I'm about to give up on buiding picking speed and precision!

[shred4Him]

Troy Grady is fantastic for understanding what exactly is going on. His Eric Johnson stuff is really great. I play JazzIIIs, but I can actually pick faster with a Fender 351 medium. I like snap as well. Just a different thing.

Fender 351 medium is what I have been using the most. Do you know why you can play faster with it vs. others?

The sharper point on the Jazz III's (or similar picks) allows you to pick notes cleanly without having to move your hand/wrist as far. It's more economical, and allows you to pick faster.

Another tip I've heard in the past is to pick a single note as fast as you can. Since you aren't switching between strings, or doing anything you need to think about with your left hand, you can focus in on little details like how you are holding the pick, pick angle, wrist movement/elbow movement, etc.

The easiest thing to pick fast is one individual note, and you will naturally default to your most efficient picking technique. Once you make a mental note of the optimum pick angle and things like that, you can make a point of applying it to actual music. I think this tip was from a John Petrucci video, but I'm not completely sure about that.

This thread is the perfect example of how we are all a little bit different. I can't stand picks with pointy tips. The tip grabs too much for me. I use Dunlop Ultex. I tried Ultex sharps, but the tip grabs too much. The regular Ultex picks just glide across the strings so much easier for me. Then guys like Petrucci burn with pointy picks. We all have idiosyncrasies that certain tools work better for. I definitely echo the Troy Grady endorsement. He will help you find out your picking tendencies and how you visualize picking, or help you to visualize picking in a way that makes sense to you.

Or, you can do what Nick Johnston did. He says that he had problems with alternate picking when he was younger, so instead of working on it, he avoided it and out of that his hybrid picking was formed. You could casually work on picking and embrace that it is a weakness, and work on the things that you are good at and use those tools to circumvent your picking challenges. That kind of thing can often lead to the development of a unique style.

In other words, there is no exact formula because people are not machines.

 

[Purpleibby]

Troy Grady is fantastic for understanding what exactly is going on. His Eric Johnson stuff is really great. I play JazzIIIs, but I can actually pick faster with a Fender 351 medium. I like snap as well. Just a different thing.

Fender 351 medium is what I have been using the most. Do you know why you can play faster with it vs. others?

The sharper point on the Jazz III's (or similar picks) allows you to pick notes cleanly without having to move your hand/wrist as far. It's more economical, and allows you to pick faster.

Another tip I've heard in the past is to pick a single note as fast as you can. Since you aren't switching between strings, or doing anything you need to think about with your left hand, you can focus in on little details like how you are holding the pick, pick angle, wrist movement/elbow movement, etc.

The easiest thing to pick fast is one individual note, and you will naturally default to your most efficient picking technique. Once you make a mental note of the optimum pick angle and things like that, you can make a point of applying it to actual music. I think this tip was from a John Petrucci video, but I'm not completely sure about that.

This thread is the perfect example of how we are all a little bit different. I can't stand picks with pointy tips. The tip grabs too much for me. I use Dunlop Ultex. I tried Ultex sharps, but the tip grabs too much. The regular Ultex picks just glide across the strings so much easier for me. Then guys like Petrucci burn with pointy picks. We all have idiosyncrasies that certain tools work better for. I definitely echo the Troy Grady endorsement. He will help you find out your picking tendencies and how you visualize picking, or help you to visualize picking in a way that makes sense to you.

Or, you can do what Nick Johnston did. He says that he had problems with alternate picking when he was younger, so instead of working on it, he avoided it and out of that his hybrid picking was formed. You could casually work on picking and embrace that it is a weakness, and work on the things that you are good at and use those tools to circumvent your picking challenges. That kind of thing can often lead to the development of a unique style.

In other words, there is no exact formula because people are not machines.

+1!! Hate the pointy picks, and don't like the tone they produce either....I've found a regular tipped pick has a fuller sound......and about the Ultex....man the Ultex Regular tip 1.0 MM is my fav. pick in the world....LOVE those! Agree, they go over the strings like butter...

For the OP, my suggestion(s) for building up picking speed is keep it simple at first and work on the basic building blocks....work up sextuplets and 16th/32nd notes on a SINGLE string cleanly and evenly. If you can't pick cleanly on one string you won't be able to do it when changing strings......have the pick at a slight angle on the strings instead of it being perpendicular to them....choose a fretting pattern that sounds cool/interesting and builds up sync(the yngwie jet to jet lick works well)...when you DO work up your alternate picking there are many methods for changing between strings but there's a lot to be said about pick slanting for inside/outside picking.

Also, practice moving your center of motion for your picking hand up and down on the bridge depending on what string you're picking on. You don't want your picking hand immobilized at the same place for picking the low strings and the high strings. Folks who have success alternate picking on some strings but not others usually don't follow that principle.

 

[SpiderWars]

My observations...

'play with a metronome and gradually increase speed' ... this isn't enough direction IMO. I've been playing with a metronome for eons. Until you incorperate concepts like chunking, bursting and isolating pick movement and slanting...just pecking along in 16th notes aint gonna solve the issue once you reach medium-speed.

As others have said, Troy Grady's lessons are stellar. Pebber Brown has some interesting ideas too. Paul Gilbert is the epitome of baddass picking, but he never really talks about the exact mechanics of his picking (that I have seen) I believe his 'turning-the-key' wrist motion gives some insight...that he avoids getting the pick hung behind a string because both directions of his motion brings the pick out of the string-plane... I've been trying to develop that for my playing but it is very awkward at first. I'm also left-handed so it's doubly sucky.

There is a Troy Grady video about a diminished run Vai used in the Crossroads movie that makes you slightly turn your wrist for each segment, one segment is down slanted (traversing strings) and the next is upslanted (traversing strings). It's a cool exercise that I sometimes use as a warm-up.

Here it is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgUcG0aw72U

 

[Jayy]

Thank you again everyone for all of the advice. It does help a lot. I shall keep after it. I will say that working on precision and speed has brought a creative side out of me that I never knew existed. I have invented new curse words and combinations of profane terms that are VERY colorful and expressive!