Best technique for moving the hand across strings

Hi everyone!

First, I would like to congratulate Lisa McCormick and Anders Mouridsen for their great classes at Guitar Fundamentals and Rock Style Level 1.

Although I have been playing electric guitar for years and I am able to perform some solos from Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple, I know that my techniques for fast picking are not good enough.

My main problem is moving fast among strings. When a fast part of the solo is in one string only (such as the end of Highway Star solo), I can handle. But when I need to move to another string, I have problems.

Therefore, to summarize my question is:[br] - What is the best technique for moving my hand between the strings?[br] [br]Just to give some more details (sorry for the long message).[br] - I use Jazz III picks.[br] - I anchor my palm at the bridge.[br] - My tremolo picking done by wristle movements only.[br] - My forearm is usually touching or anchored in the guitar body.[br] [br]I could not find any video at Guitar Tricks explaining arm or forearm movements. Maybe I did not search for the right keywords.

Thanks in advance,[br]Fabricio

Hi frabriciovivas,

Thanks for the kind comments, remember you can always leave thank you messages for Lisa and Anders on their forum pages.

If you're having trouble moving fast between strings, it sounds like you might want to work on your spider leg exercises to go up and down the fretboard smoothly. You always want to learn as slow as possible when you're learning something new.

Here's a good little exercise from Anders in Rock Level 2: https://www.guitartricks.com/lesson.php?input=21448&s_id=1720

Hi,

Thanks for the answer. I think my message was not clear enough because I forgot to tell that my problem is with my picking hand, not the fretting one.

I watched the video, however, since the camera focus on his picking hand I do not know what movement he is making with his right forearm/arm. Is his forearm sitting on the guitar?

Some videos on the internet explains that my hand should make a diagnoal move across the strings. Others suggest that the movement should be just up and down.

There a few others that say that the wristle rotation should be used to reach other strings. However, this does not make much sense to me because I won't be able to each all six string only with writle rotation movement. Besides, the angle of attack of the pick to the string would change a lot.

Thanks,

Fabricio

Originally Posted by: Guitar Tricks Admin

Hi frabriciovivas,

Thanks for the kind comments, remember you can always leave thank you messages for Lisa and Anders on their forum pages.

If you're having trouble moving fast between strings, it sounds like you might want to work on your spider leg exercises to go up and down the fretboard smoothly. You always want to learn as slow as possible when you're learning something new.

Here's a good little exercise from Anders in Rock Level 2: https://www.guitartricks.com/lesson.php?input=21448&s_id=1720

Originally Posted by: fabriciovivas

Therefore, to summarize my question is:[br] - What is the best technique for moving my hand between the strings?

You should experiment with both approaches. It's such an individual thing that you won't know what works for you until you're seriously working through it.

I've seen players that lightly anchor the palm on the bridge & move straight up & down.

But I personally find it better to gradually arc my picking attack back toward the bridge as I descend toward lower strings. The objective here is to rely on the lower strings being thicker & firmer as you get closer to the bridge. So, it's sometimes easier to play faster on them as you pick closer to the bridge.

Another important detail is finding just the right angle of pick attack to cleanly move from one string to the next. That's one of the key aspects of being able to get from one string to the next.

It's great that you can do the tremolo picking on one string! The next step is to get that kind of speed working while crossing strings. It takes a lot of time & practice to get that mechanical coordination right. Have a look at these tutorials that show how to start working on scale patterns on 2 sets of adjacent strings.

https://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=928

https://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=929

That will get you started on playing horizontally & figuring out which picking attack positioning works best for you.

Then, when you are ready you can work on these tutorials that show how to cross multiple sets of strings while working out your alternate picking patterns.

https://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=419

https://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=973

https://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=980

See if any of that stuff answers your question & helps you get moving forward. Ask more if necessary & best of success with it! :)