Tremolo picking breakthrough (sort of)

[rustinstrings]

I know I should be spending more time thinking about tasteful grooves without using a pick, but it bothers me to hit a brick wall every time I try to play some black/death/thrash/speed metal.

Well, after watching some youtube guitar shredders and investigating why can't I pick 1/16 notes faster than 120bpm (on a good day) yet it is still possible for me to scribble with pen on paper using similar picking motion at around 200bpm with little or no effort, I've started understanding what I have read about in the past and should have grasped a long time ago: I'm using the wrong wrist motion and activating the wrong muscles.

My understanding is that the slower motion is generated by wrist moving sideways. The fast motion generated by wrist moving up/down (knocking on a door is a common example).

Last night I've managed to perform very fast tremolo picking for short periods of time, at the first time (not using the elbow...).
First I've practiced using the right muscles by trying to hit the string with the tip of the pick using up/down wrist motion.Hold your hand flat on a table and shape your index and thumb as if holding a pick. Now try to knock on the table with the nails of your index/thumb as fast as you can, you'll understand what I'm talking about.

It was useful to practice this without metronome first, just to check how fast I could go. If I was downpicking instead of just hitting the tip of the string with the tip of the pick, the speed would be faster than any downpicked 1/8 notes I ever done.
After gaining some control of that motion aspect (while it sounded awkward, because I was hitting/scratching the strings instead of picking them). I've adjusted my wrist and pick angles to what I see many guitar players do on youtube - pick is angled something like 45 degress to the strings instead of parallel, in order to reduce contact and string resistance.
When that was successful and the pick wasn't stuck in mid-motion, my right hand picking finally sounded very fast and almost usable.

I still lack control on that technique. I can only nail this techniqe sometimes and while I can play it very fast, I still can't keep up with a steady metronome beat. Oh, and I tense up.
Any advices from someone playing similarly or gone through similar route?
Any pointers to pay attention for avoiding injuring my hand? Ffor example, how would I apply Carol Kaye tip for this technique? Is the required hand position different? If I understand correctly, she recommends putting the other fingers on the strings in order to guide the thumb muscle. When I managed to tremolo pick, no part of my hand touched the strings/bass body, except the arm itself layed above bass body and stabilizing hand position.

[Vengoropatubus]

I might have to try this later.

[lemur821]

I'm not 100% clear on what it is that you're doing, but there's no reason you shouldn't be able to do 16ths at 250 with a little practice using normal picking technique, a combination of axial wrist rotation and side-to-side wrist rotation.

[rustinstrings]

Originally Posted by lemur821

I'm not 100% clear on what it is that you're doing, but there's no reason you shouldn't be able to do 16ths at 250 with a little practice using normal picking technique, a combination of axial wrist rotation and side-to-side wrist rotation.

My current picking problem is probably caused by doing side-to-side wrist movement with little or no axial rotation (If I understand correctly side-to-side movement would be moving the wrist to the side of the thumb/pinky, and axial rotation would involve rolling the arm as well). It became evident after long time practicing some left hand chromatics with right hand alternate picking. Maybe bad practice routine can also be blamed, but what I continously encoountered was starting chromatic exercises very slowly at 1/16 60-80bpm and gradually speed up. By the time I've gotten into 105-115bpm my hand was tense and tired.
The current approach needs further refinement. Currently I start picking fast and just need to control the picking with proper timing, refined movement, and reduce tension. There is no tension if I only do the fast up/down wrist motion "knocking" the strings. The tension starts once I try to alternate pick and the reason is probably because of introduced additional wrist motion.
Regarding hand position, I've noticed that I have better control using my wrist as a pivot point. So I reproduced tremolo picking on the G string laying my palm/wrist area on the above strings. After replacing "knocking" on the string with some digging into the string, a fast alternating sound becomes evident.
But when I try to play that way on the B string and rest my palm/wrist area on the bass body above the pickup, I can only scratch the string but not introduce picking yet.

[lemur821]

Originally Posted by rustinstrings

(If I understand correctly side-to-side movement would be moving the wrist to the side of the thumb/pinky, and axial rotation would involve rolling the arm as well).

That is correct. Think about how your hand would move if you had poor motor control and it shook all the time. That's pretty much how I pick.

[BassBob185]

For me when I achieve my fastest pick movement is when my wrist is in a rocking motion.

[Tbirdbassist]

Any way for you to post a vid of your technique?

[rustinstrings]

Originally Posted by Tbirdbassist

Any way for you to post a vid of your technique?

Unfortunately I don't have a webcam. I'm also not very comfortable with this technique yet to demonstrate it not-poorly.

If the objective is to clarify what kind of wrist movement is done, the theory behind is very simple: once you rest your arm on the bass, and don't use your elbow/shoulder for picking, there are only 3 vectors/axis that can be used for your wrist movement: up/down, sideways, rotate.
Other references on the web call the up/down movement "oscillatory picking".
The best reference I've found so far is:
http://www.tuckandpatti.com/pick-finger_tech.html#1.2.2
Other references are
http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/forum...d.php?t=383822
http://www.ibreathemusic.com/forums/...ad.php?t=11558
http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/forum...d.php?t=281318
(sorry that all are guitar forums, I guess that bass+pick+shredding related is not very popular subject).
Currently searching youtube for that kind of picking does not yield good examples. I've also searched for George Benson videos (who is described in above references as using oscillatory picking) but I'm not sure I want to position my hand below the strings in order to pick (and I havn't seen his technique clearly enough).
Hope to try some more oscillatory picking practice or better invest in conventional non-oscillatory movement:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=njuksgNOz0o
and try to adapt it on bass while not hurting myself.