Tremolo Picking

[Os Abysmi Vel Daath]

I was wondering how the guitar players on the board approach this technique. I'm talking about the really fast, black/death metal type stuff. 16th notes at upwards of 200 bpm and such. I know that you're supposed to relax and use your wrist as opposed to your elbow as it's more economical, which I do, but I still have issues with my forearm burning and losing control after extended playing. So what are your techniques and methods?

[BlutAusNerd]

My technique is horrible, but even then, lots of repetition to build muscle memory will get you there.

[RPA]

Number of bpms is the point. If you're playing offtime or poorly articulating with 50 or 100bpms, you just shouldn't play faster. Practising precisely and slowly is the fastest way to play fast and good. It seems to be little paradox, but it really works this way

[Os Abysmi Vel Daath]

Number of bpms is the point. If you're playing offtime or poorly articulating with 50 or 100bpms' date=' you just shouldn't play faster. Practising precisely and slowly is the fastest way to play fast and good. It seems to be little paradox, but it really works this way[/quote'] I can play precisely for an endless amount of time upto around 160 bpm. After that if I play for too long my arm will start to burn. It's probably just an endurance thing. I was also curious about how exactly people are articulating these notes. Wrist, arm, or even fingers? I've seen people do all three.

[RPA]

what part of arm exactly? If you're arm is too tense, you must exercise in a maximum bpm, which doesn't tires you. Just be patient and play a lot with metronome, speed will come unnoticed - you'll think what was so difficult in it.There's also worse scenario, you may have learnt it with wrong technique, bad habit which was easier when you started and now slows you down.Standard rule is making the shortest move you can play it with result of good articulated sound. Most popular is doing it with wrist, which is naturally precise and default. But playing with the forearm or even whole arm can give better, more aggressive sound. Just look on Hanneman or - something different - Bruce Springsteen live.

[FatherAlabaster]

Start slow. Don't go for 200 right off the bat. I know some guys who can tremolo pick really fast, and I've met some who brag about it, but the important thing to remember is that everyone's different. Some of us can't twitch our muscles that fast, or have easily strained tendons, or whatever. Stretch by extending one arm and the the other straight out to the side, pulling your fingers back, and turning your head the opposite direction. I like twisting my arm and wrist a bit to stretch different muscles. You can also shake your arms around a bit to get blood flowing. I try to warm up for a bit with strumming and double picking before I hit any tremolo parts. I hold my pick in what I've discovered is an unusual way: pinched between the pads of my thumb and forefinger, with my wrist pretty much straight, so that the pick is at about a 45° angle in relation to the string, with the outside edge picked up slightly. When tremolo picking, I usually rest the heel of my palm on the tailpiece or just behind the saddles. This developed naturally as my best position for switching back and forth between chunky bits, tremolo picking, and alternate picking. I know people who hold their picks with a different part of the forefinger, parallel to the string, and it does seem to allow for more speed, but everything else suffers for me when I hold the pick that way. I use my wrist, but also my elbow, especially above certain speeds. My default warm up speed is 175. I'll focus on locking onto my click and staying relaxed. If I've been playing every day, this is easy as long as I've been remembering to relax my elbow; if not, tendonitis starts to develop. Once I've run through a song or two at an easy pace, I'll push it up to wherever I have to be, and approaching it gradually does make it easier. That's the most important thing I can say - push yourself to build it up, but do it gradually, while staying relaxed. If you feel yourself tensing up your elbow or upper arm, let the tension go; if you feel any burning, stop, and come back to it later. I've had times when it was distractingly painful to play because I pushed too hard. You have to give yourself time to heal. Ice and ibuprofen can help; my experience has been that elbow exercises (for instance, pushups) make it worse. I rarely write a song over 200, which is within my limits but pushing it; the fastest I've ever recorded at is 230, and that wasn't really accurate. The nice thing is that it can be hard to tell at that speed. Find your own limits, and try not to build up bad habits along the way.

[Os Abysmi Vel Daath]

Start slow. Don't go for 200 right off the bat. I know some guys who can tremolo pick really fast, and I've met some who brag about it, but the important thing to remember is that everyone's different. Some of us can't twitch our muscles that fast, or have easily strained tendons, or whatever. Stretch by extending one arm and the the other straight out to the side, pulling your fingers back, and turning your head the opposite direction. I like twisting my arm and wrist a bit to stretch different muscles. You can also shake your arms around a bit to get blood flowing. I try to warm up for a bit with strumming and double picking before I hit any tremolo parts. I hold my pick in what I've discovered is an unusual way: pinched between the pads of my thumb and forefinger, with my wrist pretty much straight, so that the pick is at about a 45° angle in relation to the string, with the outside edge picked up slightly. When tremolo picking, I usually rest the heel of my palm on the tailpiece or just behind the saddles. This developed naturally as my best position for switching back and forth between chunky bits, tremolo picking, and alternate picking. I know people who hold their picks with a different part of the forefinger, parallel to the string, and it does seem to allow for more speed, but everything else suffers for me when I hold the pick that way. I use my wrist, but also my elbow, especially above certain speeds. My default warm up speed is 175. I'll focus on locking onto my click and staying relaxed. If I've been playing every day, this is easy as long as I've been remembering to relax my elbow; if not, tendonitis starts to develop. Once I've run through a song or two at an easy pace, I'll push it up to wherever I have to be, and approaching it gradually does make it easier. That's the most important thing I can say - push yourself to build it up, but do it gradually, while staying relaxed. If you feel yourself tensing up your elbow or upper arm, let the tension go; if you feel any burning, stop, and come back to it later. I've had times when it was distractingly painful to play because I pushed too hard. You have to give yourself time to heal. Ice and ibuprofen can help; my experience has been that elbow exercises (for instance, pushups) make it worse. I rarely write a song over 200, which is within my limits but pushing it; the fastest I've ever recorded at is 230, and that wasn't really accurate. The nice thing is that it can be hard to tell at that speed. Find your own limits, and try not to build up bad habits along the way.

Thank you. That was really helpful. And holy shit 230 is fast.

[FatherAlabaster]

Yeah man, I know people who are quite a bit faster, but it's fast enough for me.

I was also curious about how exactly people are articulating these notes. Wrist, arm, or even fingers? I've seen people do all three.

For me it's different degrees of all three fir everything. For trem picking, it's primarily my forearm (moving from the elbow) with my wrist staying pretty straight. For alternate (or economy) picking, it's almost all in my fingers, with the wrist moving at tempo. Chunky stuff involves the whole forearm. As RPA says, you can see a lot of different approaches in action depending on who you look at. A big part of my technique also comes from the fact that I almost always play hardtail bridges, and rest my forearm on top of my Explorer. Truth be told, that's why I like the body shape. The other guy in my band grew up playing on Floyd Rose, and instead of anchoring with the heel of his palm, he anchors with his pinky, under the bridge pickup - which is really fucking weird and not something I would or could emulate. And he's a sick player, went to Berklee for guitar. Go figure.

[Os Abysmi Vel Daath]

Yeah man, I know people who are quite a bit faster, but it's fast enough for me. For me it's different degrees of all three fir everything. For trem picking, it's primarily my forearm (moving from the elbow) with my wrist staying pretty straight. For alternate (or economy) picking, it's almost all in my fingers, with the wrist moving at tempo. Chunky stuff involves the whole forearm. As RPA says, you can see a lot of different approaches in action depending on who you look at. A big part of my technique also comes from the fact that I almost always play hardtail bridges, and rest my forearm on top of my Explorer. Truth be told, that's why I like the body shape. The other guy in my band grew up playing on Floyd Rose, and instead of anchoring with the heel of his palm, he anchors with his pinky, under the bridge pickup - which is really fucking weird and not something I would or could emulate. And he's a sick player, went to Berklee for guitar. Go figure.

I actually do that pinky anchoring thing as well, with my hand floating unless I'm muting. I used to rest my hand on the bridge but came to the conclusion that floating is better for string-skipping and crosspicking, which is one of my strong points. When I first started playing I rested the fleshy part of my palm on the bass strings, which is just weird and I'm glad I stopped.

[BlutAusNerd]

I anchor my picking hand with my pinky on the pick guard as well. I haven't had much formal training, that's just what feels natural.

[Os Abysmi Vel Daath]

That's how John Petrucci plays. And even though I hate DT he is definitely proficient

[FatherAlabaster]

I anchor with my pinky when I'm playing acoustic, especially fingerstyle, and I've definitely caught myself holding my pinky out while playing electric (I could never actually put it down on my electric, but it does seem like a natural hand motion). That's all stuff I try to avoid once I become conscious of it, mostly because I feel like I "should". But, if it's not holding you back or causing pain or injury, I don't see the problem. We're not studying under Robert Fripp... Speaking of which, I'm really starting to want lessons, and I wish I understood modern classical music better. I've been almost entirely self taught so far.

[Os Abysmi Vel Daath]

I anchor with my pinky when I'm playing acoustic, especially fingerstyle, and I've definitely caught myself holding my pinky out while playing electric (I could never actually put it down on my electric, but it does seem like a natural hand motion). That's all stuff I try to avoid once I become conscious of it, mostly because I feel like I "should". But, if it's not holding you back or causing pain or injury, I don't see the problem. We're not studying under Robert Fripp... Speaking of which, I'm really starting to want lessons, and I wish I understood modern classical music better. I've been almost entirely self taught so far.

I've been lucky enough to have some classical training. I actually take private classical guitar lessons right now and I have a background with clarinet and piano (both of which I've pretty much let fall by the wayside). I highly recommend it, my understanding of music is so much greater for it.