Hi all!

There is this song I play with my band which contains the following phrase: [1]

Or in ASCII, if you prefer:

e 5--5--|5--5--|7--7--|9--9--|
B -7--7-|-7--7-|-7--7-|-7--7-|
G --6--6|--6--6|--6--6|--6--6|
D ------|------|------|------|
A ------|------|------|------|
E ------|------|------|------|

The riff around that phrase wraps it four times with a little chord change at the end, and is itself played up to three times in a row, adding up to 12 repetitions of the above in one go. It’s played on a mostly clean channel, so muting the ringing strings is not an issue. [2]

It’s arguably not the hardest thing in the world to pull off for some bars, but having to play it for way over a minute straight puts serious strain on my wrist. After some time, I involuntarily stiffen up, now moving the better part of my forearm rather than only my hand. That of course impedes my speed and precision even more, and in the next part, I’ll be really exhausted - where I have to play a tight galloping rhythm, that I’m then often times unable to do well (enough).

What I’m looking for here is some advice on efficient technique, another picking pattern perhaps? I often times feel I practice the wrong thing. Until now, I tried u u u, which feels the most precise, but also tiring. It further makes me hit the highest string way harder than the others.
Currently, I practice d u u, which feels more ergonomic, but emphasizes the first note even more and becomes hard to control after a while.
Lately, I heard about “pick where you want to go next”. That would be u u d in my case, which feels really odd. Are you folks familiar with that approach, is it worth the time investment or do you have other suggestions?

P.S.: I could get away with hybrid picking because even though it’s also tiring for me doing it that fast for so long, it’s tiring other parts of my arm/hand which are not tested by the following part again. But fingerpicking sounds really different than with a pick and that doesn’t fit the song very well.

  1. It’s tuned down a whole step, but that doesn’t matter too much here. ↩︎

  2. A note on the tempo: Many metronomes, especially the in browser-variety, don’t get 6/8 right in my opinion, so for this riff, setting a metronome to 4/4 at 120 bpm and playing the high notes on every beat is better ↩︎

  • QuasarEnglish
    2•9 months ago

    I would keep practicing the U U D pattern and keep the tempo slow. Also some advice picking hand fatigue generally comes from gripping the pick too hard or using too stiff a pick. Be sure to stretch your hands and forearm more often to help alleviate the stress and strain.

    • @[email protected]OP
      1•9 months ago

      Gripping my pick too hard happens when I have to go on with this riff for too long, I can’t help it :/ That’s part of my point. I believe that when I solve the underlying problem, the stiffening and the fatigue will vanish together.

      Other than that, I’ve made some progress on the U U D pattern, though it still feels kind of alien to me and I tend to fall back to U U U or D U U occasionally - especially on chord changes. But at least, I now can get it done at 100 bpm (in contrast to 120 I’m aiming for) for the repetitions I need without feeling the need to attach a fresh arm to my shoulder afterwards. 😄