A useable tremolo picking action is the first step to developing your picking technique, and if you don’t have that then you’ve skipped the most basic, fundamental aspect...
A useable tremolo picking action is the first step to developing your picking technique, and if you don’t have that then you’ve skipped the most basic, fundamental aspect of picking straight away.
Imagine if you spend months building up slowly from 60bpm to 90bpm, trying to play everything perfectly, only to discover that your technique doesn’t allow you to increase that tempo. So, the first thing you need to establish is whether your picking action has the potential for higher speed.
The angle at which your hand approaches the strings will massively affect how effective your picking is. However, to feel the effects of different hand positions, you first need to put the pick to the strings.
We’re usually taught in a very exaggerated way, which shows in obvious up and down movement with quite a lot of pick travel. This is fine for low and moderate speeds but the faster you go, you don’t want to be doing that. Picking faster isn’t about moving your hand the same way but quicker.
The secret is this: Just imagine that when you’re playing alternating up and down strokes, you’re keeping your pick ‘on’ the string. You’re picking on the string, not necessarily through it. This is a psychological reference point you can use to remind yourself to focus on reducing the amount that the pick travels away from the strings. This allows you to speed up the rate that the pick changes direction.
So the first two elements of developing good tremolo picking ability are to keep the pick as close to the string as possible and moving your hand around until you find the position that allows the best result.
As you do this, you’ll naturally start to speed up. When this happens you’ll start to feel it physically. This