note ideas with an upstroke and…..boom…..perfection.
Really digging that Guitar your using. 👊😎
Great videos!
for me the easiest way is to ups my way up the scale and dps down the scale with as much economy action as possible. i hope this means only good things! 😂 gotta love UA-cam, i've been playing for about a year now and i strated straight out of gate with all these excellent lessons and i think i've managed to achieve pretty nice and robust technique straight from beginning. i want to learn to ups and dps to both directions though! but it doesn't make sense to me to come back with ups in lick#1, because then i'd miss the economy turnaround at the high e string. so i just upward slant to there, turn around with economy motion to b string and continue going back towards low e using downward slanting. this is how i've practiced my scales and what not. i'm pretty impressed with myself if i may say 😂 gotta still learn probably to only use one or other, or maybe i should just do what uncle Ben says and play to my strengths and use the mixture of both slants and economy picking whenever i can. is there any downside to using only ups going from low e to high and vice versa? if there isn't i'm not gonna change anything 😂
i'm not fast at all yet btw, just getting some coordination to my hands. i can pick scales cleanishly doing 16th notes at 70bpm, and not so cleanly maybe 100 or 120 at max. but i think i got pretty solid foundation! I'm just made te decision to allocate the next decade of my life to only guitar playing and then i see if my skills are enough to work playing guitar or do i need to get a JOB. the job will be with music anyway though. but first i try to get in some music school here in finland, maybe in five years or so is my inital plan to git gud enough to apply. let see what the guitar brings to this mildly autistic nephew. you, uncle ben are one of the big inspirations in my journey and i cannot thank you enough. cheers from 🇫🇮🇫🇮🇫🇮!!
ps. just threw a buck at you in the form of your patreon and am LLLOVING it!! your humour is just up my alley and you're a superb teacher. maybe i dare to take a snype lesson with you someday, but in the mean time i proceed to do less clicking, more picking. would love to see some feedback on my style of picking i just explained! but i get it if you can't, you got way too many nephews trying to get your attention. feedback from anybody is greatly appreciated :)
Very practical advice, though it does involve compromising what you choose to play.
When I alternate pick, I turn the pick slightly sideways to increase speed, not sure of the angle though. I’ll have to run through the exercises and see which one I prefer.🤘🏻❤️🎶
I apparently do both, but the slanting is minimal. I saw the entire Troy Grady series a long time ago and tried to figure everything out. Too much of a slant just feels weird to me. I noticed that when I'm going low to high, I down-slant. When high to low, up slant. I have some nerve damage, so I learned to economy pick as much as possible. Because of that, an even number of notes per string and I couldn't do it at all. For the last year or so, I've been practicing strict alternate picking to try to overcome that limitation.
Damn !!! That guitar is beautiful 😍
Awesome lesson!!
Thanks! 😃
Awesome video. Thanks a lot. I didn't even know that... I also would like to know about some picking attack styles. Always wonder for example how Marty Friedman can be so good with such an awkward way to place his hand on the strings... Any video about this topic, please?
I hold my pick like a pencil and brace my pinky on the guitar. Most of the really fast guys seem to hold the pic in a fist-like position, (like you do), but if I don't brace with the pinky it's hard to stabilize my hand position. So I can only get moderately fast, but I've just sort of accepted that... I guess I'll be an above-average stepdad for the remainder of my life...
Same
@@buddhabillypresents4006 glad I'm not alone
@@dannyspitzer1267 definitely not lol. I've never really been a super fast player. Always just kinda was the riff guy. Been focusing on lead playing and theory and techniques lately though because I'm seriously lacking in those areas. But guys like Ben Eller, and Bernth , and Marty and all the UA-cam guys definitely helped a lot. I can't shred with them boys yet, but my playing has improved significantly over the last couple years.
Keep up the good fight brotha! 🤘🤘
Above-average step-dads unite! Hard as i try i cant get up the the super fast shred down, but thanks to Ben and some other guys the speed is picking up.
Michael Angelo Batio anchors his pinky ( it looks like he anchors his ring finger as well) and he plays very fast. I anchor my pinky for most of my playing but when I do fast runs I keep an open hand but lift my pinky off the guitar.
Cool video. Thanks for sharing!
Hi Ben, I like to improvise solos over various backings and with a wide range of scales, and I can't pre organize my picking in these manners because I could think of so many ideas on the spot, so I simply use pendulum picking, also I like using fretting hand techniques because I like the sound of that and the variations I can get from that, and I also love the good old pentatonic scale as well, so what this amounts to in my playing is creativity, the ability to improvise over anything, and the ability to improvise in and of itself, but I have to admit that I am far from being the fastest player, but I do put in some sneaky fast phrases here and there, and with all of this said, I am not completely satisfied, I would like to be able to play faster things, however, that would really mean taking a whole lot of steps back in order to train myself to play in the manner that you are presenting here , also I am very familiar with Troy Grady and I understand all the concepts, what would your advice be to me, for my situation, thank you
Oh wow this is perfect I'm just now practicing better picking habits and I know my pick slant is not consistent. I'm an intermediate guitar player. Been getting fairly advanced at drums for the last 15 years now and I've been on guitar for last 5 years just doing fundamentals but just enough to be able to jam live with people doing basic things in time. My left hand is very coordinated but my picking hand is just basic right now. I find myself doing rudiments with my picking hand in up down variations. Lol it's helped me get better but it's created a bad habit in my mind as far as lacking creativity.
Nice work Ben, an important topic that no one covers :) When youtube guitar instructional vids became a thing, tring to improve/change my style after 20 years made my playing worse. Definiatly agree with work with your natural style even if it a mix of hammers, ecconomy and whatever else. Eg, I usualy only pick the first 2 notes per string and hammer/pull the 3rd on 3 note per string runs to aviod having to change pick slant
I've seen the video from Troy Grady about how Michael Angelo Batio alternates his pickslants in the middle of a lick to be able to do his machine like speed. Just amazing stuff
I'm a frontal slanting guy, I crush into the next string no matter what so I always play CHORDS when others play single notes so I'm great at campfires.
Mmm yes I agree as I wear my kimono lol I like these videos
After much close looks, I ‘discovered’ Joe Bonamassa often switches from downward slanting to upward slanting, somewhere in the middle of his fast penta runs. It’s the moment where exclusive downslanters would do a double down, Joe keeps alternating, so the rest of his run is an upward pickslant party. It is almost invisible when you look at his picking hand, his ‘slanting’ is very subtle…
It looks and sounds awesome, Ben! Nice video! 🙂🤘
I've been working on Troy Grady's ideas for years. I've gotten to a point where all of your licks in this video are comfortable to play and not too difficult.
You had me at block inlays
I'm mostly an upward-slanted picker but I will down-slant as well depending on what I'm doing.. I never thought about it back in the day, I just did whatever felt natural at the moment. I think being a drummer before I was a guitarist helped out with that.
My fretting hand is another story, I focus on what it's doing more because my left-hand mobility is less-than-average due an injury I experienced at age 12.
I think you need both, just shredding through a regular 3 note per string scale needs both downward and upward escapes. So youll need to make sure you implement those so you dont get stuck inside of the strings. It will become more natural as you play.
Most players downward pickslant. I tend to naturally upslant and it's annoying to learn some licks (Mastodon licks like the final section of Megalodon are specially annoying). I ended up minimizing the slant so I can transition better when I need to (small rotations). On trem picking I end up smashing through the strings and muting everything so there's no noise (sort of like Mile High Shred does). I'll definitely need to try inverting the picking like you suggested.
Thirty years of playing and I've never understood why I find some techniques relatively effortless and others impossible. When a player of your calibre says what you did at 6:05, it all makes sense. This is the most useful UA-cam guitar video I've watched. Thank you, Uncle Ben! Also explains why I'm f***ing hopeless at playing Dream Theater tracks.
Thanks so much for watching!
His Yngwie tutorial is incredible
Am I the only one that is thinks upwards vs downwards labelling is backwards? For downwards, the tip of the pick is pointing upwards. I guess it's supposed to be relative to the non-pointy end of the pick, but that just seems weird to me. Oh well.
Upward sweeping comes easier than downward for me which suggests I'm naturally a UPS. However, recently I have been focusing on DPS and it feels like my brain has to concentrate a lot more. I think for me how I most comfortably hold the pick predetermines what type I am, as it would others. If I can get the DPS technique sorted I'm hoping it may give me more freedom on note choice. Great video Ben as always 👍
What worked for me was the first bar of lick #1 and the second bar of lick #2. The second bar of lick #1 and the first bar of lick #2 felt completely unnatural to me. I'm kind of confused :) Very interesting lesson!
I think I mainly use upward pick slanting when doing strick ulternate picking. However I use economy picking mixed with intermediate legato in almost all my guitar solos. I did try the 6 note per string down a scale and didn't have any trouble. I think I hyper compensate though so it don't sound laggy after that last up stroke. Something new to work on!
Wait a minute I gotta slow this bad boy down to great grandpa speed lol
Upward pick-slanting seems to be the "left-handed" of guitar picking styles, with fewer people doing it, and most of the instructional material naturally (and unwittingly) biased against it. Thanks to Troy Grady, I discovered that I fall into the minority camp, which helped explain a lot, but your video helps explain even more, Ben! I hardly play the guitar these days, so never really was able to adapt or refine my picking subsequently. But being keen to pick it up again (see what I did there?), I wonder whether it's an opportunity to reinvent my picking technique in the majority fashion, or simply exploit decades of muscle memory and build on my current technique with new knowledge?
man that intro animation just never gets old
Great video!
So true...I had the same reaction when I finally discovered the honest to god best guitar learning experience in the world 😁
When's that Diezel video coming, unkle Ben? 🥹
Is it wrong that i just burst into an Irish Jig listening to that!
I was pretty confused over this but this is how I found out what I was - I elongated my stroke (pause for mom joke) and I noticed that when I did a downstroke, my pick was free of the next string, but when I did an upstroke, my pick hit the string above.
I took lessons from Nick Bowcott at Sweetwater. He gave me some great advice. Don't waste time learning techniques you will never use in your playing.
At this point, why not just directional pick? This pick slanting thing made me give up on alternate picking a d switch to directional picking
But great content as always
I have a video I put out a while back about alternate versus economy picking. Long story short, alternate picking is just ALWAYS more groovy. Think about the time feel of Paul Gilbert (alternate) versus Eric Johnson (mixed economy).
@@BenEller for some reason I wasn't able to alternate pick very well
Mainly because I had played only for like a month or two by then
I started directional picking really eaely on so maybe that's why I feel absolutely comfortable with it
I am guessing you did alternate picking as you were told by teachers since beginning and hence find it much more comfortable and groovy
@@BenEller lol I've played some paul gilbert and I directional picked everything
Like stuff he played live in tokyo a couple of decades ago and some of his other stuff
@@hon8177 what? I don't exactly understand you
Please elaborate
Also if done properly, alternate and economic picking have no audible difference as prooved by a youtube channel howtopracticeguitar
@@hon8177 one thing I should mention, not sure if its relevant or not but when comparing stuff, record and hear them without knowing which one is which. Human perception is flawed
I ended up back here with Uncle Ben, after falling down a picking rabbit hole. I've been struggling for years to play Mastodon songs like Megalodon and Oblivion, specifically the 2-note-per-string alternate picking parts. I just realized I naturally pick with a slight upslant. This makes downpicking easy and tight (like your mom) but even-note-per-string runs nearly impossible (like your sister).
Downward slanting just feels so awkward to me and I lose any speed or finesse with my picking when I try it. The best I can do is slightly roll my wrist to where the pick is perpendicular to the strings, but I still have the issue of grazing the string during the transition after an upstroke. This makes my Mastodon riffs sound sucky :-( Is there any hope for me?
If you have a solid video about this issue on your patreon (and perhaps a way to solve it), it would be more than worth it for me.
New to your channel. Excellent!
Master!