# Tremolo picking for long periods of time?



## bythepainiseetheothers (Sep 27, 2015)

Hi guys, i've always had this trouble playing Black Metal, I can't tremolo pick for more than 1 minute or so.

How do I build stamina and endurance in order to play 10/20 minutes songs?

Examples:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F18tolvMnjg


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## MaxOfMetal (Sep 27, 2015)

Practice.


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## chopeth (Sep 27, 2015)

Amigo chulapo, not long ago somebody asked the same, so I just copy my answer for you here 



chopeth said:


> Fantastic book, I recommend it to everyone into black symphonic metal, even if you aren't you can learn a lot of Ihsahn's techniques such as this Tremolo picking. For me, tremolo picking is when after a song you need a treatment for your arm into a bucket with ice like in my first cover:


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## GraemeH (Sep 27, 2015)

Tremolo pick for a few seconds, copy+paste in DAW.

Seriously though, I saw a video about a "3 minute technique" for guitar. It suggested you got the maximum benefit to your muscle memory by practising a short repetitive figure for 3 minutes before resting. It worked out pretty well for me with other techniques.

So slow the tremolo picking down to a speed where you can just about, barely, make it through 3 straight minutes of it. Do the 3 minutes, rest, do the 3 minutes, rest. Work up the speed from there, but not by so much you can only last 1 or 2 minutes.

I found by keeping myself right on that limit of "3 minutes was _just barely_ possible" my muscles dialled in strongly to what I was doing.

Or copy+paste in DAW.


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## OmegaSlayer (Sep 27, 2015)

Which pick are you using?
Some picks makes black metal tremolo picking very hard.
So, you might even want to look into that.


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## Lokasenna (Sep 27, 2015)

I have the same problem with fast Iced Earth-style gallops... I can manage a good thirty seconds before the "burst" muscle memory gives out and my arm starts going "hey dude, wtf are you doing here?"

Then I stop and wait for Schaffer to take a break... he must have +20 Wristbands of Stamina or something.


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## coffeeflush (Sep 27, 2015)

I have very good stamina in tremelo picking, 
I don't angle my pick but keep it perpendicular. 
the things that helped me in this. 

1: Switching to classical position, this helped both my right and left hands relax a lot
2: Relaxing my grip on the pick
3: Using a smaller jazz pick instead of the big pick. The smaller pick helps me keep the movement small, which helps maintain speed.
4: Using a tight pickup (evo in my case, whatever works for you)
5: Using less gain

for reference i can play full nile songs without warmup to a metronome.


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## bythepainiseetheothers (Sep 27, 2015)

OmegaSlayer said:


> Which pick are you using?
> Some picks makes black metal tremolo picking very hard.
> So, you might even want to look into that.



Black Ice 1.0 something, it's great but the problem is not the pic (i've already been in that situation)


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## bythepainiseetheothers (Sep 27, 2015)

chopeth said:


> Amigo chulapo, not long ago somebody asked the same, so I just copy my answer for you here



Yeah, I've already been looking Ihsahn's stuff, gracias <3


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## Solodini (Sep 28, 2015)

Are you tensing up while you're playing?


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## pastanator (Sep 28, 2015)

how I built up speed is by getting a software like best practice and literally playing along to slayer songs, and when you get comfortable at 100% speed, bump it up to 110. Once you're comfortable at 110, try 120. And keep going. The three minute method Graemeh mentioned is cool as well though


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## Hey_Im_FinN (Oct 6, 2015)

As pastanator said, playing to Slayer songs really helps. Also, keeping your movements small helps a TON! A very good example of this is Takayoshi Ohmura, although he's more of a shredder.


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## Malkav (Oct 7, 2015)

You shouldn't be getting muscle fatigue cause your picking should be coming from your wrist, if it's not then that'll cause your arm to lock up, which is bad technique.

If you are picking from the wrist (as you should be  ) then it may be the angle of your pick causing excessive resistance, I could try and explain it in text but honestly if you watch Troy Grady's Cracking The Code that'll probably be a much easier visual reference regarding picking angle


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## Adam Of Angels (Oct 7, 2015)

Picking only from the wrist will cause fatigue and is rather hard to build speed. Some assistance from your forearm, using a rotational motion, will allow for the least effort once you get it down. Troy Grady actually covers a lot of this, and his videos are a huge help.


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## Malkav (Oct 7, 2015)

Adam Of Angels said:


> Picking only from the wrist will cause fatigue and is rather hard to build speed. Some assistance from your forearm, using a rotational motion, will allow for the least effort once you get it down. Troy Grady actually covers a lot of this, and his videos are a huge help.



I don't know man, I've watched those videos like 7 times in the last month and there's not really any assistance in the motion from the forearm in them, your forearm moves as a by product of the flailing your hand does but it's not really a part of what's generating the speed as such, more just what focuses you to a particular string.

When I met Guthrie Govan, cause he came down to S.A to do a clinic, I asked him to talk about his alternate picking motion and he picks from the wrist while using the forearm to anchor the guitar to his body and he's way faster than pretty much everyone except Shawn Lane who's picking technique just makes no sense  In fact there's a video of him from when he was still playing Suhr where he talks about this and how he can wonder around the stage and the guitar stays in place in the correct position for him because the forearm keeps it in place.



There's also this video where at 5:40 he says "Let your wrist do the work".

I have a friend who always used to point out that despite his love of Steve Lukather he thinks that the whole forearm picking thing he does is just awful and always points out Govan, Who he's not really a fan of, as having one of the best right hands in the industry. His exact catchphrase was "That strum picking stuff is for wimps", which I always found funny cause he essentially became a highly evolved hybrid picker because he got over how much maintenance alternate picking takes, which to me is kinda wimpy 

As for the fatigue thing, I can only speak from personal experience, but starting out I used to do the twitch spasm forearm thing because I had no idea that didn't work, I ended up getting fatigued very quickly that way so I assumed players who could do it for much longer just got used to it, then I discovered Petrucci and realised I was totally in the wrong direction and I adapted to a more wrist orientated but anchored style of alternate picking which was okay but felt kinda limiting when trying to really get good accents and to push the speed up to the "next level" for me as such, then when Erotic Cakes dropped I noticed that Guthrie's technique was free floating and I figured different strokes for different folks, but then I started hybrid picking and the anchoring thing was stopping me from switching in and out of the two techniques smoothly so I spent a year completely retraining my technique to be floating and honestly for me there's so much less tension regardless of speed and what I really like about it is that it's much easier for me to throw in sudden controlled bursts of rapid fire notes because regardless of what speed I'm playing as my right hand stays consistent, allowing me to focus more on the tone of the notes rather.

To add to the overall discussion here's a really cool in depth analysis of the various motion sets and their advantages and disadvantages written by Tuck Andress.

Tuck & Patti: Pick & Fingerstyle Techniques

and a video of the Shawn Lane talking about his alternate picking:



Dude's right hand is just too crazemazing


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