Hey everyone, I'm a really serious guitar player and have a really frustrating problem with my alternate picking technique. Whenever I play nearly anything I begin to feel tension in my right arm and shoulder. I pick completely from the wrist and don't anchor at all. I've tried re learning my technique by playing really slow but I can still feel some tension there. This has really been frustrating recently as if it wasn't for this I would be practicing for at least 3 hours a day but I'm to scared of learning this bad habit even more. Anyone have any advice??

Hi Harry,

As long as you don't hurt yourself; do you think you can post a video showing the technique in question?

Yeah sure man! The guitar is unamplified though will that matter?? If so I will post one tomorrow with it amplified.

picking from the wrist doesnt seem to work very well for me either man...so you can know you are not alone in that regard...picking from forearm micro-shakes works for best for me and it is really muscle-effort free...Have you looked at all into Sarod technique yet?

Quote: HarryAlderman96 wrote in post #3

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Yeah sure man! The guitar is unamplified though will that matter?? If so I will post one tomorrow with it amplified.

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Not anchoring is the best way to go,
but I find when some people do this they lift the right shoulder which causes the tension.

But as John said get a video up we will have you tension free in no time..

If you want to get proficient with any sort of picking motion be it picking from the wrist, sarod, scalpel, etc. you have to break it down in steps slowly and build muscle memory first. Tension usually comes from playing things your body isn't quite ready to play. There is a lot of physical and mental conditioning that has to go on before gaining proficiency, speed is a byproduct of that.

On a side note, I'm noticing the topic of picking tends to be misunderstood around these parts.

Hey Joel - care to expand on that side note?

Sure! I'll admit that I might just be seeing things but it looks like there is a tendency for people to either make picking a lot more complicated than it ought to be or to completely mystify it. Objectively speaking, we are talking about how to get a pick through a string in a relaxed and efficient way. There are many different motions out there on how to do that (Pebber's method being among them) and they all give you different sounds so there should be a good amount of exploration happening on the players part. This is a good thing and should be encouraged. So, to me, saying something along the lines of "It's best not to anchor" seems pretty silly. The guitar world would be missing something if everyone picked the same exact way.

I used to do form seriously. It would be either slow and moderately comfy, or fast and getting tense and tiresome. When I finally said screw the form, I discovered a big problem with me is I always try to play faster and pushing it. Some mental thing, but when I slowed the metronome by just 5 bpm and played the same, I found myself relaxed and playing still fast. Not like I bumped it down by 50 bpm. So I've created two "modes" of myself. Am I tense? Probably playing too fast. But I'll push harder through that because I like doing the wrong things. Am I not tense? Probably playing within my range and I relax. I'd tense up all over trying to have an overly good form rather than the form tensing me up. Like tension headaches, but in the arm.

In all of that, I'm saying a lot of tension comes from the mind and from therr right into the muscles. It's good natured and takes some training to ease up and care less and just enjoy stuff. Then there's less good natured from posture, how you hold the guitar, or overtraining into that thing I forgot the name of, tendonitis? Is it just that form that hurts or does it hurt playing however you played before you relearned your technique?

I agree with Joel. I think a lot of guitarists in general either A) care too little about their technique or B) care too much about it.

I think Pebber being who he is and playing the way he does and having taught Brian Carroll, the picking thing tends to be greatly over complicated.

Too many questions and not enough practicing. At the end of the day, as long as you are comfortable with your picking technique and you are getting the tone you want and making the gains in speed that you want, all should be well for you.

If their is too much tension to the point of pain or of being very uncomfortable, I would stop and rest. Take a couple weeks off and start over with something new.

Some guitar players play slow and they are great. Some play fast and they are great. Some play slow and they suck. Some play fast and they suck.

But you shouldn't be in pain or tension! And you shouldn't over-intellectualize picking. I find that the over-intellectualizing mostly comes from people looking for a "magic bullet" to make them great. They think they are doing it wrong but in reality, they're doing it correctly. Just haven't put enough TIME and PRACTICE in yet.

Either that or, they can't do something so they go on long rants about how their way is the best way or whatever.

Blah. The only thing that is going to make you a true musician is gluing your ass to a chair and playing some guitar. Period. End of story.

I play fast...and I SUUUUUCKCCKK! Back to the Woodshed for me!!!

Ditto Mr. Deroche...

And post a vid...that the only way for us to see whats going on with the tech.

Hey everyone, sorry I haven't posted that video of my technique yet, my damn amp is broken! This seems like a really great forum though and thanks to everyone who has replied so far!