Michael Angelo picking

Hello there. I have been reading this forum for about a half year and I now decided to become a member. This is my first post here:). Anyway, I too saw this video by Michael Angelo, Speed Kills and I was wondering how the hell does he pick. When he picks fast, his hand is at the 90 per cent angle to the strings and it looks like he is only moving his point finger and tumb backward and forward. I have tried to play like taht because you can realy move your fingers very fast that way without even moving the wrist or elbow and I must say that it is super fast and the overall control is way better than with elbow/wrist combination. The only problem is that when playing this way you must play with the edge of your pick which does not produce any sound. Any idea? I have looked all over the net but didnt find a thing on tahat matter.

Moving the fingers only for picking is more effective , and less energy wasting.
You should start learning this with easy and slow stuff first , then you'll gain speed by time .
Other people who use this technique are Yngwie Malmsteen and Michael Romeo.

Yes I have noticed it. I have already studied the Yngwie's and Michael Romeo technique. As for yngwie he olays with the fingers only when playing slow but when moving to fast tempos, he plays from the wrist and fingers. Michael Romeo plays with his fingers at all times and very fast, but he keeps his hand at about 170 per cent angle to the strings. I have tried this it gives great control, the only problem is speed because you must move your thumb in up dovn movement which is kinda unnatural. Then I stumbled onto Michael Angelo. When playing slow, he plays like MR or YM, but at high speeds he puts his hand 90 per cent angle to the strings. That means, he plays more backward-forward movement than up-down(like MR does). This is way faster, I can do it even faster than with wrist the problem is that this way you must pick with the side of your pick which doesn't produce sound. Pick should be somehow twisted or something. So I dont know how MA manages this.

angelo uses a stylus pick and he tottaly indorses them and they realy do help. i used to have a link where you can buy them, just go to guitar war online and theres a link there to them. i use em and they allow you to get that angle you are talking about.

Man I tried one of those stylus picks...They take a lot of getting used to .... and this is coming from someone who uses 2.0MM picks!!!
They do help with the speed though.

stylus picks dont put any resistance against the strings when used properly. if you wanna get that smooth angelo or gilbert sound that is a definate way to do so along with countless months of practice baecause we all know that nothing takes the place of practice.

HeHe. Thank you a lot guys. I am gona grab one of those Stylus picks and give a Michael Angelo style of picking a try. If it doesn't work I can still change it back to my good old wrist + elbow.

da hell is a stylus pick? are those the thick ones that yngwie uses? please enlighten me :)

the stylus pick is a very useful learning tool that teaches minimum movement away from the strings as you play across them. the less you move your pick away from the strings the faster you can pick, paul gilbert himself said that you can pnly play as fast as you can alterante pick on his instructional video, he then showed some neat technics that realy help with this. the stylus pick kicks butt what it is is a pick made from some kinda plastic but on the tip it has a diamond sorta shaped tip which alows the pick to naturaly roll over the strings back and fourth thus eliminating to much movement away from the string, basicly the pick never leaves the string which is a awesome speed technic. if you wanna play as fast as macalpine or angelo and that crowd it is an advantage that teached you minimum movement and after youve used it for a while when you swith back to a normal pick this idea stays with you so there you have it in a nutshell. i hope this helps. i used one for 2 years steadily and i still use it from time to time and i dont think i wasted my time. happy shredding flash.

hey aiwass im proud of you lol,(just joking). but that is what i mean not all people can do that with there picking technic, i just simply stated that the pick helps with your technic thats all.the one thing i gotta work more on is my finger picking, whoever mentioned that in this thread that they finger pick like hell please if you know of any links to this sorta style hook me so ill be styling man. thanks and god bless tim pate the flash

Little movement, sure but check out Morse and Wylde for ex. Mega movement, still fast and right on. It´s same for me. Playn´ slow I can minimilaze my pic hand movement but fast, it´s impssible. But I don´t mind ´cause as long as it works, who cares. When it stop workin´ (probably ´cause of a injury if it ever happends off course) I´ll consider a change.

i can agree with that what ever works works, its just a matter of working it slow and building up in speed over the weeks and heck you might even find like a 5% increase in your speed overall with minimum movement away from the strings, it makes since that the further away you move your hand that the longer it takes to move it back there and it is pretty much common since to try and minmalize this and get it under control, ive seen zack play with big hand movements well playing rythm but not well lead playing, do you think jason becker could have pulled half the speed outta his butt that he did if he had a outta control picking hand or so to say, its somthing to think about and the way i see it any tool that helps minimize the movement and gives you results is a tool everyone should use and learn from. the stylus pick does just that.

can anybody please post a pic of a stylus pick (haha, it rhymes)! tnx

Check this : http://www.jimdunlop.com/picks/specialty.html

Whats up guys.
I was just shifting through the forum and I happened upon this little discussion, so I fugured I'de throw in my 2 cents :) . Now I'm probably a rookie compared to you guys, as I only have 6 1/2 years under my belt, but I use a picking style that most people I meet find odd. I had to end up picking like this to play along with a song I was learning at the time, "War Ensemble" by Slayer. I was only learning the riffs because Slayer (altho my favorite band) has real crappy "off the top of your head" solos. The verse riff to this song is very fast and alternates between 2 strings. The only way I could keep up with this was to lock my elbow and fingers and get the picking motion from moving my wrist in a diagonal motion along with "twisting" my forarm. The only draw back I had with this technique is it was difficult to ascend the strings with it. For some reason I had no problem moving from e to E but it took a while to move from E to e quickley. Well, I'm done, hope I helped in some way.

Told ya I was a rookie next to you guys :). I dont get what you mean by using only your fingers. Do you mean to just move your finger and thumb that hold the pick back and forth? with no wrist or forarm movement? Please elaborate....

Man, I'm workin on the technique you described and I see what your talking about! I never knew picking could be this relaxed. It's making it so much easier to move up and down the strings. I cant thank you enough man. I thought my freakin elbow was gonna fall off! :)

I am working on that to and it offers you 100% more accuarcy than wrist or elbow picking, the only problem is speed.

You rule aiwass :)

Hey aiwass, I'm really trying to get that picking technique down. I have a question, when you say, "dont move your wrist" do you mean dont move your wrist at all? Also, I was wondering if you could possibly tab me a good 6 string exercise for this technique. Thanks...