Does anyone have any tips for trem picking? and also what are good strings/gauges for tremolo picking?

practice with a metronome, start slow then gradualy pick up speed until you can better at it.
as for strings it all depends on which tunings you use

put on a metronome, start fucking slow, get faster. When i practiced, i started with whole notes, and then half, quarter, eighth, sixteenth and so on. When i reached my ceiling of speed, i kept it there as long as i could to build up stamina.


strings dont matter because you will get used to whatever you practice on. I can trem pick on every string in 9, 10, and 11 gauge.
Picks however need to be stiff enough that they dont limit your speed. You dont want to wait a few miliseconds waiting your pick to straighten out do you? I prefer pickboy designer scorpion (theyre polished and slippery), .75-1mm for optimal tone and speed but i practice with a 1mm dunlop tortex pick because its more durable, its more of a challenge and it improves my playing. When i switch from dunlop to pickboy, i feel like im cheating because playing gets so much easier.

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yea im starting to get speed up.....my arm just feels like its gonna fall off...im having trouble relazing my arm.

and once i get my speed up it dosent last very long lol

just work with it. you'll get better if just stick with it. oh , and use your wrist instead of your arm. you'll play faster and your arm wont hurt

i get mixed responses on that, some say use your arm, others say your wrist....most of the time i do use me wrist, but since i started playing death metal i have been trying to use my arm becuase it makes me play faster, just dosent last to long.

I think its better to use your wrist with tremelo picking overall. I started with forearm picking, even though I could play fast ( I could play Cryptopsy songs ) I was always knocking the strings slightly sharp, and any time you're playing and you feel pain, something is wrong with your technique. I recently got a guitar teacher, and he said that my left hand was perfect, but my right hand technique was atrocious. So now I'm working on wrist picking, and I can handle some start/stop trem picking like some Disgorge and Fear Factory, but the Cryptopsy/Slayer stuff I end up reverting to just torquing my elbow. I'll definitely get there in time, and it'll be worth it, since wrist picking allows me these advantages over elbow picking :

1. greater control over dynamics, if I'm hitting the string with my wrist and not my arm exclusively, then if I want to play softly at higher speeds ( something I'll never do with my forearm ) I can do it much more easily.
2. more even separation of notes, and good staccato is all about even separation of notes. This is because my arm is making much less movement in general, meaning that movement is easier to control.
3. Stamina. The only thing that should be sore after I play, if at all, should be my fingertips. Not my joints. My 20 year old body can handle it now, but at say 35 it won't.

The guitarists whose picking technique I really want to emulate is Rusty Cooley's or Al Di Meola's.

All this said, if you don't have any of these problems using forearm picking, then more power to you!

never ever use ur arm r u crazy???? the fucker will fall off, ull pull a muscle, a lot of shit could happen, use ur wrist, its faster and better in the long run. keep ur muscles relaxed, make sure ur fingers rnt flexed when u pick, that will restrict speed sometimes. and practice as if u dont have nething else to do.

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your elbow isnt built for repetative fast movement. Your tendons will wear out, and you WILL get tendonitis, and then you'll never be able to play again. Let alone wash your own hair for weeks among other normal things you NEED your elbows for.

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Kerry King uses his wrist, but watch Jeff Hanneman and it looks like he plays with his whole forearm, I can't see how he's accurate at all, but he clearly is.

I personally recommend playing from the wrist though.

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Combine both wrist and arm. I do a combination of both at the same time for extremely fast tremolo picking, where my arm doesn't look like it's moving at all, but is indeed vibrating fast. Thing is I'm not tense at all, nor do I ever get cramps from doing it. It only works for me with pointy guitars at waste height, not with strats. Hard to explain. The edge of the pointy body on my Ironbird contributes to it.

Anything slightly slower my wrist takes control.

For strats I have to go either all-out wrist or all-out elbow, but I know how to switch between both so I never get tired.

But if I'm doing mid-high speed picking I'll go only wrist, and all my runs/leads are with my wrist, except of course extremely fast ones that have tremolo picking.

If you're comfortable with whatever technique you have, then keep going at it. Don't force yourself to do it a certain way that's painful. Wrist technique iis great to learn because it makes you a far more efficient player, at first you'll feel dumb doing it cause you'll hit a ceiling where you can't play any faster no matter what you do, but then you have to realize that you don't have to move it faster, you have to make SMALLER wrist movements to be able to hit the string more times.

Also, very tight strings and THICK picks that don't bend at all are extremely helpful.

But yes always try to get the wrist technique better down, but don't forget about working that elbow too. Just do what's most comfortable.

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Can someone make a clip or something how wrist picking is supposed to be done? I use my arm a little but it doesn't really hurt, see here for reference, I can play for hours straight without pain nor exhaustion (except when my room is really fucking cold like now). But if it's dangerous I'd rather start using only my wrist.

The videos kindof choppy so it's hard to tell for sure, but it doesn't look like you're using that much arm. The big question is... does it hurt or not? I try to use as much wrist as possible because otherwise my shoulder gets a bit sore, not painful, just sore, and I want to eliminate all of that.

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cool guys, thanks for the help.

Alot of players find a middle ground between the two.

Personally I use a combo of my fingers and wrist for trem picking, and other fast things. For scale and such I try to use my fingers exclusively.


But yeah I'd say the best thing to do, and I think the most common way that picking is taught, is to practice using your wrist.


The best way to get trem picking down, is to grab a chair, turn on your favorite tv show, turn on your metronome, and practice with straight picking while throwing in a chromatic scale here and there to work our your left hand.

Tv works wonders for easy monotonous practice such as trem picking.

Sweeping and serious alt picking are different, you actually have to concentrate.

Haha, good advice really. Never tried the TV thing but I'm sure it works pretty well. My neighbor does the fingers thing and it looks almost effortless, but I'm pretty happy working on the wrist myself.

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Trust me the Tv idea is a very good one. It does feel very comfortable using my fingers, so when I'm playing at a comfortable speed, it does feel effortless.

That's what I do ALL FREAKIN' NIGHT. I go find a Beavis and Butthead episode on Youtube, and trem away. It's great for warming up and also developing stamina. The occasional chromatic scale is a cool idea too.

I used to trem pick using my arm and eventually told myself I was gonna change that, which I haven't used my arm since. Now since I've made the transition from arm to wrist, I've found that it's important and almost essential to anchor my hand with my pinky planted right below the bridge pickup. Whenever I see guys tremolo picking with their wrist without anchoring their hand somehow (i.e. Chuck Schuldiner), I get really puzzled because it seems impossible without that anchor. Got any explainations??

*metalhead status*

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It doesn't hurt, but when I use only my wrist it hurts. I tried playing Master of Puppets at double speed using only my wrist and my forearm started hurting, might be because of all the palm muting but I dunno. I use my wrist when I'm not really paying attention.

what?? All I can see is the arm moving, not very much wrist action. Plus, I really don't think that's fast enough to be considered tremolo picking. Oh and what's this whole thing about pain (and I'm not just picking on you exclusively)? Many would say that most pain is good and means that progress is occuring. NO PAIN, NO GAME. Although in some cases, like if you pull a muscle or something even more serious, then yeah, take it easy for a bit. But for the most part, I think pain is just another little obstacle... almost like... breaking in a virgin, if you will. The only thing I ever worry about is spending weeks and weeks practicing something the wrong way (mainly my trem picking). I always have second thoughts on whether or not a certain technique will fit me forever.

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for whole strumming, its fine to use your arm because you arent stressing it out with rapid tight movements, but for trem picking, you NEED to use your wrist otherwise your masturbation muscle (the one ontop of your arm) is as risk of blowing out, and it will hurt like nothing else ever.
I'll post a video later today of my little warmup thing, it helped me ALOT.

Ps. Correct me if i'm wrong, but nice DR black beauties you got there

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why is it after play trem for a while there is a point on my shoulder not bigger than a penny that is achy?

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You're sitting too low. Seriously, that happens to me when I sit on my couch which is low enough to make my knees higher than my stomach. Everytime I play while sitting on that piece of shit I get this pain in my shoulder about the same as you describe. Bottome line: keep the guitar away from your neck.

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You can deduce good pain (based on, "my muscles got worked") from bad pain (the strenuous kind) I'm sure. As for the uncertainty of technique, you're on the ball for sure. Whatever feels better IS better.

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aaaawwwwww
'it's so comfy

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k... im linking the thing i do once i finish uploading it.

My thing i do is i pinch down on the pick while i twitch my wrist, which i barely move at all... keeps my arm from moving with trem picking. I also pretty much immobilize my hand from moving my anchoring my palm right above the rear pickup and bridge. It does the job.


ps. dont make fun of my shitty playing

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[QUOTE=the_bleeding
ps. dont make fun of my shitty playing[/QUOTE]
It can't be any worse than mine.

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hellz yea brudda

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvtNIRMPEl8

give it like 10 minutes so it can fully register.

EDIT: added
ITS ALIVE!


Okay, this is wierd, it just went down again...youtube said it would take a few hours before its going to be stable

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...which reminds me of a little article I read in a Guitar Player issue which basically concluded that faster picking can be a combination of subtle movement of the arm, wrist, and the thumb and finger, sometimes all three simultaneously.

and sometimes, when there's a full moon, you can use your teeth http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7z9gVGw_cU

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its workign now... i show how i do the pinch thing, and my trem picking movement is almost entirely finger pinch, and some ever so slight wrist movement. I do need to learn how to use my wrist though... especially after watching some Zyklon videos, man their wrists just swing.

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right. What I mean is that I'm looking for the most efficient and versatile way. What I'm really getting at is that I have two ways that I will trem pick from time to time. The first way is by kind of just anchoring my forearm on the body, using no part of my hand for stability, and moving the entire hand. The other way is by resting my arm on the body, planting my pinky right under the bridge pickup, and moving my hand in smaller strokes. The thing is, I'm able to go a bit faster the first way, but can't really do it unless I'm sitting (go figure), and the second way I can't quite do as fast, but I can do while both sitting or standing. And when I say versatile, I mean that I think the second way is more versatile because it can be used for tremolo picking and as shred picking.

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