Right hand technique for shred type stuff

[Caffeinated Cat]

I've been having this problem for some time now with my picking technique when trying to play fast pick-every-note type stuff. Since my wrist is at a bit of an angle to the strings, when I get on the high strings, the pick hits them at the most extreme angle. This causes the pick to deflect off the string towards the bridge on the downstroke, and forwards towards the neck on the upstroke. The faster I play, the more pronounced this gets.

I've been fooling around with different things, sliding my hand downwards on the bridge when I play on the high strings, upwards when I play on the low strings; Or alternatively anchoring it on the top corner of the bridge at all times; Or holding my hand at different angles, etc. The only thing that seems to work is to tense up my wrist and force the pick to move perpendicular to the strings, but as soon as I relax I'm right back to the old habit.

I know, the thing to do is keep experimenting until I find something that works, but what do you shredders do? If somebody could give me an example of what actually works, I could at least work on that, instead of perpetually trying different things.

Thanks for any help :D

[axe_man_oli]

I think what would be really helpful is some photos... everyone who can should put a photo up of how they position the right hand when playing so that people who are unsure on this kind of thing can try out how everybody else does it...


I had laot of trouble with my hand positioning and it is really ennoying and difficult to get past... so i think if we could get some array of pictures people could have a good resource of what to look at when they are playing...

[Maarten]

http://www.jimmybruno.com/pickscale.htm

Not a shredder, but a jazz player with very impressive technique, and the videos on this page show exactly what's his technique, there are video's showng his wrist, elbow, how to hold the pick etc. etc.

[Unhorizon]

I used to have the exact same problem as you are describing. What I do now is slide my hand up and down as I pick across strings. I use my arm as a crane to move my hand across the bridge and pick from the wrist. At first it might be tough but after a while it will feel natural to just have your arm move up and down.

[C-major]

first of all DO NOT TENSE UP, big nono!!
and what i do is just let my wrist kinda lean on the strings that don't have to be ringing, and it move up and down, so i can hit the right strings.
nothin really to it, once you find it,
hope this is of any help
bye, and keep on rocking in a free world

[Unhorizon]

Oh yeah I have my fret hand barre accross and mute high strings when playing on lower strings (E, A, D), and when playing on high strings I use my fret hand to mute the lowers strings. I don't know what this has to do with anything regarding this post.

[Caffeinated Cat]

Thanks for the replies, it's appreciated!

[Thorsten]

I think Unhorizon described it very good to use your arm as a crane to transport your hand across the bridge while keeping your hand relaxed and picking from the wrist, that´s how I do it too.

Like I always say, the trick is to keep your hand relaxed while picking pretty hard.
A lot has to do with warming up properly and just picking slowly but evenly before trying to speed up. Don´t try to force things! It´s sorta like: Your hand tells you when it´s ready to shift into higher gear.

[Caffeinated Cat]

I find it totally natural to move my hand up and down the bridge when playing at a normal speed, but when I get up into my astounding 120bpm speed :p there's a lot less time to do it. I guess it's just practice, practice, practice. I've already noticed some improvement in that area since I got into this stuff. It used to be that if I played something at 100 bpm. it sounded really fast, but now that sounds like about 80bpm, so I've got more time to do stuff.

Picking pretty hard while keeping relaxed - that's something I haven't heard before. I was confused because in my instruction books, when somebody says stay really relaxed, I assume they mean pick the strings lightly - and that wasn't working too well. That's why my pick was deflecting off the strings and causing all sorts of back and forth motion instead of up and down motion. Great tip, I'll be working on that!

Thanks again everybody!

[C-major]

actually, keeping your hand relaxed is very important, I don't know how come you haven't heard that before, it was one of the first things i learned.
And not only your picking hand should be relaxed, but that's not to the point here.
What you should try to get to is that every motion comes from your wrist, and that you don't cramp your fingers when trying to play fast. It's quite hard, when i first started, i kept dropping my pick cus i was trying to relax!
anyways, Relax relax relax, keep every movement nice and smooth, and soon it'll be a second nature.
bye

[Alan(Lost)]

The grip with which you hold the pick controls how hard you pick mainly (possibly in combination with an exaggerated picking motion). If you grip it tightly, you'll pick hard. If you grip lightly, you'll pick lightly. Either way, picking hard has nothing got to do with tensing up; more so, it shouldn't have anything got to do with it.