I’m a huge fan of Troy Grady (and his team’s) work over the year via the Cracking The Code series. I would say that a huge part of my personal picking technique development came about from watching and studying the interviews that Troy has done over the years.
Recently, I received an email from someone who’s been following my reviews asking for suggestions for specific courses and materials for technique development.
That led me thinking about the important videos that helped me when I was really in the dark about all this stuff. That led me back to this video (among many) and since I wanted to rewatch the video, I figured it would be good to write a review while I was at it.
The format of this workshop is basically a conversation between Troy Grady and Martin Miller. This is a seriously geeky conversation. Martin Miller talks about the separation between the mechanical aspects of playing the musical aspects of music. He go into the challenges of dealing with questions that he receives from students.
Martin talks about two way pickslanting and crosspicking, the speed limits of the two different techniques and how he uses the two different techniques in his playing.
Martin talks about how he relates picking to singing ever since he started to learn singing.
Martin also discusses how good players with good technique look good when they are playing. Troy points out how it’s not necessarily true. The path of least resistance is what Martin says he focused on when he was developing his technique. He said he “grabs the music and grow with the music”.
There’s also a very detailed discussion of tracking the pick movement, how he mutes the strings, how much of his picking is coming from the wrist, the elbow and other details like that.
In conclusion, I would say that this particular workshop is useful is you are already familiar with how Martin’s technique is like in general, of if you’ve watched the first Martin Miller interview on Cracking The Code and if you’re already familiar with Troy Grady’s terminology. Otherwise, this whole video might be too filled with jargon and detailed discussion for most people.
Pros: Great geeky discussion about right hand picking technique, coordination, muscle movements, how to hold a pick and other detailed technique stuff.
Cons: Might be too detailed for most folks.
TLDR: If you have watched the first Martin Miller interview that Troy did, this is a good continuation of it.
You can get this workshop here: https://troygrady.com/product/martin-miller-mechanics-workshop/
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