# Technique Lightbulb Moments thread



## I Shot JR (May 28, 2016)

What were some of the "lightbulb" moments you guys have had with your general playing technique?

Got the inspiration for this thread because I had one literally 5 mins ago.
I was watching this video, a headstock cam of Adam Jones from Tool

I noticed the part of his hand where his fingers meet the palm was almost _under_ the neck, I've always had mine at the back of the neck, about where the truss rod is.

Holy cow now I would never play any other way, I get way more power, more speed, and more accuracy. I just accepted not having an agile fret hand because arthritis runs in the family and my job is pretty hard on my hands, but now I'm inspired look up tabs for some solos!


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## big_aug (May 28, 2016)

It might not have been "lightbulb" per say, but one day I could just sweep pick. It felt like I could never do it and then all of the sudden my hands were moving in perfect synchronization. It was really strange actually and I stopped and thought "Wow, I can sweep pick."

Not like super fast or anything. Like 150bpm triplets or something but it felt like I went from 0-60 lol. The truth is I have practiced it a lot, but it didn't feel like a gradual progression.


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## prlgmnr (Jul 31, 2016)

Just the other day it occurred to me that I make massive progress on the drums by practising with a metronome so MAYBE I SHOULD OCCASIONALLY USE ONE WHEN PLAYING GUITAR

Yes, I'm 32 years old and haven't practised guitar with a metronome.


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## Malkav (Aug 1, 2016)

Yeah it's ridiculous to play, but what he shows you regarding finger positions really got me thinking about ways in which to position my left hand to facilitate fast passages, now when learning sequences the primary thought is "where am I going with this?" and "How can I better position my fretting of the notes to facilitate the notes that are coming?" as opposed to trying to be in a regiment of assigning certain fingers into certain boundaries and dealing with playing notes on adjacent strings with a single finger.


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## marcwormjim (Aug 1, 2016)

That said, attempting many of Shawn's licks and runs is an easy way of injuring yourself.


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## mdeeRocks (Aug 2, 2016)

I woke up one day and could play left handed... 

Jokes aside I usually get these "miracles" after months of focused practice. One concrete example is that practicing placing accents (like at 2-1-3-4, 2-2-3-4 at 4/4 rhythmic "grid") and overall advanced rhythm playing does wonders to my solo playing/improvisation.


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## JohnTanner (Aug 9, 2016)

Just last month i was finally able to "teach", so to speak, my right arm to not tense up and fatigue when playing fast tremolo style passages. It felt so great to finally figure that out..


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## tyler_faith_08 (Aug 13, 2016)

My biggest 3 lightbulb moments were:

Watching Michael Angelo Batio's Speed Kills video
Discovering a self-accelerating metronome
Discovering the modal scale shapes (and subsequently, learning the modes)

The last one is the most valuable IMO. It allows you to just "see" the fretboard in a much more complete unit instead of small areas and sequences. It facilitates chord theory, funky chord structures, large leaps across the fretboard, etc.


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## schraiber (Sep 13, 2016)

I had a couple of these recently:

1) When playing with high gain, flatter fingers can be better. At least keeping your index finger relatively flat and playing with the pad rather than the tip can really help mute a lot of string noise

2) Angle the pick so it's not contacting the string head on. It's both faster and it sounds 100x better.

I wish someone had told me these tips a long time ago..


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## takotakumi (Sep 13, 2016)

*After watching John Browne pick, I started implementing his pinky anchor into my playing. This helps downpicking immensly by having your pinky anchor a point under the strings and thus helps as a leverage when downpicking by reducing the back and forth motion from downpicking

*Lately applied chicken or hybrid picking into my playing, kinda hard to start with but once I got the hang of it, it's so useful. Not only does it "save" me time for fast passages but it tends to have a more subtle tone to it.


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## Simic (Sep 19, 2016)

When doing fast long 3 or 6 note per string runs I started to put accents on certain notes (every 6th note for example) which made the whole thing that much easier because I knew exactly where I was (group 1, group 2, group 3) and it was like my picking hand was reset after every accent (passing onto the next group of 6 notes). It made me play faster just by thinking differently.

I hope this makes sense haha, didn't know how else to write it.


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## FEcorvus (Sep 19, 2016)

tapping at an angle, makes it way cleaner and clearer


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## Drew (Sep 22, 2016)

I, no joke, had a dream once where my aunt, who I knew for a fact was Jimi Hendrix even though it looked and sounded like my aunt, pointed out to me that while playing blues in a pentatonic box shape, I would only bend the "leading" notes - so, like in a 12th fret E minor box, it'd only be the 15th or 14th fret notes. My aunt/Jimi pointed out that there was really no reason I couldn't bend the OTHER notes in that scale pattern or other patterns along the neck, and that doing so would open up some really cool opportunities. 

I remember thinking, "Oh, that's a really good point," in the dream.


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## TaP (Oct 10, 2016)

big_aug said:


> It might not have been "lightbulb" per say, but one day I could just sweep pick. It felt like I could never do it and then all of the sudden my hands were moving in perfect synchronization. It was really strange actually and I stopped and thought "Wow, I can sweep pick."
> 
> Not like super fast or anything. Like 150bpm triplets or something but it felt like I went from 0-60 lol. The truth is I have practiced it a lot, but it didn't feel like a gradual progression.



Mmmm I like this... I feel much better about myself practicing.


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## LiveOVErdrive (Oct 11, 2016)

After running a bunch of scales all the time and then taking a break for a while, I just picked up my guitar and found I could pick out leads all over the neck. It just kind of clicked. I am pleased.


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## broj15 (Oct 11, 2016)

tremolo picking big chords (4+ strings) is way easier when you angle your pick against the strings, as opposed to leaving the surface of the pick parallel with the strings. i also find that picking closer to the bridge has increased my speed and just sounds more punchy and aggressive than picking closer to the neck. I used to have this problem where the pick would always "grab" or get caught up in the strings, but after making these 2 modifications to my technique I've not had to deal with that sense. Also using thick strings for tight tension and finding the "right" pick helped a lot. In my case I use d'addario light top/heavy bottom (10-54) in open D (DADAC#E) and the original Dava Control Nylon picks.


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## phrygian12 (Oct 19, 2016)

Malkav said:


> Yeah it's ridiculous to play, but what he shows you regarding finger positions really got me thinking about ways in which to position my left hand to facilitate fast passages, now when learning sequences the primary thought is "where am I going with this?" and "How can I better position my fretting of the notes to facilitate the notes that are coming?" as opposed to trying to be in a regiment of assigning certain fingers into certain boundaries and dealing with playing notes on adjacent strings with a single finger.



I had the same " ah-ha!" moment with Lane. Years ago I was watching many of his videos trying to imitate his licks. When I suddenly notice when he would play any sort of minor scale in 3 notes per string type of position. He would always using his index, middle, and ring finger instead of using your pinky. 

I took that as being lazy and had the Paul Gilbert approach to finger positions. However, I notice by playing his way made playing certain phrases or licks feel a lot smoother with out wasting motion by shifting positions just to play a note or two. Around that time I also started adding hybrid picking to my economy style picking. Crazy how a much you can learn by just watching hours of someone's playing.


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## Anquished (Nov 3, 2016)

I had issues with accuracy and speed between strings with my picking hand when alternate picking. I used to hold my pick quite far out from my hand. 

My brother in law told me to curl my finger under the pick to bring it in tighter and it almost doubled my speed across strings as well as increased accuracy and synchronization between my hands.


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## coffeeflush (Nov 3, 2016)

This video literally solved years of anguish for me


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## LiveOVErdrive (Dec 6, 2016)

I'm a lefty but I play righty, and I have always - ALWAYS - had sloppy picking technique. I've played with a metronome and practiced economy picking and all that, but I've been plateau'd for a while.

Today I had a big lightbulb moment: I started to THINK with my right hand. Basically, I just focus on picking when, where, and how I need to, and trust my left hand to be fretting the right place at the right time. This made a nearly instant and huge improvement to my rhythm, speed, and accuracy. I'd been practicing picking before but still THINKING from my left hand - driving the rhythm with my left hand - when I should have been using my right.

In other words, my picking was sloppy, so I ignored my fretting and focused on that.


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## Grindpa (Dec 7, 2016)

Ditto on Troy Grady and his show Cracking The Code. Before watching his show, leads or even riffs that were inside picked were impossible for me to play at high speeds. After being introduced to pick angles by Troy Grady, I had the biggest lightbulb moment of all time. This opened up a whole new world for my playing and now I am 100% more confident in tackling super fast licks.


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## LiveOVErdrive (Dec 8, 2016)

Does the pick angle stuff still apply if you are economy picking? I suppose it would still come into play when switching strings down on an upstroke or up on a downstroke.


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## donniekak (Dec 8, 2016)

My fast playing was entirely self taught. Watching the cracking the code videos showed me why some passages others find extremely difficult came easy to me, and other runs that were standard shred fare had me pulling my hair out.

I already did two way pick slanting, but almost all of my fast stuff I was using cross picking, and got pretty good at it. I guess that's what happens when you try to pick fast the same way you play slow. Most of my two way pick slanting was confined to sweeping, which I also found out with a camera is how I was trying to change strings when playing runs as fast as I can.

Either way it's such an ah ha moment when you relalize that there is still a lot of work to do. I actually love it. It gives me a reason to practice again instead of just playing.


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## prlgmnr (Dec 8, 2016)

LiveOVErdrive said:


> Does the pick angle stuff still apply if you are economy picking? I suppose it would still come into play when switching strings down on an upstroke or up on a downstroke.



If you think how you have to angle the pick for sweeping then that applies when you're doing an economy string change, think of it like a mini sweep.

As you've already said, you'll still need a string changing strategy for when you do even numbered groupings and can't sweep through to the next string.


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## ASoC (Dec 14, 2016)

I realized that thinking about how to play fast is a sure way to screw up, things come out cleaner if I just let go and allow my hands to work (provided I've practiced enough with a metronome so that the muscle memory is there) 

I generally either don't slant the pick or have a very slight downward slant when I'm alternate picking and I rotate my wrist (changing the pick angle) a lot when I'm moving around the strings. 

When I'm downpicking my pick has a serious downward slant though, which makes switching between the 2 kind of hard at high speed. I'm currently working on it by practicing the E minor scale riff that comes a bit after the solo in Master of Puppets. That one riff has always been the hardest one in the song for me, despite the fact that I was fast enough to downpick the entire rest of the song within a few months of starting to play.


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## endmysuffering (Dec 14, 2016)

I don't know if this is a lightbulb moment, but I was practicing the minor arpeggio from the begginning part of the Stabwound solo and one day it just came to me. It was up to speed, not the cleanest but I've since bettered it.


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