Right hand picking problems

[Cervantes]

Hey, when i play fast riffs, the wrist of my right hand gets really tired, sometimes even after one song (depends on difficulty). Do i use the wrong techniek or is there something else?
P.S I play for 7 years now so i don't think its a wrong techniek.

 

[TheDarkProject]

Maybe you pick too hard. Maybe you dig the pick into the strings too far. Perhaps you tense muscles that don't need to be tensed. Maybe you should try a thinner pick type.

Apart from that, I'd just say keep at it.

 

[Cervantes]

Ok. Thanx for the reply.

 

[D-KOM]

I spoke with guitarists which play since over 10 years and still got things for to get better, especially when they want to play some string skipping or sweeping technics. Because of your hand, it depends on a lot of things, what kind of plek you use and how do you handle it, what kind of strings, and so on. I would suggest you to use more slow warm up riffs before you play the fast ones.

 

[swami]

Sounds like maybe you're too tense in your wrist movement. Be sure to do extensive picking warm ups and make sure you isolate the picking movement to your wrist and not your whole forearm (but you probably know all this since you're quite experienced).

I think even Hetfield gets tired after downstroking MoP @ live tempo lol.

 

[Cervantes]

Yeah, i think the problem is in the warming ups. Since i'm warming up my wrist (not only my fingers) before every gig it doesn't feel tired as before.

 

[guitarguru777]

Make sure you arent holding the pick to hard aswell.

It makes a huge difference hold it tight enough so it doesnt slip, ut not much harder than that...

Da Fukn Guru

 

[neuralfraud]

my friend has been playing over 10 years and his picking technique is shit. For fast / extremely fast picking you want to pivot with your wrist while keeping your forearm rather stiff, in my 15 years of playing, this is the easiest way to do heavy intense speed picking without ruining yourself.

What other people do (especially my friend) is they tend to not go back and forth (ever), but using their whole arm and picking downwaard only! this is very wasteful and limits how fast/long you can play, its also bad! only use that style for short riffs where you need solid consistency of downward picking.

Is that helpful?

 

[ProjectedBlack]

Magnus Olsfelt, the bass player from The Crown hardly moves his wrist at all, almost all completely forearm movement and he's damn fast. Don't know how he does it.

 

[swami]

Bass players use their forearm more often than guitarists dunno why tho

 

[Heavenscent]

I play both styles, it's a bit of a mix.
As for speed, both techniques can be used; i mean, look at MA Batio, he playes with his forearm. I think the tricky part is that if you play with your entire forearm, you tend to put too much force in it, which means you can only keep it up for a very short period, and if you do this a lot, you can develop serious injuries.
Whatever you do, the keyword is relax, don't strain anything. If you strain while playing from the wrist only, you can also develop injuries. Keep it relaxed.

 

[ranma187]

try this: play it slow. when i warm up i practice a fast sequence (eg. the harmonic minor run from Malmsteens trilogy suite( moderately slow repeating without stopping as much as i can. 40-50 repeats so far I'm working on 100. then i work on 3 or 6 string sweeps in the same manner. your wrist will feel extremely tired so take a 5-10 minute break. then go back and see how fast you can shred (which for me , after this exercise is pretty damn fast.) make sure you take the 5-10 minute break or you could injure your wrist.

 

[Hexer]

I've seen a video of Michael Angelo Batio (the "speed lives"-video from his homepage) and noticed the way he picks when shredding really fast (talking about the normal alternate-picking here):
he angles the pick to the point where its pretty much vertical (pretty much 90° to the strings) and seems to "anchor" 2-3 fingers at the bridge-PU (at least it looks like it). is this kind of "common technic"? or is it just his personal way of doing things?
how do you guys hold your picks when playing fast stuff? any differences between playing fast, complex rythm and playing lead?

I'm working on getting better, faster, cleaner especially when playing leads (I'm not much of a lead-player so far) as well as getting better in playing more complex and fast rythm-stuff
also working a lot on tapping and sweep-picking

 

[Everfall]

That Technique isnt that common , or at least ive only seen angelo doing it, i tried that picking style for a while but i dont like my playin is sloppier for some reason when i play like that i say jus mes around with the pick and find the tech that fits you best!

 

[Vital Remains]

Ive been shredding for a while now and my wrist just seemed to get used to the whole speed picking thing so it doesnt really get tired anymore. Maybe i built up muscle or something..... Well just try not to use so much pick. i only use like "<" much of the pick

 

[Liverslapper]

you need to loosin' up a bit, you are getting tense and that is not good.