Cracking The Code? Picking Series

wyzyguy

wyzyguy

Inspired
Stumbled across this on youtube.

Troy Grady – Guitarist


Looks like a documentary on right hand tech & picking I guess.
I watched the first season & the first episode of season 2, plus a webcast "Talking the Code" last night.
So.. Does anyone know anything else about this? Troy Grady is a bright guy who is good on his feet & picking it his way seems to work for him..

I find this whole thing interesting because picking does seem to be a dark art and he has made a few comments about memory chunking & syncing up right & left hand. Troy seems to be about my age & we stumbled across the same things around the same time.

I have taken a look at what I do & based on his terminology I would be a economy/sweep picker, ie... I will use straight alternate picking until my brain says not to. I have been playing seriously for 30 years & a lot of my technique for picking is just what my brain/hand said to do. I think that is a benefit of starting something young. If you started to play golf at a young age you will know what I mean. When I get together with another guitar player who is paying attention they will make a comment about me starting a run on an upstroke. One guy even told me I could not start with an upstroke. :eek-new:

Troy had this one lick that I have been working on. The PopTart lick.

I am only letting myself pick this the way he has described with the same fingering. At this point I am not letting this change anything else I do. Just this one lick. It feels very foreign but I am willing to invest some time into just to see what I can do with the one lick. My wife is sick of it!!!

I have zero investment in this except for the $20.00 I sent him for season 2. I figured it was worth the investment for entertainment at least.
 
I've been following this series and totally recommend watching it! Great production and very entertaining! :encouragement:
 
I like it. Very fun to watch. I must be around the same age as that guy. Remember all that stuff. Lifting the needle over and over, slowing down solo's to half speed(I used a tascam 4 track though). Trying to figure out Vai and Yngwie. My god, the scratched vinyl and eaten cassettes. Still only managed an approximation of those licks. :)
 
Paid for season 2 a couple of weeks back. Dude has a talent for this kind of stuff. I figure he deserves to get paid. Obviously this won't come anywhere near covering his cost, but he set the price, and for $20 it's a heck of a deal.
 
I just don't want to screw myself up!!!!
I made a little progress last night on the PopTarts lick thingee.
Anyone else tried this lick?
 
wyzyguy said:
I just don't want to screw myself up!!!!
I made a little progress last night on the PopTarts lick thingee.
Anyone else tried this lick?
Click to expand...

I am following up on my earlier post. About a month in & I am seeing nice improvement. I am getting tired of practice & would like to just play more but I think it has been worth it. I have been working on finger independence as well. That is one frustrating aspect to work on. 3rd & 4th fingers are fine. My 2nd finger (middle) is very tied to my 1st finger (index). I work on it one day & think ... That is it... Got it now.... Nope... Next day same results. It is getting resolved faster but... Old Dog... New Tricks...
 
Been following the series too, bought series two, well worth supporting these guys I reckon.

I've been playing around with the poptarts riff too, nice little exercise. I play it in A and keep it going on the bottom two strings with a quick jump down to the 5th position for the last few notes.
I've always been more of a legato player so working on picking stuff like this is opening up some new ideas for me.
 
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