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I found this article today. Hopefully it may be helpful to some of you.
My 11-year-old son auditioned at Juilliard - Business Insider
Regards,
Jerome
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05-31-2017 01:58 PM
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That sort of hits the nail on the head for me. I am in the Howard Roberts Superchops study group with a some other folks here on the forum. We are in week seven, and I just know I have been too concerned with tempo. The recommended target tempo for this week is 132. The last two days I have struggled with 50. Tomorrow I'm dropping the tempo way down because I know I have been practicing too many mistakes.
Originally Posted by docbop
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Originally Posted by monk
Nice to see you every now and then. That looks like a tasty article. I can't wait to sit down and read it thoroughly.
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Thanks. When I get time I will check this out. Originally Posted by Lobomov
The Troy Grady video gave one of the greatest technique tips I have ever received. I am referring to the way he plays three notes per string lines starting with the tip up pickslant, and on the third string, with each note he gradually adjust the pick to the downward slant to he can execute the string-changing upstroke.
What genius it is to use the opportunity the three notes give you as a chance to progressively adjust the slant of the pick. So simple in concept yet so effective.
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Amateurs practice until they get it right,
Pros practice until they never get it wrong.
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I would add: Originally Posted by pauln
Evolutionary improvising pros when they discover that they never get it wrong,
pursue new sounds and concepts where mistakes are once again a possibility.
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I'll just add that as much as I rate Troy Grady's work, I'd be wary of taking too many technique tips from shred rock guitar players. Their needs are very different from jazz guitarists.
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No other instrument has such divergent opinions about basic technique. Picking technique is as individual as each player, and I wouldn't have it any other way! I totally ignored the BG picking thread, just as I've never watched picking youtubes or articles. I have no desire to learn someone else's preference for picking technique any more than I need their advice on how to jerk off, wipe my ass or pick my nose- I just like to do it my own way.
Yeah, I know that many on this forum really feel they need a few pointers, and that threads like these may even be helpful to them, but there might be others reading who may feel they are in control of their picking, and I would say to them "Don't change!" If someone else's approach doesn't feel natural to you, it may make your technique worse. I mean, if you're willing to spend hundreds of hours decoding someone else's technique, then why not spend that time analysing your own technique? It's just trial and error and common sense after all. And I'm sorry for what I'm about to say, but if you don't have the focus and mindfulness to perfect a technique that works for you without resorting to the methods of others, then maybe great picking chops will never be yours.
People who were always gonna be great players, were always gonna be able to work it out for themselves, and a good teacher may accelerate progress while a bad one might retard it. If a "standard" grip is working for you ok, but you desire more speed, then changing to GB picking may not be the answer. Our own Mark Rhodes regretted spending months on Benson picking to no avail, and I'm sure he's not alone. I'd suggest spending 5 minutes contemplating the basic mechanics of economy picking, and the next 5 years putting it into practice. How to blend eco/alt/slur styles is the fun part of technique and the attention in order to avoid practicing inefficient technique is all one needs, although easier said than done, that's for sure!
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Originally Posted by princeplanet
No other instrument has such divergent opinions about basic technique. Picking technique is as individual as each player, and I wouldn't have it any other way! I totally ignored the BG picking thread, just as I've never watched picking youtubes or articles. I have no desire to learn someone else's preference for picking technique any more than I need their advice on how to jerk off, wipe my ass or pick my nose- I just like to do it my own way.
Yeah, I know that many on this forum really feel they need a few pointers, and that threads like these may even be helpful to them, but there might be others reading who may feel they are in control of their picking, and I would say to them "Don't change!" If someone else's approach doesn't feel natural to you, it may make your technique worse. I mean, if you're willing to spend hundreds of hours decoding someone else's technique, then why not spend that time analysing your own technique? It's just trial and error and common sense after all. And I'm sorry for what I'm about to say, but if you don't have the focus and mindfulness to perfect a technique that works for you without resorting to the methods of others, then maybe great picking chops will never be yours.
People who were always gonna be great players, were always gonna be able to work it out for themselves, and a good teacher may accelerate progress while a bad one might retard it. If a "standard" grip is working for you ok, but you desire more speed, then changing to GB picking may not be the answer. Our own Mark Rhodes regretted spending months on Benson picking to no avail, and I'm sure he's not alone. I'd suggest spending 5 minutes contemplating the basic mechanics of economy picking, and the next 5 years putting it into practice. How to blend eco/alt/slur styles is the fun part of technique and the attention in order to avoid practicing inefficient technique is all one needs, although easier said than done, that's for sure!
While there is merit in what you are saying, I can't fully agree with your main point about ignoring videos and tips from others. I do agree that some of the advice can be just a waste of time and futile, or can actually confuse your technique and cause new troubles. But, your argument when applied to other physical /technical things such as golfing, shooting a basketball, etc.., starts to weaken IMHO.
Some need these videos to work through things. They have demonstrated that they cannot do it on their own and may even be at an impasse.
I guess they could go ahead and spend thousands of hours like Batio did, but there is still no guarantee it will work.
I will close by saying that discovery is part of the journey and if one pursuit fails, such as Benson Picking, then its all part of the journey.
Just my thoughts.
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It's the age of information. Ignoring what is before you seems very self absorbed. Tho I truly believe everyone should go the route that makes them happy. Just like players not wanting to learn any theory because they feel it stifles their creativity.
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interesting thread - lots of good posts
but something that's important isn't being said clearly enough it seems to me
i've done a lot of what you might call public speaking - more specifically lecturing
quite quickly i stopped using notes of any kind - so the parallels with improvising (rather than playing written stuff) are quite obvious.
if you were to try to do it - but faster, if one were to try to talk on a given topic at a 'higher tempo', the problems you would face would not have very much - or even anything - to do with diction - with the physical aspect of it all. the problems would be to do with being able to THINK at a 'higher tempo' - of being able to keep hold of your capacity to, e.g., know perfectly well what you are going to say next despite speeding everything up.
and this would be a very genuine and deep sort of difficulty. in order to speak twice as fast - off the top of one's head - on Descartes' dreaming argument, or Davidson's neutral monism - one needs to know what one wants to say terribly clearly (because one now has so much less time to think about it as one is going along - or something).
it is only if you tried to speak much much faster that you would run into problems getting your words out of your mouth clearly.
so learning to play fast is only incidentally learning to perform a certain difficult physical skill - essentially it is learning to hear fast and clearly. its all about learning how to keep knowing exactly what you want to play despite having no time to think about it. the high tempos just pull this out of you - there is no way to do it without 'letting go' or 'letting it happen by itself' or whatever formula works for you. it maybe that there is no way that is going to be possible for you unless you have heard thousands of 'ideas' thousands of times - so they stand a chance of re-arranging themselves in your 'ear' (you 'mind's ear' so to speak) in time for you to play them cleanly and forcefully.
so it really is all about being able to keep hearing what you want to play despite losing (more and more of) the time to hear it in.
and it isn't true that anything you play fast is going to be something you played before - because what one is learning to do is to re-combine and re-locate ideas and idea-fragments to form new musical 'thoughts' or 'sentences'. the thing that is new is the whole phrase (whatever that may be - 4, 8,16 bars etc...) - or how parts of an old phrase are re-positioned or mixed up with each other etc. etc.
so you have to acquaint yourself with the musical ideas you want to work with - from noodling by yourself or from copying etc. and to really hear these things properly you will have to play them slowly and experimentally etc. but you also want to hear things fast - because they move differently and feel different when they go along quickly. and the thing that is hard is not picking or fingering or fretting - but having good things to say and always being ready at the appropriate time to say them clearly and confidently.
that's huge - but its learning to improvise (and only incidentally learning to pick etc. etc.)Last edited by Groyniad; 06-01-2017 at 02:42 PM.
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You are showing yourself to be a very wise person, Lobomov... Originally Posted by Lobomov
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At some point you need to commit to something and decide I will make this work for me. If you don't you waste a lot of time going a lot of directions instead of playing music, listening to yourself, and tweaking what you do to make things work. Once you commit to a way of picking like other things has to part of working on tunes or etudes not isolated. I've talked about it in the past but how you play doing a technique exercise such as picking, differs from how you play when playing music/tunes. Originally Posted by Lobomov
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I agree. Although tbf to Troy what I got out of his stuff WAS a better understanding of my technique. Originally Posted by princeplanet
No other instrument has such divergent opinions about basic technique. Picking technique is as individual as each player, and I wouldn't have it any other way! I totally ignored the BG picking thread, just as I've never watched picking youtubes or articles. I have no desire to learn someone else's preference for picking technique any more than I need their advice on how to jerk off, wipe my ass or pick my nose- I just like to do it my own way.
Yeah, I know that many on this forum really feel they need a few pointers, and that threads like these may even be helpful to them, but there might be others reading who may feel they are in control of their picking, and I would say to them "Don't change!" If someone else's approach doesn't feel natural to you, it may make your technique worse. I mean, if you're willing to spend hundreds of hours decoding someone else's technique, then why not spend that time analysing your own technique? It's just trial and error and common sense after all. And I'm sorry for what I'm about to say, but if you don't have the focus and mindfulness to perfect a technique that works for you without resorting to the methods of others, then maybe great picking chops will never be yours.
People who were always gonna be great players, were always gonna be able to work it out for themselves, and a good teacher may accelerate progress while a bad one might retard it. If a "standard" grip is working for you ok, but you desire more speed, then changing to GB picking may not be the answer. Our own Mark Rhodes regretted spending months on Benson picking to no avail, and I'm sure he's not alone. I'd suggest spending 5 minutes contemplating the basic mechanics of economy picking, and the next 5 years putting it into practice. How to blend eco/alt/slur styles is the fun part of technique and the attention in order to avoid practicing inefficient technique is all one needs, although easier said than done, that's for sure!
I switched over to gypsy picking about 6 years ago because I felt I needed the projection it afforded to play a specific type of music. Now I kind of wonder how wise that was.
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To the OP - Practicing a lick, phrase, motif whatever many times over is a fine idea, yes.
Also, slow practice is widely taught to serious musicians. But fast practice is also required. In other words you have to practice what you are going to play at the requisite tempo. That cant be left to chance on the stage or in the studio. Fast/slow is not an "or" question, it's an "and' question.
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Didn't you post a while back that after watching some of the TG stuff, you've expanded you picking technique to cover different pickslants? (Or was it something else, I pretty sure I remember you expanding your picking style Originally Posted by christianm77
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No I'm not talking about speed or mechanics here in the Troy Grady sense. Originally Posted by Lobomov
Didn't you post a while back that after watching some of the TG stuff, you've expanded you picking technique to cover different pickslants? (Or was it something else, I pretty sure I remember you expanding your picking style )
I'm not interested in two way pickslanting, as I don't really like any of the guitarists that do it enough to emulate that sound. At the tempos where the importance of optimised string changes become really important, you are in the realms of fast shred - and I don't like the sound of fast alternate picking ala Al di Meola really. You may disagree, of course.
I'd rather sound like Jimmy Raney, Mike Moreno or Adam Rogers where there's a fair bit of slurring in the articulation.
Also, I don't feel limited by technique in the music I play. Getting the notes out is not a problem for me because I am not absolutely shredding repeating licks and so on in the way that the rock guys do - strict GJ DWPS works great 90% of the time, and I can cheat anything that doesn't via legato, alternate cross picking, upsweeps etc where required.
For me it was always about SOUND, not flexibility or speed.
My problem with GJ picking is that I already had a very agile right hand before I moved to GJ picking. I moved into doing it not because I was really interested in GJ, but because I was obsessed with acoustic projection (which is really of very little practical use in real life.)
So I sunk a lot of time into that.
Now I'm playing more amplified guitar and more modern styles, I find I don't really like the heavy handed right hand sound and lack of muting suits itself to many situations and I'm finding it necessary to rework my right hand AGAIN in terms of stance if not mechanics. It's still awkward to learn a new way of doing it even if you are still DWPS.
As I never really wanted to be a purist GJ player anyway, perhaps it was all a blind alley.
It was taught me a lot about technique though! I'm sure it's all good. I'm happy with how my electric sound is coming together actually and I still have the GJ chops to go back to. In practice I'm still a DWPS player in most situations.
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Why should two way pick slanting be shredding instead of sound. I've always as default been an uwps picking with the trailing edge of the pick (so both slant and edge choice is opposite of the yngwie/gypsy dwps). Originally Posted by christianm77
I dont know if my picking style developed due to the style I was chasing in my teens or by chance. But the uwps with it's small movements gives to me a very full and sweet sound with less treble than dwps.
Still we are talking sound. It was a sound that I liked it a lot. Again it is hard to know if hen or egg came first, but as I wrote in another discussion I naturally followed players that also played without much aggression. Since that was my sound.
Why two way pickslanting:
When playing 3 notes pr. string with an uwps, you can alternate pick first two strings, but then you then get stuck if you don't change pickslant as there is no option to sweep (tho you can swipe). Somehow I figured out while practing my modes at the age of 13 that the solution was to change pickslant for split second.
But it is not about being MIB and shredding .. it is just personal preference and choice of style/sound.
So we are on the same page here! I reacted to your post as you wrote that you where unsure if you made the right choice going with the gypsy/dwps picking. I guessing my style brings you into the al dimeola alternative picking style that you don't like. Also you can always just pick lighter with smaller movements to get a less trebly and more mid heavy sound simply by making your movements smaller, so no big deal
What TG showed me:
TG did two things for me. First of all I realized that my wrist movement when I had played 2 times 3 notes pr. string and had to change pickslant was the cross picking movement, which works but uses unnecesarry energy.
But most importantly:
I have to admit I wasn't really aware how much sound choice your picking entailed before I came across TG. The whole dwps thing is a classic sound that spans from Charlie Christian to modern times. I knew other players sounded differently than me, but never caught onto that the key is simply to turn your pick downwards. Suddenly you get a lot more treble and a very distinct aggression. Crazy no?
(Thru out this post I exaggerate with regards to sweetness and small movements. I can off course apply force with my uwps, but the dwps just has that extra punch. It goes to 11 as they say)Last edited by Lobomov; 06-02-2017 at 12:06 PM.
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Actually I used to be UWPS (I think???) My actual pick grip was not unlike Kurt Rosenwinkel's. Originally Posted by Lobomov
Why should two way pick slanting be shredding instead of sound. I've always as default been an uwps picking with the trailing edge of the pick (so both slant and edge choice is opposite of the yngwie/gypsy dwps).
I dont know if my picking style developed due to the style I was chasing in my teens or by chance. But the uwps with it's small movements gives to me a very full and sweet sound with less treble than dwps.
Still we are talking sound. It was a sound that I liked it a lot. Again it is hard to know if hen or egg came first, but as I wrote in another discussion I naturally followed players that also played without much aggression. Since that was my sound.
Why two way pickslanting:
When playing 3 notes pr. string with an uwps, you can alternate pick first two strings, but then you then get stuck if you don't change pickslant as there is no option to sweep (tho you can swipe). Somehow I figured out while practing my modes at the age of 13 that the solution was to change pickslant for split second.
But it is not about being MIB and shredding .. it is just personal preference and choice of style/sound.
So we are on the same page here! I reacted to your post as you wrote that you where unsure if you made the right choice going with the gypsy/dwps picking. I guessing my style brings you into the al dimeola alternative picking style that you don't like. Also if you can always just pick lighter with smaller movements to get a less trebly and more mid heavy sound simply by making your movements smaller, so no big deal
What TG showed me:
TG did two things for me. First of all I realized that my wrist movement when I had played 2 times 3 notes pr. string and had to change pickslant was the cross picking movement, which works but uses unnecesarry energy.
But most importantly:
I have to admit I wasn't really aware how much sound choice your picking entailed before I came across TG. The whole dwps thing is a classic sound that spans from Charlie Christian to modern times. I knew other players sounded differently than me, but never caught onto that the key is simply to turn your pick downwards. Suddenly you get a lot more treble and a very distinct aggression. Crazy no? (I exaggerate, you can off course apply force with an uwps, but the dwps just has that extra punch)
Anyway, you have to follow the aesthetic that appeals. My focus is on hornlike phrasing and I like the effect artful use of slurring produces in combination with picking. As a result, I'm less interested in being a l33t P!ckz0r than using a combination of picking and slurring to play phrases. Players whose articulation I like include:
Jimmy Raney
Jim Hall
Wes (who must have used a lot of slurring.)
Pat Metheny (no really! I do like his articulation)
Holdsworth at medium speeds
Mike Moreno
Adam Rogers
Lage Lund
These are kind of my models for sound and phrasing at present. I have other models for other things... I would regard this as more modern articulation and phrasing, I guess.
Maybe you could write down a list of players that appeal to you and see if you can see what they have in common.
re DWPS and sound. Yes. This is something I am actually quite keen to get away from - that trebly Charlie Christian, Tal Farlow, Joe Pass etc kind of sound. I don't disparage those players (I love them!) but I kind of find that straight DWPS trad grip gives that sound and that sound is not the one I'm aiming for.
Of course, when I play a swing gig, I might go more for that.
I'm thinking with UWPS I did get a smoother sound, and I get a similar smooth sound with Benson grip. The reason I think is the amount of edge picking - extreme edge picking of 45 degrees or more does a lot to smooth out the attack (bevelled and fat stubby styler picks help give the same effect for smaller pick angles) although many Benson pickers actually have a traditional, trebly sound. It's a funny one.
I notice a lot of the modern players listed above use or used an unusual right hand picking stance which perhaps served to increase the pick angle.
Anyway, I don't disparage anyone else's choices, but I'd like to draw attention to the fact that there is an aesthetic choice to be made.Last edited by christianm77; 06-02-2017 at 12:19 PM.
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benson picking is such a musical force because it fattens up your sound (and gives you great control over timbre and attack) AND it tends to help with fluency and fluidity (esp. if you aren't very fluent and flexible when you go in to the whole process): - it helps with sound AND with speed etc.
i would pretty much always be trying to imitate horn players or piano players (who are - very probably - themselves trying to imitate vocal sounds) - so as to try to avoid sounding too 'mechanical' or insufficiently fluid and graceful. its always seemed to me (ducks to avoid missiles) that this is the problem for the guitar - you have to work like crazy to avoid sounding choppy and a bit metronomic or overly regular (and so predictable etc.). this is hard stuff to articulate - but they are very strong intuitions. (i always think i hear e.g. jim hall stressing this in talking about trying to phrase smoothly like a horn player etc.). especially if you play in a (be) bop style on guitar you have to break up all the phrasing in interesting ways (slurring and weighting and full-on joined-up fretting) otherwise it will quickly start to loose one's interest or worse. (i suspect that players like jim hall and wes play quite a long way from a mainstream be-bop thing largely because they want to break things up much more so the guitar can sound more graceful (more fluid?) than it tends to if you play a lot of 8ths (like e.g. bud powell). a strongly 'bluesy' approach will achieve this (wes) - and so will a 'sensitive' or 'lyrical' approach (jim hall).
(of course pasquale grasso has recently managed to show that this is not true! - that the guitar can sound fabulously fluid playing a hard driving be-bop style precisely in the manner of bird or bud powell. so i should be flippin' delighted.)
well benson picking is at least giving me some hope of being able to get somewhere with all this. i had almost none before i converted.
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TBH I think bebop and 8th note playing on guitar as at a higher level than it has ever been in terms of articulation. I think developments in guitar technique and amplification have assisted with this.
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Christian, earlier in the thread you mentioned that gypsy jazz picking is the only pedagogy for picking that you know of that consistently creates highly able pickers.
I'd just like to bring up a counterpoint which is bluegrass picking. There are a whole bunch of incredibly good bluegrass players and I'd have to assume that part of the pedagogy there is why.
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Like this:
Just...wow!
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Props to her for covering a Townes Van Zandt song, too.
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Hiya, YES - I did want to mention bluegrass but it's a bit of a can of worms: Originally Posted by Shadow of the Sun
1) I know relatively little about it.
2) Bluegrass technique seems quite diverse. There are DWPS pickers like Bryan Sutton who are more like GJ pickers, and pure alternate guys like Carl Miner.
As a result I wasn't sure if there was an orthodox pedagogy for bluegrass or whether people just worked out their own solutions. Can you tell me more about this?
In GJ there are exceptions (Giniaux, Nolan, Potter), but 90% of players use the same technique with small variations.
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