The Circular Picking School

[James W]

Mike Moreno's picking technique looks like it's mostly thumb and finger motion. That's thumb and middle finger though, unorthodoxly, so his index finger hides his thumb. But you can't see much wrist movement and it's definitely not elbow-based, so... He uses economy picking too.

[sgosnell]

I use circular picking sometimes, but I never knew it had a name. I tend to switch to it when I need more speed. Watching older Herb Ellis videos seems to show that he used it. For me, moving just my thumb and index finger is quicker and easier than moving my whole arm or even just my wrist, but I'm not religious about any of it. Maybe I would be a better player if I were, but it's just not important enough to me to force myself to stick to one method. I just use what works at the moment.

[James W]

I use circular picking sometimes, but I never knew it had a name. I tend to switch to it when I need more speed. Watching older Herb Ellis videos seems to show that he used it. For me, moving just my thumb and index finger is quicker and easier than moving my whole arm or even just my wrist, but I'm not religious about any of it. Maybe I would be a better player if I were, but it's just not important enough to me to force myself to stick to one method. I just use what works at the moment.

Yes, as people might have noticed, I have avoided using the phrase 'circular picking' because I'm not sure it accurately describes the motion, which in my experience is more a straight back and forth.

I wouldn't describe myself as religious about it either but because I have found it relatively easy to achieve some good speed with such a neat and economical motion, I have encouraged myself to refine and develop this technique. So I am honing in on this particularly because I've had problems with wrist motions in the past - though now I suspect if I tried I could get wrist based motion going smoothly.

It is not unheard of for players to use more than one picking motion...

[James W]

Haha I could never understand standard alternate picking from the wrist. My pick would always get stuck in between the strings. And quite often, I would miss the string I was supposed to play. I had lots of accuracy and timing problems with the picking style that 92.456% of guitarists worldwide use. (shrugs)

Yeah same here, except my problem with picking from the wrist was basically just string hopping, which would result in hitting the body of the guitar with the pick and generally having a bad feeling around my wrist area. In hindsight, when I first watched the Troy Grady video about string hopping and how to (supposedly) overcome it I sort of overreacted and my practice was reduced to just trying to do tremolo with a wrist-based motion for hours a day, which sent me back to classical guitar, not for the first or last time lol. I mean, while string hopping is an inefficient technique, it basically doesn't matter to use at a certain tempo and I guess it would take time to transition to a smooth efficient technique just through practice, but Grady's presentation of the problem didn't/doesn't exactly invite a level-headed response, and isn't aimed at someone trying to learn jazz guitar.

One thing that appeals to me about using a wrist-based motion is that it's a similar one to the motion you use for funky strumming - and, like funky strumming, it is quite dynamic in its attack. I guess it's not a big deal to switch between the funky strumming and picking notes with the thumb/finger motion though.

[sgosnell]

I agree that circular does not describe the way I do it. I just sort of fell into it, from watching Herbie and others, and trying it out. Moving just my thumb and index finger seems more efficient than moving my whole hand, or whole arm and hand. I just don't have the discipline to stick to one way of doing things.

[MarkRhodes]

I agree that circular does not describe the way I do it. I just sort of fell into it, from watching Herbie and others, and trying it out. Moving just my thumb and index finger seems more efficient than moving my whole hand, or whole arm and hand. I just don't have the discipline to stick to one way of doing things.

I think it was Pebber Brown who said Howard Roberts told him that the music dictates the picking. Pebber didn't have a beef with Troy Grady, but he did say that if you pick the way Troy advised early on (--Pebber's been dead a few years now), you will play that kind of music because that kind of picking is designed to play that kind of music---scalar playing, narrow intervals.

If one plays different kinds of music---say, a little country, some Swing, some jazz, funk, some ballads, a little bit o' soul, well, other techniques come into play.

[dasein]

Something that I've become absolutely convinced of over the years is that the particular joints and muscles you use to move the pick is a very personal preference, but those choices "force" you to use certain solutions to problems.

For example, I have heard about circular picking for years. I've tried it, and no picking motion has ever felt more unnatural and clumsy to me. I think there are very real reasons for that. Advocates of circular picking always say that "it's just like writing with a pen." That doesn't help me much. I'm a lefty who plays guitar right handed, so my right hand has no muscle memory associated with writing. And even then, my writing motion doesn't really use fingers. It's mostly a wrist and forearm movement for me.

I also like to hold the pick between my thumb and the side of my index finger. Just about all the great circular pickers I know hold it between the pads of their index finger and thumb. It's a movement that just doesn't work for me.

The value of Troy Grady's work, in my opinion, is the fact that it actually moved past the basic "motion mechanic" description of picking. It used to be back in the day, if you asked how to get better at picking, all the answers you'd get would revolve around the motion. And there would be advocates for everything: wrist only, elbow, forearm rotation, fingers, palm up Benson style, you name it. And you could always find examples to support your pet method. Guys like McLaughlin, Benson, Bireli, Howard Roberts, they all used completely different methods but they all played at the highest level.

What Troy did was look past the physical description, and looked at what the pick was actually doing, almost like a geometry problem. What does the pick need to do in order to play this particular line? Once you have that, you look at what your "primary" motion is, and figure out how to do it from there. Then the answer almost presents itself.

If you are using a technique that primarily escapes in one direction (either on an Upstroke or a Downstroke), you only need one primary motion and maybe a secondary "escape" motion used occasionally for certain lines.

If you want a technique that escapes in both directions, you pretty much need to have a blended motion (a Primary + Secondary motion) to play with any kind of speed and accuracy without causing excessive fatigue.

[pauln]

Try putting the upper side of your index finger under the third base line, and the tip of your thumb over the third base line... this means holding the pick by its edge rather than on the center line.

This goes well with circular picking because is gives the pick another dimension of movement; when the pick is deflected by the string, part of that becomes rotation about the "third base line" which recovers instantly and invokes natural feeling two-way pick slanting for faster clean articulation.
Try it, just hold the edge of the pick but let the string push some rotation; once you feel it, the switching of slant direction will develop just by listening for clarity.

In other words, you hold the pick off-center and reduce firmness enough that the deflection causes a slight added pick tilt component. The polarity of the tilt is correlated with the desired pick slant polarity and acts as a little feeling catalyst for two-way pick slanting. Your right hand fingers will figure out the mechanical details by themselves.

[James W]

Something that I've become absolutely convinced of over the years is that the particular joints and muscles you use to move the pick is a very personal preference, but those choices "force" you to use certain solutions to problems.

For example, I have heard about circular picking for years. I've tried it, and no picking motion has ever felt more unnatural and clumsy to me. I think there are very real reasons for that. Advocates of circular picking always say that "it's just like writing with a pen." That doesn't help me much. I'm a lefty who plays guitar right handed, so my right hand has no muscle memory associated with writing. And even then, my writing motion doesn't really use fingers. It's mostly a wrist and forearm movement for me.

I also like to hold the pick between my thumb and the side of my index finger. Just about all the great circular pickers I know hold it between the pads of their index finger and thumb. It's a movement that just doesn't work for me.

That's too bad. I took to thumb-finger picking motion quite quickly. One thing I will say is that it's much more difficult to do if you're not anchoring at least one finger beneath the strings. In fact, in my experience experimenting with it, the more fingers you have anchoring beneath the strings on the body of the guitar (the pick guard) the easier or less difficult it is to do - but the thing is that you can't always have as many fingers anchoring because that sort of restricts mobility of changing strings, and, what's more, if you're picking one of the bass strings you'd probably want to anchor on one of the higher (in pitch) strings because it's a bit of a stretch otherwise to the pick-guard. Anyway, I am still stuck in single-string mode really with this, I have yet to really gain any fluidity with changing strings so far...

One of the amazing things about Pasquale Grasso's right hand technique is he does this with a 'floating' right hand - no discernible anchoring from the forearm, but maybe some light anchoring from the pinky beneath the strings perhaps?

[James W]

Thanks for posting. Contrary to my last post on this thread, it does look like PG lightly rests his unused picking hand fingers beneath the strings on the pick guard. Great playing anyway.

[Christian Miller]

Some good angles here.

PG seems to use quite a bit of momentum from his hand for a more solid articulation.

Edit: Is there any way for me to update the title of this thread? I tried changing it to 'Circular / Scalpel / Consecutive-Alternate Picking (Chuck Wayne, Howard Roberts)', but it's not reflected.

OMG he’s tapping his foot on 2 and 4

Barry would not approve

;-)


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[PMB]

Thanks for posting. Contrary to my last post on this thread, it does look like PG lightly rests his unused picking hand fingers beneath the strings on the pick guard. Great playing anyway.

Classic Chuck Wayne position. Pasquale most likely picked this up from his teacher, Agostino Di Georgio who in turn was a pupil of CW. Chuck even had Bob Benedetto build a pick guard with a specific height for this purpose.

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

Classic Chuck Wayne position. Pasquale most likely picked this up from his teacher, Agostino Di Georgio who in turn was a pupil of CW. Chuck even had Bob Benedetto build a pick guard with a specific height for this purpose.

But the only video of PG in this thread has him playing a guitar with no guard - and he does not look to me to be touching the top with any fingers. This is the case in many other videos, too -

Even when playing with a guard, finger contact with it does not appear to be an integral part of his technique -

[GuyBoden]

I remember being astonished by this video. I still am.

[James W]

But the only video of PG in this thread has him playing a guitar with no guard - and he does not look to me to be touching the top with any fingers. This is the case in many other videos, too -

Even when playing with a guard, finger contact with it does not appear to be an integral part of his technique -

Well I just watched the Relaxin at Camarillo one - but I don't think you can tell from that camera angle whether his picking hand fingers are resting on the guitar. I'm not saying he definitely is doing that, though. I would like very much to ask him this question. Personally, my own use of this picking technique is contingent on resting my unused picking hand fingers either on the body of the guitar or unused strings - it provides stability and enables the hand to relax.

[Christian Miller]

I will insist that people address me as ‘your Thenar Eminence’ from henceforth


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[joe2758]

I will insist that people address me as ‘your Thenar Eminence’ from henceforth


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alright take it easy Charlie

[James W]

I for one wouldn't mind seeing some footage of Brent's picking hand in action.

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

I will insist that people address me as ‘your Thenar Eminence’ from now on.

Outrageous, Christian! You have thumb nerve!

[James W]

So would I. Recording is going to be a pain, though. I don't have good cameras and don't know how to setup a good recording angle for this. I have to figure something out.

What I've done here is put my phone on my left leg and hold it with my left hand while demonstrating a tremolo with my right hand, sixteenths and sextuplets at 110 BPM. Not the most ideal recording but good enough I think?

My picking hand. - YouTube

[joe2758]

strap a camera to your dogs head and tape a piece of pork belly under the strings

[JazzKatua]

What I've done here is put my phone on my left leg and hold it with my left hand while demonstrating a tremolo with my right hand, sixteenths and sextuplets at 110 BPM. Not the most ideal recording but good enough I think?

My picking hand. - YouTube

I'd rather see some bebop playing using this technique rather than on 1 string and 1 note only; so a simple iim7-V7-IMaj7 would suffice with the same phone recording method, so I can see the picking method in action on a melodic bebop phrase.

[James W]

I'd rather see some bebop playing using this technique rather than on 1 string and 1 note only; so a simple iim7-V7-IMaj7 would suffice with the same phone recording method, so I can see the picking method in action on a melodic bebop phrase.

As you can read, the recording method makes use of my left hand, so I'm afraid no melodic Bebop phrase with that camera angle will be forthcoming, at least until I buy one of Troy Grady's magnets.

[James W]

Ok so, it's not *quite* the same camera angle, but here is the best angle I could be bothered to get, along with the best imitation of bop that I am currently capable of.

Donna Lee + improv - YouTube