I've been playing for 35 years now bit only got serious about learning the instrument maybe about 4 years ago.
Right now I haven't touched a guitar in 10 days because I felt a hint of tendinitis due to some intensive exercises I'd been doing. Needed to give the fretting hand a break.
That's because each image as you go left to right is only a portion of the total picture.
It's telling you:
fret the 5th string 2nd fret with your middle finger, 3rd string 2nd fret with your ring finger pick down on the 6th string, up on the 5th string pick down on the 4th string, up on the 3rd string pick down on the 2nd string, up on the 1st string
I'd say it's your call, but you can definitely learn scalpel or sarod.
I never learned anything but self-taught picking methods for 30 years, and started working on scalpel and sarod 2 years ago and saw a nearly immediate improvement in my accuracy, speed, tone, and clarity. 2 years later I am a much cleaner player from having learned that. It gives me much tighter control over my movements.
If you're curious to see what it's like, just take 15 minutes a day for a week or 2 doing scalpel only. It'll be weird at first but you get accustomed to it pretty quickly.
If I want to work on scalpel or sarod I still have to focus on it. When I play I use all sorts of different angles, of course. But there is definitely more flexibility in my thumb joint than before; I can see it in videos if I show my right hand. So even though I go back to my earlier picking styles, scalpel picking has become a part of that and it's made me a lot better.
But like I said above, it's your time, so spend it however you want on what you think will give you the best results.
No worries. Video embedding is a little tricky here until you get the hang of it.
Looks like you are focusing intently on moving just your thumb and forefinger. That's definitely the right way to get started with scalpel picking. It's a bit weird at first.
Here's a good one where he's showing how he plays fast, talking about his right hand thumb being relaxed. But at 2:25 in the video at a random point in his runs he brings his left thumb down next to his index finger and keeps on going.
It's also worthy of note that at several points he doesn't have his thumb firmly in back of his middle finger even though it's on the back of the neck. That makes in clear he's not using that much pressure with that thumb.
I've done them casually in the past. This is the first time I'm dedicating most of my energy toward them.
Funnily, at lunchtime I went back to them and did some persistent practice until I got fatigued. Then I decided to do some chromatic scales and then G major scale practice, Scaletone 1 Form 2. It was a nice change from the spiders.
Then I put it down for about 4 hours and came back to it to do it again.
I'll do some moving around the neck on the spiders. That's a good idea.
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