The Cracking the Code Forum Forum

I’m not sure if this helps; but it appears that the Patreon video is exactly the same as the YouTube (based on the identical length and the lick at the beginning anyway - I haven’t watched it) and is actually free. The course is paid for, of course. It might be interesting if somebody who has seen it could give it a review. (I don’t have a feeling that this is especially worth putting down money to investigate so far though - partly based on the response here.)

TheMetronomeMethod: New username now I was wondering if someone on here would find that Bernth video. Good to know, I’ll be sure to use it in future if I intend to tag you. Some of your recent reaction videos came up in my feed, I had them playing while I was doing some chores. I want to say also that I really respect your honesty and integrity. I’ve really become disillusioned with guitar content online, between the algorithm chasing, engagement bait, AI slop (and the plagiarism that has affected me directly). So much of the playing we see is highly edited, mimed or completely faked. It’s really great to see that some people out there are trying to turn that around. Keep on keeping on.

Cool video! Yes I agree with @Tom_Gilroy It looks like DT. You and I have discussed this before. I think the pentatonic examples in your interview, when you use more wrist technique, are this as well. I can see that this form looks more snare-like. So it may be a tweak on what you were doing before. But the more general idea of getting upstroke escape from this type of wrist motion – I think you’ve been in that lane for a while now. Don’t worry, we won’t hate for your “guy who casually learns all techniques” superpowers!

New username now I was wondering if someone on here would find that Bernth video.

Well, wow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwkMpj413WU

Thank you for the feedback. I’ve never heard anyone mention the idea of using gravity to pick down. My old rotation method doesn’t really let you use it so that may be a genuinely good approach to explore, people talk about opposing muscle groups being activated so I just assumed the downstroke needed power behind it. I don’t quite get how that would apply to DSX if that sort of goes out of the guitar instead of down, but for USX first I’m definitely going to give it a shot and will let you know if it helps. Rest strokes I used at first, but when getting that pain I decided to minimise the distance instead. I’ll try them again with this gravity or falling hand focus. BTW. You are right about the pick, I normally use 1mm but just realised I grabbed an old 0.8, which explains why I felt like the strings weren’t in the right place. It wasn’t just the camera.

Hi! First of all, kudos to you for filming yourself and asking for feedback with the goal of improving. It’s never an easy thing to do, but you’ll definitely see that it pays off. Watching your videos, two things really stand out to me. First, your hand and arm look extremely tense when you play. I think you’d benefit from relaxing more and using gravity and the natural weight of your hand a bit more to help you fall onto the next string. That brings me to my second point, especially on the pentatonic section: I don’t think you’re using enough rest strokes, and sometimes your picking motion looks a little too circular, almost like string hopping. Also, I see you’re using a thin pick, I know for me it helped to take a bigger (1.5mm minimum) one to relax my hand, I felt less resistance with that

After a third run through the YouTube content and a bit of the primer. I realised I was picking with a forearm rotation primary motion with USX, similar to how most people would do strumming in funk. But I’ve been having issues with it both trying to use two-way pickslanting (as I also use rotation for changing escape) and with getting excessive tension from this motion. The most obvious way to feel this is the song Basket Case, it involves circle picking and larger motions so the tension shows up quickly. I can play it at 160BPM, but 170 is where I start getting that burning being too much to play though anymore. So I set out to learn wrist motion with less forearm motion but it’s actually ended up causing me more problems than it’s solved so far. I’ve spent a while trying to learn using wrist motion instead of forearm both with USX, DSX, and DBX. It’s still fresh but it feels more accurate and stable than with a forearm rotation primary. The biggest issue is that the burning fatigue seems to come faster with wrist motion than with my old method, so the burn is more intense, and shows up a bit earlier. I tried a bit of elbow motion but was starting to get the same pain. Then started looking into thumb motion. However I think I need to figure out what’s causing this burning sensation in my forearm before I can realistically move on. What stumps me though is if I put all my concentration into making the whole arm as relaxed as possible while driving from the wrist, I seem to a

Bill_hall: Thanks so much for the videos, @Tom_Gilroy . I appreciate you sharing them with me! I’m happy to. Bill_hall: Do you have any videos of you playing lines with dart thrower motion? Not that I can link to right now. I have a lot of footage of my playing in lessons, but I’d need to sort through them and make clips. If you’d like, we can schedule a chat over Zoom, if there’s a time that suits you. I’m on Irish time. I have basically zero knowledge/skill in video recording and editing, but I can make a rough video demonstrating if Zoom doesn’t suit you. Bill_hall: What part are you anchoring when you do it and where is the motion generated from? I don’t like the word “anchor.” I don’t apply any pressure into the guitar, contact is for damping and tactile reference only, not for support. That said, my wrist lies pretty flat across the bridge/strings. The thenar muscles (thumb muscles) touch the lower strings, but the ulnar (pinky) side of my wrist near the pisiform bone is also in contact with the bridge. The ulnar edge of my palm (karate chop area) doesn’t touch anything. The movement is the hammer movement you demonstrated in your video, but I also incorporate some rotation on accents.

Thanks so much for the videos, @Tom_Gilroy . I appreciate you sharing them with me! Do you have any videos of you playing lines with dart thrower motion? I think that would be really neat to see. What part are you anchoring when you do it and where is the motion generated from? Thanks again and I really appreciate it.

Bill_hall: Hi, Tom. Thanks so much for letting me know! Hi @Bill_hall . No problem, glad to help. Bill_hall: It’s such a fun motion. It’s really kind of very unique feeling when using it, but it’s very fun to play. It’s my favourite motion, too. I was reverse dart-thrower player since I was about 15 years old. I developed mixed-escape alternate picking, double-escape and USX systems all based around RDT. I started training the dart-thrower movement during the pandemic, after I was able to identify the movement in Shawn Lane’s playing. Within a couple of weeks, it was faster than the RDT based movements I had been using for half of my life. I already had a lot of USX vocabulary, so it was pretty easy to transition to DT. I made a video about the movement for the forum here: More recently, I discovered the rotator-cuff and elbow USX movement, which pairs really well with dart-thrower. I dislocated and tore my right shoulder a few years ago. This movement has actually helped to rehabilitate my shoulder, but I’ve had to learn to implement it more gradually. ShadowoftheSun: Try it with a trailing edge grip and you get real close to Shawn Lane style speeds. Yeah, the technique just naturally facilitates those kinds of speeds. It’s ridiculous. ShadowoftheSun: This is my go-to picking motion, although I prefer to use a leading edge grip because I prefer the tone I get from it. I prefer the tone I get using the leading edge grip for medium to fast speeds, too.