I was wondering if anyone else on the forums who like me is still in SAROD infancy (but as always I would love for Pebb/Frakh to chime in) I am still struggling to maintain the Sarod flutter (I get it...then I loose it) I have been spending 30 min w/ a dumbell that I obtained from Target pursuant to FrakH's vid advise. Half the time I loose the flutter as I am lowering the fluttering pick onto a string....other times I struggle to maintain a flutter longer than 6-10 sec just in the air....will post vid showing what I mean shortly....Frakh/Pebber... did either of you ever have to deal with stuff like this in your playing? I am willing to do whatever it takes to pick as fast as either Pebber of FrakH...the time to get there is of no consequence to me...As long as I will be able to rip 3 N.P.S. scale coils like Frakh, Pebber, or Buckethead eventually....though I must be honest that at times when I was ogling FrakH's technique on the Sarod utube vids he has posted sometimes it felt as if I was actually watching Buckethead rip through those scale coils. I dont live in California so that rules out any non internet-lessons with Pebber, but I have saved up a decent chunk of change recently and am interested in wwhat sort of online options Pebber may offer...& @ the very least his picking DVDs.

I must also add that I have become firmly convinced @ this point that Its not particularly feasible for me to push the type of alternate picking/scalpal hybrid that has been my default/ the type I have I normally used (where the picking hand is not a floating) any farther than 9.8-10 Notes/sec....Hence my need of Sarod.

typo alert* In my first post I meant to say 30 min/day with the dumbell.

How long have you been practicing/exercising the Sarod movement? It probably just takes more time.

Also, 10 notes / second is what, sixteenths at 150 bpm? I'd bet that you could improve upon this with an anchored technique if you wanted to. Again, it probably just takes more time.

But to answer your question, yes, I'm on the Sarod learning curve too and I can't keep the flutter going forever. I've actually been keeping track of my progress over the last few months though and I'm seeing improvement. I find it harder to keep the flutter going on a single string than I do when switching to adjacent strings. I think this is because for me it's easier to keep it going with a bigger wrist rotation. So I work on both.

When I 'just play' though, I still fall back to scalpal and wrist picking.

It will happen...just give it time....