faster than the elbow, faster than your brain, faster than a drill

[AndyPollow]

tie a sock around the neck over the 1-3 frets to mute the strings. put your arm on the guitar like you usually do but pick as close to the neck as you can. dont touch the strings or guitar at all - loose 1/2 fist and palm about and inch above the strings. do the motion like turning a key in a lock slow and find the fast flick with that motion that shakes your whole arm with it and hold the pick really tight (big stubby 2mm is nice) and push it hard into the string. its really fast and it made my mini acoustic about 3 times as loud. I read that some jazz players play that way. Michael Angelo sells a really cool mute that clamps down on the strings at about the 3rd fret and you can lift it and clamp it really fast while your playing. that way is also nice if you use the other sock folded up and put it on the guitar body and ancor your wrist on it as close to the hand as possible without limiting your movement too much so you have more balance. if you like that you can cut a block of wood and make it smooth with fine paper and put double sided tape on the bottom to attach it to the guitar. dont super glue it cuz you will probably move it a couple of times.

[ragasaraswati]

I understand you speak about super tremolo picking. This technique you're describing is identicall to sharod picking which through centuries of development and tradition is perfected to allow frenzy speed and relaxation for hours.

So far so good. But I could not understand what does the mute and the socks got to do. Please elaborate.

[ChainsawGuitar]

I don't understand the sock thing either.

Also, is this supposed to be faster than alternate-picking? or Louder?

Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but its neither of these things...

[AndyPollow]

I can do it on the mini acoustic fast and loud but I cant get it on electric. Maybe softer strings? If you play with your whole hand off the strings and guitar the lower strings make noises while picking the treble strings so the sock tied on the neck is to mute them and the folded sock under your right wrist is for balance... instead of the palm on the strings wich gives you balance. Touching something like that while picking is like woodworking when you use a guide to make a straight cut - it helps you find the strings and make consistent movements.

Im working right now on - no sock - put the wrist down on a block of wood and dont touch anything but pick the bass strings without muting and mute the bass strings only while picking the treble strings to stop the noises. Its harder than never muting or always muting but I want to see if I can.

[ChainsawGuitar]

I think I'm doing it wrong then. It's actually slower than my alternate picking, less controlled (probably because I've only just learnt it), and about the same volume.

Can you go over again why this is different from alternate picking?

When you alternate pick you can do it without touching the strings to mute, and (after having been researching this since I saw this thread) I don't understand the tensing up thing. Are you supposed to tense up? Because that just sounds like bad playing technique to me.

Alot of players do it apparently, according to what I've found- Al Di Meola being one. It's also used by eastern instrumentalists...but I don't understand it at all...

...help? :confused:

[AndyPollow]

First you must learn to focus only on your belly button and then your subconsiouse will learn to move the pick. Please do not make jokes about my turban - it for religiouse purposes. Thank you please come again.

Sitar is cool. I saw a guy shred on one on public television once. It was a mix of traditional Indian and modern progressive rock.

This is rotation, what most call alternate is translation - 2 different movements with the wrist.

[Hory]

[QUOTE=AndyPollow; you can cut a block of wood and make it smooth with fine paper and put double sided tape on the bottom to attach it to the guitar. dont super glue it cuz you will probably move it a couple of times.[/QUOTE]

I did this with my very old guitar for finger picking ( at that time I thought , finger picking was superiour to plectrum picking ) . I had put a box of matches under my wrist to find the optimal spot to start with.
But this didnt bring me to the final solution - the most effective picking technique but only led me to realisation to remove it later on. I was so covinced of this being correct and logical approach that I actually glued piece of unknown plastic material to the guitar. I want to say, it is good to search for the ultimite technique and this in the end led me to remove it. The guitar had quite powerful punk look after removing it.

I dont want to sound up myself or arogant but I have dedicated a lot of time and effort to research this field ( 15 years ) and its only about last three years knowing or finding the ultimite shred and picking technique.
I know I am on the right way I can see the potential but there's a lot to improve and exploit too. I mean, I understand what I play and how to correctelly use the pick and what way to tilt it if to start on upstrokes and some other stuff. With this technique I can create the trill sound of oud players. It works for me.
But I never dedicate enough

look here please, it is one of my little guitar study : http://www.youtube.com/user/1000BrokenKeys#p/u/4/98yg62_QOX8

One of my little guitar study