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Sweeping is cool and yea...not very difficult etc... but getting your picking speed up is very difficult... I don't believe many on this forum can cover up tempos with out rehearsal or practice. There are reasons why, right, if it was easy everyone would be able to, if they chose to.
It's not just the picking technique... most guitarist can hardly alternate pick above 250 playing jam changes, or what they know. Part of playing at the speed of jazz is being able to burn at tunes you don't know... not that you need to, but generally even when your playing slow passages in up tempo tunes, the tempo is still there and when you cant subdivide etc... your playing's going to reflect your lack of technique.
I'm pretty amazed when some of you start ragging about wasted time on picking... like if you don't learn through playing tunes by the legends it's not going to happen....
What is an Accomplished Jazz Guitarist.... not examples... what makes the examples. If you can't explain what we're talking about... why would you try and teach. I'm really interested. I went through this basic process over 40 years ago, and continue to update.
Yea... I can sweep just about anything if I want the effect... but I personally dig the phrasing created from picking... and at burnin tempos. Sweeps sound like fusion... I played loud fusion back in the 70's, all over with great musiciams, Steve Smith, Tom Coster, Bob Mintzer...etc...But I dig Jazz technique, and have for a long time... I dig shreddin Wes grooves with Benson style.
Then of course we can get into the comping thing... there must be a relationship between sweeping and not being able to comp... I hope I'm totally wrong and I'll gladly eat crow and etc...Last edited by Reg; 07-08-2015 at 07:36 PM.
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07-08-2015 07:22 PM
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For the record, it should be said again. In the real world you need all these techniques, especially in bebop. So if your great at one, it's probably time to start working on another. They all have an application and a sound. You really want to get to the point where you can do whatever you need, when you want, without having to think about it. You get there by practicing the individual techniques.
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Originally Posted by Reg
To be honest, I think the sweeping technique is most important playing bebop. its really the only way to get the notes out at fast tempos. Especially if your trying to mimic a horn.
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Sweeping is cool,and should be part of the bag.
but then it depends on the horn you're tying to emulate, don't it?
Dexter Gordon and Chet Baker ?
or
Bird and Diz?
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Reg ! should i start practice the couple example's you've posted , or wait till the new thread starts ? I imagine your going to lay down a solid and complete foundation to build upon
with alt picking just being the start of it. then moving fwd. with the rest...or the goodies
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I want to go at this another way. Not picking on anyone or disagreeing with anyone. Rather, I would like to hear what the main characters here think about this example of picking
It's Jimmy Bruno from the '90s doing "Eternal Triangle."
Here's another cut from the same record, "Burnin'" (The previous cut is more a tour de force; overall, I prefer this one, which ain't shabby by any means.)
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Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
I think he is killing it.....
As far as what he is doing technically, whatever he needed at the time to get what he had in his head out. That's the whole idea.
Thanks for posting that, that was the most impressive playing I had heard from him. Great stuff!!!
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Originally Posted by fumblefingers
This is is an overly simplistic explanation, but I tend to think of it like tonguing and slurring on horns. Not that I am good at playing them, but I teach beginner wind and brass at a school, so I understand the mechanics. Its doesn't quite work out to be tonguing = pick. However if you consider how they combine them, it can shed some light onto overcoming certain obstacles. Balance that with what's idiomatic to the guitar, your style, etc. then try to get what's in your head out.
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Well, I'm definitely not a main character, but.....This typifies for me chops over content. No question that he is playing awesomely fast, with technique I can't approach in my wildest dreams, .....but what uninteresting lines and crappy tone. I have this CD and tried liking it for a long time, but in the end decided that it pretty much typifies the opposite of my taste in jazz guitar. Not to rag on Bruno, there is other stuff of his I find really good, but these tracks and this CD are just guitaristic wanking to my ears. Almost zero bebop content, mostly scale running in hyperdrive, and that awful plink from the boutique archtop that wasn't made for his kind of attack. I know Bruno is a god to many jazz guitarists, so apologies to those who hear it differently. Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
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lots of picking practice !!! of alll kinds,
to be anywhere close to that good !
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Originally Posted by pkirk
Thats what makes the world interesting. Everyone has different tastes.
I thought the lines are great. I could follow every phrase 99% of it makes sense , I think there were 2 licks I heard that were rhythmically "ambiguous". Also can't agree with the no bebop content, there is plenty of vocabulary in there. Not to mention I didn't hear a single scale being run in hyperdrive, he was phrasing every line. I wonder if you would hear it the same if you listened to it slowed down?
Here is the biggest thing to me. I don't think JB gives a single sh@t if you, me, or anybody likes what he plays. He is an artist who hears music in his head. That's what the music in his head sounds like, he is just getting it out. If someone likes it, awesome, if not, listen to something else..... That's at least how I feel about my playing. How much anyone likes it doesn't really matter to me. What matters is how close it is to the sounds in my head.
why this is relevant to a technique thread, is the whole idea is to be able to get the music out of your head, through your fingers, without having to think about it. To do that, you really need to be okay at everything.
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Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
I hear a guy who's not married to one style. He can cover. Theres sweeps, slurs, rapid fire alternate picking.
I definitely don't hear someone who's basing their lines on a picking system.Last edited by mr. beaumont; 07-09-2015 at 12:16 AM.
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if i were in a club and heard/saw him playing that i would tap my foot, clap enthusiastically, order extra drinks, have a general good time, and give a standing ovation hoping for an encore.
Benson said it best "Jimmy Bruno, oh man".
BTW - those 17 inch guitars look huge on him, lol.
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Yea fun tune etc... sounds like he's having fun.
Thanks Mark... I enjoy playing like that etc... thanks for posting.
So it's obvious that you need all techniques... but there are different approaches to developing these skills. If we're going to work on slurs and sweeping skills... that would probable imply, not alternate picking. But we're working on alternate picking, so why use sweeps.
The whole subject of sweeps, graces, slurs, any type of embellishment.... articulation of what your playing, is great subject. And when performing... you'll generally end up using most of them. But we're not working on performance. We're in the direction of developing picking, alternate picking as a basic starting reference, which creates phrasing and articulation... again starting reference.
We're not trying to decide what's the desired method of performing a head, or solos developed in your head...just a basic reference using alternate picking as the starting point... a neutral phrasing and articulating approach using alternate picking... you have somewhere to start from. You don't like it or use or want to use a different approach... as I've always said... the most important thing is to make a choice and finish the process... so at least you won't have any excuses why you play the way you do. Almost any approach works, at least to a point where it breaks down.
But maybe I need to get a different thread going... and sorry for pushing this thread wherever it's going.
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Regarding Bruno clips, I agree with both Pkirk and the rest who do like it.
I like it too.
It is show time playing, excellent for entertainment "while being there", having fun, but not something to listen
for pure music's sake, unless you're aspiring guitar player looking for cleaarly executed vocabulary to nick some licks.
Especially the first clip.
On pop rock gig it is that time, that one song where musicians show how technicaally good they are,
to relax a bit before they return to the real business, preferably own originals,
or music concieved by autocratic leaadership of a kind.
The second clip is seemingly with more content, due having clearly melodic intro and outro, even if of a riffing kind.
The rest is citing vocabulary at high speed. And it is scale based, because it's moving vocaabulary up and down the apropriate scale.
..., but whatever.
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ECJ I watched your clip couple of times. Originally Posted by ecj
First to say, I can do it at 100, too. At 110 I also break, but in my case, I don't think it's due tension, or technique, but due lack of musicality and musical memory. I simply forget what I have to play. I can play each part separately, but I stuck when I have to connect them.
EDIT: Forgot to say, the greatest difficulty for me is not the picking, but that point where I have to play 4 consecutive notes with pinky and ring finger. Ring finger being much worse spot than pinky. Trouble starts when moving from middle to ring (g string to D), relax for a moment while on pinky, than the worst moment ... putting ring one fret behind pinky, ... argh!!! ..., ... then it gets progresivly easier again.
Don't get me wrong, I'm probably the last persson in the world to give guitaristic technical advice, but being on the internet ...
Watching your clip, appart from shifting positions instead of streching and all already mentioned,
I've noticed you play wwith Benson picking grip. Somehoww it does not seem very natural for you,
I mean that is impression I got from a clip. Actually, at two moments, when you stop playing and just before you start,
while moving hand away and while approaching the strings, there is one moment where your hand looks much more relaxed
and in much more natural position. It is just a little bit lesss bent in the wrist, so to say. If you really care for Benson picking,
maybe that is the point to look at.
Also, to me, the most natural of your movement appeared towards the end of the clip, where you say : "... there must be some motion I'm doing wrong ...", at that time you make a motion which looks exactly right. I think that moment shows what would be the best way for you to pick.
Hope you didn't mind this "analysis".Last edited by Vladan; 07-09-2015 at 08:47 AM.
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Glad you enjoyed hearing Jimmy blaze. I have his book / DVD "The Art of Picking" but I haven't worked through it yet. Maybe it's time. One thing I like about Jimmy is that although he can fly, he's playing the sort of jazz I like. Not everyone who can fly does that. Originally Posted by vintagelove
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Well, Reg, I think everyone is grateful for the direction you have moved this thread. Originally Posted by Reg
I see the point of having a 'ground zero' and alternate picking seems the best choice for that. Maybe you could call your thread "Alternate Picking 101" so that anyone who wanted to talk about something else (-sweeps, slurs, what have you) could be politely told, "That's a fine subject but it is not the subject of this thread. Please stay on the present topic." (And of course, another thread---perhaps on slurs or sweeping--could branch off from that one.)
It might help to have some benchmarks so that people can sense their progress. For example, in Troy Stetina's "Speed Mechanics For Lead Guitar," he shows a single string tremolo exercise and cautions the student not to go further until it can be played in sixteenths at 130 bpm. So until you get to that tempo, you stick with that exercise. When you reach that point, you can move ahead, perhaps coming back to that exercise periodically to bump it up a notch or two on the metronome.)
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Troy Stetina, holy moly (HM!), ..., Mark, is there a guitar course you did not take?
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I think Reg's idea as having "alternate picking" as home base of sorts is pretty sound.
As far as touchstones for seeing if you've "got" something, i still think the application needs to be practical.
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Have you noticed his fingers? Short little "sausage" fingers but he flies around that neck. Originally Posted by fumblefingers
His teaching method is very old school. Five fingerings of the major scale is every new student's first assignment, and until you submit a video of yourself playing them the way he wants, you're asked to re-submit. One of my dad's old lines was, "She made me do it over and over 'til I got it right, like an old maid school teacher." Jimmy's that way about those fingerings. I don't know if there's any top flight jazz guitarist who gets more out of the major scale than Jimmy.
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Ha! It might seem that there couldn't be, but the OP here---by me---is proof that ain't so. The method of holding a pick described there was unknown to me. (I am back to Benson picking, by the way. But I'm glad I started this thread!) Originally Posted by Vladan
As for Stetina, he's very good at what he does but I don't want to do what he does. I hoped to better my picking and I'm sure I did that to some extent, but it wasn't where I needed to wind up.
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Fwiw I start all students on strict alternate picking. It has to be the basis you START from. Once they are able to do the three note excercise around 120, I introduce them to the other techniques.
i agree it's a good idea to present realistic goals for each excercise. I would be curious what others think about it.
Three finger excercise from 120 to 160
On a four finger excercise, from 144 to 200
if you can play near the top of these tempos, I think you have pretty good technique. At that point I only practice to maintain. Also at that point you need to be working on it in actual improvisation, which is of course much harder
P.s. I already picked up a couple cool things from the thread, thanks to all who contributed.Last edited by vintagelove; 07-09-2015 at 10:15 AM.
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But here's the thing, Jeff, Jimmy DOES have a picking system. He teaches it. The rules are few and simple: when going to a lower string (such as from A to E), use an upstroke; when going to a higher string (such as from E to A) use a downstroke; when playing on a single string, use alternate picking. Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
http://www.amazon.com/Picking-Privat...art+of+picking
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Ya Mark... Jimmy does have a picking book with his, as you said very basic and logical approach... which does begin with straight alternate picking. And then goes on into direction of next string attack being being the organization of the down or up stroke.
The problem with this approach is the phrasing and articulations from the attacks start to develop the faster you play.
And then of course when you use to watch his burnin years ago... he would alternate most of the time to get that bounce articulating phrasing which develops when tempos get up there.
The other detail is what type of guitar your playing, strings, action and tone, all of which also reflect phrasing and articulations.
Part of making improve get to the next level of enjoyment or higher levels of performance is rhythmic organization... yea I know obvious and mentioned by everyone, but there are only so many methods of developing that type of organization, once you get past the spatial thing, the shape and form organization... on guitar picking helps create rhythmic feel, can help lock in a groove. I understand the last 10 to 20 years the hip approach has been to get past the groove... have it implied mentally and not be so solid...(which might also be reflective of why jazz audiences are difficult to develop etc...), anyway that lock from picking organization beyond which direction the next note is can really help create the feel and groove.
Many of my gigs are for just locking in a rhythmic section... and much of my groove performance playing is developed from my picking organization... as compared to what I'm playing being the result of what the guitar is making me play.
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