how do i teach someone to trem pick | Thread profile

Quote: Originally Posted by northerndragon the other guitarist in my band cant do it at all. somehow it sounds like bumble bees . he thing is, hes really good at everything else. hes really fast with his left hand. his alternate picking is okay... but his trem picking is just awful. I tried explaining it but ive ran out of words to do it. I think...

the other guitarist in my band cant do it at all. somehow it sounds like bumble bees . he thing is, hes really good at everything else. hes really fast with his left hand. his alternate picking is okay... but his trem picking is just awful. I tried explaining it but ive ran out of words to do it. I think im not so good at explaining it because I never had to learn how to do it, ive ...

I'm actually having the exact same problem, and was about to post a thread about it but saw this one. I've been in a death metal band for years, and have always tremolo picked using my arm. This has worked for a long time but now our music is becoming more technically developed and I can't use this technique because I can't lock my wrist because then I lose control of my picking. I've ...

God damn this forum has gotten slow...

I really don't think there's anything strange to it. If it doesn't sound good, you're probably being sloppy, missing a stroke here or being a bit too fast there. Basically just train alt. picking with a metronome so slow that you can play it exactly on the beat and then work very carefully upwards. What makes trem picking sound so good is its tightness.

the problem I'm having with that logic is a lot of people describe tremelo picking as being different than alt. picking. The punk guitarist I know certainly didn't slowly alt. pick in order to build speed.

that was a good video posted, but it really just takes a lot of practice like anything else

Tremelo picking is the same as alternate picking, if not more precise. Why more precise? Think about it - tremelo picking is just really fast alternate picking done in groups of 3s, 4s, 6 or 8s over a beat, on a single note. If you slow a tremelo picking part down you can actually count the number of alternate picks being done over the beat, and usually it is always done in 3s, 4s 6s or 8s....

Quote: Originally Posted by TheDreadfulHoroscope the problem I'm having with that logic is a lot of people describe tremelo picking as being different than alt. picking. The punk guitarist I know certainly didn't slowly alt. pick in order to build speed. And if he really can do it, it's because he has a good sense of rythm and ...

I've realized the reason why I've been having trouble is I've been gripping the pick and my patterns weren't narrow enough.... in short, you guys where right. I feel stupid now, my next door neighbor (big metallica/megadeth fan) demonstrated this to me today. Now I feel pain in my forearm muscles instead of the nerves in my wrist and hand.