Test Drive Van Halen-Style Wrist Motion!
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- Опубліковано 17 січ 2021
- NOTE: This lesson is about Eddie's wrist technique, i.e. hand motion, not his wonderful rotating forearm motion technique! We cover that in a separate lesson in the Pickslanting Primer. Sorry for the confusion.
The master may have left us too soon, but his gifts will live forever in the incredible techniques he pioneered. In this lesson, we take a look at Eddie's virtuoso command of wrist technique. Long considered unorthodox, Eddie's style of wrist motion is actually quite common in everyday activities, and comfortable to perform on a guitar. It's easy to test using this simple table-top experiment. Grab a pen and a metronome, and get ready to Eddie! For more hands-on tutorials like this, check out our awesome new Pickslanting Primer update, "Testing Your Motions": troygrady.com/primer/testing-y...
Still not ready to talk about HIM in the past tense.
❤️❤️❤️
I noticed and thought it was strange, but reading this, you’re so right.
I think the important thing is to talk about him in any tense, and this is a great way to remember his genius.
Same here Troy! Ditto for Neil Peart :(
We are all together in this brother. Take care ❤
Anyone else just randomly flailing their right hand in the air right now?
Are you watching me ? :)
I'm left-handed.
In the air like you don’t care.
I read this while doing it😂
I scribbled all over my table trying to keep up with 220ppm lol
Amazing wrist technique at 5mins, 43. where Eddie reaches for his cigarette.
P.S - no disrespect! (I hope he would've liked that humour)
@r o g e r Haha, I don't know how! I'm not that advanced.
I love seeing these different methods. When I first started watching these videos of different styles I thought "riiight, so all I've learned is that you can make it work for you a lot of different ways. There is no one way." But as I spent more time with these and played around with them, I've realized that while it's true there are many ways to skin the proverbial cat, most of us learned one way and never even thought to TRY a different method, no matter how silly it seemed or looked. So thanks for inspiration to break outside the box and continue making the right hand picking method a journey!
That's true. If anything, there are so many right ways that it's not obvious how each of them work, and why some of them include different arm positions and grips. When people come to us who are stuck with a technique that really *doesn't* work, trying another way is really the only solution.
Troy, your vids are just awsome, you and your unique lessons/guests/ camera angles have brought playing on no end, thanks bro.
Live Without A Net! On repeat through my childhood :) Love Eddies tone and playing on that
It was a pretty good representation of his technique. The bits and pieces of the seventies stuff that we see coming out on 16mm are mind blowing, it would have been cool to see better footage of that. First stop in the DeLorean at 88mph...
@@troygrady Yes i have some of that early stuff on VHS. Stellar!
Finally a follow up video to this. Thank you so much, Troy!
Your research and ways of explaining are unparalleled.
Bow down to you.
Nobody should be bowing to Cracking the Code, though we may all bow to Eddie! I will permit that. :)
Most amazing stuff as always; improved hugely as a player and guitar teacher, thanks to this channel.
missed you Troy, glad you are back!
Was just looking at your last upload and wondering when we’d see another. Great stuff
another great video. I started really taking guitar seriously about a year ago, and your videos have definitely sped up the process of learning these much harder licks
Thats the hope. Glad to hear you're making progress.
This guy is the bomb for teaching speed! This technique really clicked with me and the trick to get the feel by scratching against a table was something I hadn’t even considered before. My goal is to play the Bark at the Moon solo and this has just unlocked getting up to speed for me.
Right on. If you can do it on a table, you can definitely do it on a guitar with some experimentation!
I think if Eddie were here he would say, do it in whatever way gets you to where you want to go. His whole thing was doing things his way. It's like the old adage that says "If you take the same road every day you'll never get to a different destination".
Cool analysis, its fun to see these techniques dissected so well. Thanks
New Troy Grady always makes the day better!
I really do have a tremendous amount of respect for the fact that you’d devote yourself to systematizing our understanding of picking technique. ✌️
Absolutely revolutionary!!! a genuis! a virtuoso! a game changer!! Technically the most innovator!! Mr Eddie Van Halen!
Thank you for give us this important master class of one of his techniques,!!
Finally, someone on UA-cam that is showing the correct way it’s done! Thank you, man!
I like the Cornford head in the background! I bought one of the first ones ever many years ago.... it looked so cool!
Good to see you again Troy! I miss Ed and RR.
Siempre aprendiendo en tu canal... Thanks Troy.
Eddie used his middle finger and thump to pick so his index finger could do hammer on etc. I saw him live at the stage many times being 60 now he was number 1 for me
Later on in his playing. This is a bad habit to start out with. Ed played like this before all the finger tapping.
OMG this is so eye opening. Thank you! Always thought that was weird, now I'm actually working on it!
Your analysis is out of this world. It's like watching a genius, analyze another genius, and making it feel much more understandable for us viewers. The next step, though, is for us to put all the learnings to action. 😁👌
The table is potential a help in that regard. If you can do the motion on a desk, and it feels easy, you can definitely do it just as easily on a guitar. The trick is if it doesn't feel easy at first, then you know it's not your lack of capability, it's just that you're not doing it the same way you were on the table, and that more experimentation is necessary. Test, and test again!
@@troygrady so maybe that's why it's a struggle. I write using my left hand, but picks the guitar with my right. I may have to work on my right hand as if I'm writing on a table.
Thanks.
When I was a young guitar player back in the eighties I suspected there was something about his picking technique that made him sound so good...but I never sorted out the details.
I love YT vids like this. Nowadays, all the guitar players are putting this stuff together. 👍
For sure, back in the day, good information was super hard to come by. The fact that those players got as far as they did without resources like this only makes their achievements that much more magical.
Eddie made great music with his technique these days many new players just have the technique its always about the music
It’s about time Troy!!
Great video as always.
....I am so ready to get my "Magnet"....can't wait...the excitement is killing me...Great stuff as always Troy!
Eddie really was one of the greatest guitarists of all time (One of the 1st along with with Brian May who made me curious of the electric guitar). Like Hendrix he influenced everybody after him and yet has many inimitable features. Some of his techniques were I suppose unorthodox to a lot of shred guitar guidelines and yet these mannerisms and the context in which he employed them gave him an edge over everybody else. So thankful to see a video on his unique picking motion, I think being a great rhythm guitarist as well, his hand position killed many birds with one stone. Though I like shred guitar there does come a moment where it gets gimmicky with most players, but Van Halen made everything work in some way, he hardly bores me. Everything has attitude, sufficient flair and is in some way song oriented without sounding like a lifeless exercise.
After 4 months , finally new vid
Wow he finally decides to post up a Video. Good to see you again Troy! I hold my pick just like Eddie.
You are a brilliant presenter, Troy!
Welcome back master!
Well done.
So cool to see the science behind this. I remember wondering how the heck he held his pick like that. 💡
Thumb & Middle finger - like scribbling on paper. Genius. You, and of course him👑
You're my favorite guitar youtuber
For all of the (now) typical YT video language - starting w/ some storytelling, then some plz subscribe, n then some teenager jokes n only after some tiring minute or so there starts what may or may not be what I wanted to see -, this video (as are a lot from yours) is completely shocking. one minute on and I had already gained a very specific and well packaged insight. thanks as always.
That’s the plan! We’ve been working on trying to get to the point:
That was an interesting video - focusing on something that's often overlooked..
Wow amazing!
Troy, i wonder how old were you, when you started playing guitar? An interesting thing i've noticed throughout your videos is that you are able to learn basically all the motions that you show us and push them to a level of mastery. And this fact is extremely inspiring, because you're able to master these new complicated motions at a reasonably mature age. This also leads to a question how old were you, when you got your basic shreddy speedy chops? Hope, my English is not too bad :)
I had some ability as a teenager but didn’t make the first discovery about clean string changes until college which was 20 or so. Had I watched our videos when I was 14 I would have been way way ahead of where I am now. So I wouldn’t worry about age at all it’s a small factor compared to knowledge.
@@troygrady how do you practice each technique till mastery though ?
@@troygrady I think there are many guys in their 20's, who are really concerned about getting the technique. We see almost no late bloomers among the greatest players. Thank you for the answer and for a great chanell!
@@nigel5634 The hardest part is not "practice", it's figuring out how the techniques work. This is done mainy through trial and error and making many casual attempts to do something, like riding a skateboard or a bike. Most of what people casually call guitar "practice" is really trying to learn new physical techniques, and that process should always be approached with the mentality of doing a trick, and trying to get it right, through many short attempts. That's how you learned every other physical motion in life, so that's how you learn guitar motions.
yes, all good points. At a glance I would say, however, this looks and sounds cleaner than other things he's tried. Nice work 👍
Awesome Mustang, always good to see one in action. Competition blue
It's a classic!
Holy shit. You've done so much to articulate the mechanics of pick technique here visually your jargon is perfect. I can take this and show it to my physical therapist so he can appreciate the physicalitity of what I do as a musician as I rehabilitate my elbow. Perhaps examining your videos further in conjunction to physio will help me unlearn some habits
Very interesting. Thanks
Great work. 🤘🤘
Happy new year dude
Love that fender u got
It's a classic!
GREAT video Troy!!! I remember seeing that exact footage from Live Without a Net in 1988 when i was about 11 yo. My friend was obsessed and turned me on to EVH. 32 years later and I still can’t pick that way!!! I just can’t float my hand like that!
It sounds like you’re referring to Eddie’s tremolo which is a forearm technique. The motion we’re looking at here is anchored, on the bridge, and uses wrist motion - just like the table top scribbling.
@@troygrady thanks, Troy. You’re exactly right. I find both to be very challenging, the tremolo in particular! Thanks again for a great video.
The idea behind the pen scribbling test is that it is a motion most people already can do pretty well. Have you tried it, and is it comfortable? If so, then it shouldn't be any harder on a guitar - that feeling of easyness is what you're looking for, and the trick is to keep trying slightly different approaches until it feels easy like the table version.
For what it’s worth, I’ve always held my pick the same way as Eddie since I started playing, with pointer and middle finger. Even before I discovered Eddie. Just felt comfortable to me. All the teachers tried to get me to hold the pick normally, never happened haha. I even do eddies “fly picking” when tremolo picking. When I eventually did discover Eddie, all bets were off haha
Very cool insight as to what is kinda happening.
Also, Eddie held the pick that way, so he could tap with his index finger, and to not have the pick get in the way.
I hold the pick between my thumb and index, but also tap with my index finger.
My friends asked what I did with it, and I showed them that I just switched my index with my middle finger to hold, while I tapped.
I guess it's all in how we feel in holding the pick.
And I still can't tremolo pick to save my life. Lol
Good job
Mantap udah nungguin lama nihh
I've always been able to do his tremolo picking in this style. Spastically twitching my wrist. One of the only things that came naturally to me at guitar. I'm so hyper all the slow stuff I didn't get for literally over a decade... Trade off worth it? Yes. Imo.
Killer Troy!!
RIP Eddie, you were the best, and a class act.
Loved the Funky Prince riff!
Interesting, I always wondered about this and thought he did this to have his index finger ready for tapping. good info
For sure, tapping convenience is another potential benefit. Whatever the reason, there is an arm position that is necessary to make this grip work, and this affects what wrist motions are available. That may not have been his original motivation, but that was the result. Personally I see the wrist motion as the main benefit, since it's another way to do a thing that a lot of people find tricky, and more ways increase the chances of getting it.
Is the Kickstarter campaign over for the magnet? Can you post a ink for where to buy one... Thank for all your efforts Troy.
Hi David! Yes it's done and we're working with the factory to make them. We'll have it for preorder on our web site at some point when we get closer, so I'd stay tuned to our mailing list for updates if you're not on it already. Thanks!
Awesome
I had forgotten about this channel
Thanks for this but I was wondering if EVH is doing double escape picking or like you mentioned a small enough stroke to not touch the other strings?
The shot that we're looking at from Live Without A Net, where you can see right down the strings, appears to be upstroke escape. However lines like the intro to Hang 'Em High would have to be double escape, and there is live footage of Eddie making double escape motions where you can actually see it. The chromatic thing at the end of Dirty Movies, there is some fan-shot footage right here on YT where the double escape motion is pretty clear.
Interesting with that pick grip as I've been trying to break out my my grip habit and was looking for alternatives and everything I've found for pick grips points to doing the "OK" grip lol
Options are good! The key is that it's not really just the grip, it's the arm position and wrist motion that also change. They work together like a system. So you're not just changing the grip - the grip change is a door to learning a new motion which might work for you.
You should honestly have a PhD in guitar techniques
He said in several interviews that he got the idea from watching someone play violin. It''s a similar motion to someone holding a bow and playing back and forth very fast.
Check out the "EVH day at the office " 2012 live video someone posted. They kept the camera on Edward most of the time so you get a ton of looks at his pick angle etc.
Surprised how often he switches from holding the pick with his middle finger and thumb to index finger and thumb, sometimes mid lick he will switch and probably doesn't even know he does it.
Standardized Protocol for Troy Grady videos appearing in your recommended:
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Ha. Thanks!
If I'm doing longer phrases, i.e. surf style, I employ the eddie grip, I find it way more relaxing and have less tendency to tense up. There is another factor, did eddie not use a light pick, I'm thinking .60mm? This would without a doubt help with the tremolo picking as well and have less tension over all
Hi Troy, how do you deal with the thinning index finger nail?
Him using his thumb and middle finger kept his index finger free for tapping.....
I just realized the way Eddie holds the pick is how I hold a pen...a lightbulb moment!
Troy "The King" Grady back on UA-cam!
Wish you could analyze Robert Fripp's techinique
Troy, those pickups in the mustang look amazing. What are they?
Zexcoil noiseless
Love the shirt choice (Prince) Troy - what kind of pickups are those? please and thanks
~j UT, USA
Zexcoil noiseless
I learned how to hold the pick like this from EVH very recently, after playing guitar for almost ten years.
I think I can move faster and I can use my index finger for tapping easier, but it's almost like learning how to pick for the first time in my life. Which is good in a sense, because I stopped playing guitar for quite some time, it's keeping my brain going
I think that's how that technique of Eddie's evolved it freed up his index finger for tapping easier whilst holding the pick between his thumb and middle finger.
Troy, can you do a video about that fast funk strumming motion you showed during this video? That's one thing I have never seen ANYBODY even mention, yet it's so important to fast strumming! Everybody's so into fast shredding, but what about fast strumming?? You would know how important this is as I remember you once mentioning playing at a Bar Mitzvah which I do too, and that sort of gig demands very fast strumming. Thanks
I've never played in a band, but much respect to people that do! I can only imagine how much strumming goes on in bar mitzvah and klezmer bands. We've looked at this technique a little before. Here's a clip from our Joscho Stephan interview where he demonstrates, and he is a stone cold strumming master: ua-cam.com/video/sp-Kai8Z1ck/v-deo.html
@@troygrady you know how you hear all the time that a professional guitarist is actually keeping rythm most of the time, not soloing? That's exactly the case in these sort of bands... You need to be a solid funk, rock, country, and other specific genres guitarist all at once, playing everything at crazy tempos, and know how to do it all on one guitar. It's pretty challenging but super fun! Thanks for replying. I'll check out the video.
Not gonna lie... the picture of you in the thumbnail, for a second I thought you were Rick Beato! Lol
I thought the same thing LOL
Glad I'm not the only one lmao
Troy, when are you going to deep dive into VIBRATO???
Great analysis troy, by the way, have you tried using that grip while doing riffs that involves palm muting? I find it kinda uncomfortable, and just watching some evh videos I found he often switched to the "standard" grip for those cases I've mentioned
Yes supinated arm positions are great for muting because of the pinky side contact. Watch when Ed plays the fast picking part in Eruption, after the dive bomb. Lots of muting there.
@@troygrady oh ok I'll check it out, but definitely I find that adding the middle finger to grab the pick gives more precision and strength
Are you interested in covering Matteo Mancuso?
Thanks for the awesome video as always ☺️
Did not realize i playes this way till has a guitar playing freind come over last night and comment on how i was picking. Been doing this since is started 30 yrs ago.
Thanks.
Randy and Gary Moore had an interesting hand position quite far back and with the little finger pointing outwards. I think John Sykes emulated Gary with his picking hand far back on the guitar.
I really wanted this video, I am 15 and I was so inspired by Eddie. I really wanted to pick like Eddie, just as fast as he did in the eruption
Well if you can do it on a desk with a pen, then you can definitely do it on a guitar! Just keep experimenting until you find the way that is just as easy on the instrument as it is with the pen.
Troy Grady yes i will practice!! Thank you so much...!!
Very Good Job on ( vdc ) Istructional Technic Player. .. Nice One ... ☺😊😀/👍👌👏👋
Jimi plays with this style as well, the Benson style.
And Tuck Andress, I think?
i prefer Gangnam style
@@andysixxlett2632 get out
You had me at Van Halen
Oh I was doing it wrong but I guess I came up with an alternative picking motion I’v never seen before.
Basically I’m only rotating the hand and not moving the arm whatsoever. So bascially if you have your arm in front of you and spin the wrist with palm down, palm up except not rotating that drastically. It’s only a very minor movement that goes really fast.
Eddie had the "Pick of Destiny" great movie if you haven't seen it.
Is this what they call sarod picking? I remember seeing Eddie do that in some real old videos and was amazed by it. I had a teacher try to show it to me once (he could do it real well) but I gave up. To honor Eddie, I guess it’s time for me to work on it again. Never too old to learn I suppose! 👍🏻
You may be referring to Eddie's rotational forearm motion - that's a different motion entirely, where the whole arm spins. The motion we're looking at here is wrist motion, where only the hand moves, just done with a middle finger grip and a particular arm position. This is the picking motion Eddie used for general purpose coordinated lead playing. Nothing wrong with either motion, both great, but different.
I used to old my pick with three fingers technique for past 35 years now without any specific reason, it is just more natural to me.
I learned this technique right when I started playing guitar.
I’m a left handed guy playing right handed. It’s just how I learned way back and I’ve always thought perhaps that’s why my speed & coordination is a little lacking in the right hand. I’ve thought about trying to play left handed, but after so many years of playing it would probably be extremely frustrating. Do you find these picking techniques possible with your non dominant hand?
Steve Morse and Michael Angelo Batio are both left-handed players who pick "righty" and they are among the best alternate pickers ever. I honestly have zero evidence that handedness matters at all. If it did, I think you would see lots of players failing to do fretting, since the world is full of righties who fret with their left hand. At this point I don't even know why it is considered "righty" to pick with your right hand. I think the reason you see a lot of people who have trouble with picking is because it is simply not well understood, and much of the early teaching was either nonexistent or misleading. In your case, I would start at the start: test your picking motions to see how fast they are - here's one test among others we have devloped: ua-cam.com/video/L6PUCTaNAOw/v-deo.html . If your speed registers in a normal range on a table, then it should be in that range on a guitar too.
Doesnt eddies fast picking use forearm supination instead of wrist movement ?
Interesting, never know EVH held the pick that way and supinated his wrist with that grip. I just tried it and it doesn't work for me. It yields a really bad performance; I miss the string sometimes that way! Is it just something to get used to and practice and then eventually yields a faster picking motion?
It's hard to say without video of what you're doing. But our latest lesson addresses this type of wrist motion in much greater detail ( ua-cam.com/video/NWuGkXhj0T8/v-deo.html ) and gives you more hands-on tips for actually getting it to work on the string. We also look at different pick grips.
What are those pick ups?
Does eddie do that thumb, first finger and middle finger pick grip so he can keep a hold of the pick with the thumb and middle finger so he can tap with the first finger?
You could certainly do that, but most of the time when Eddie taps, he doesn't actually hold the pick with those fingers - he buries the pick in the middle finger, and uses the remaining fingers to grip the fretboard, while tapping with the index finger. The real purpose of the middle- and three-finger grip is to reach the strings while using Eddie's arm position and type of wrist motion.
@@troygrady yea true enough, Eddie was just light years ahead at one stage when it came to technique.
What are those crazy hexaphonic pickups on the Mustang?
Zexcoils I think!
Everyone who haven’t subscribed the online lesson on troy website should have subscribe u will learn alot guy! And cracking the code!
I’ll try it. Doesn’t Santana use this picking technique?
Yes! Good catch. It's the arm position, which is why Carlos often uses a similar three-finger type grip to reach the strings. Here's a great clip of some surprisingly virtuoso picking from Carlos playing with George Benson: ua-cam.com/video/CfFuD7qSeR0/v-deo.html
@@troygrady Cool clip Santana & Benson. Santana’s Yamaha is hard to find now. I should have got the one I saw in a Mpls pawn shop 20 years ago.