Help re: picking technique (crosspost from Musicians Discussion)

[Erik]

Any guitarists here please help me with this!

I have problems with speed and I think my picking technique (I'm wholly self-taught and not particularly good) is fairly shit. I've progressed to the point where I no longer use my arm muscles for trem picking and so forth, I only move the wrist, but still I seem to build up far too much tension and not really be fast enough for my liking with the style of picking I'm using now. Most good players I see seem to hold farther from the tip of the thumb and seem a lot more relaxed than I am currently -- I need some help basically. How can I improve?

Here's a semi-shitty video that should show how I currently pick:

http://nw.ath.cx/~erik/picking.mov

 

[NAD]

you need to RELAX. you seem very tense in that video, you must relax your picking arm, let the wrist flow through each stroke. loosey goosey baby, loosey goosey.

i'm not really sure how to tell you in going about doing that, other than whenever you feel yourself tensed up, stop, force it loose, and try again. with practice comes perfection.