Joe Pass's Picking Technique

[pamosmusic]

Yeah the benson picking thing. As you were.

[James W]

I skimmed through the Joe Pass vid and the topic is at 33:00, he even describes the double downs as light and springy

Hey Joe, this interview might interest you. Skip to 7:45 if you wish to go directly to where Antoine discusses his right hand technique.

[joe2758]

Hey Joe, this interview might interest you. Skip to 7:45 if you wish to go directly to where Antoine discusses his right hand technique.

Yes! exactly what I'm going on about. So it looks like he also does rest strokes in that situation.

Maybe this is where we find the difference between the bebop guys who use the same directional rules vs actual GJ players. And again, like I said early on, the benefit would be acoustic volume.

[DestinyT]

Fascinating thread.

This may be a blinding flash of the obvious to everyone else, but it has only just occurred to me...

I've been spending a lot of time enjoying the sound of acoustic archtop rhythm guitar, inspired by the wonderful playing of Jonathan Stout. In trying to get that happy, projecting sound, I've found myself naturally angling the pick, keeping the wrist raised, and using a firm attack with mostly downstrokes and the occasional upstroke. The guitar just seems to speak more easily that way.

The comments here about Joe Pass's picking, and also those about the Manouche tradition, really 'resonate' with me (pun intended - sorry); this is less about stylistic influence and more about solving the same acoustic problem. Before amplification, projection mattered, so perhaps certain right hand mechanics simply evolved because they worked.

Interestingly, when I'm playing single note lines these days, I almost always put the pick down and use my thumb. It forces me to think melodically.

But for jangling acoustic chord melody, I'm finding the pick opens up a completely different world. Fewer notes, smaller chords, yet somehow a bigger, happier sound - and I'm pretty sure it's made possible by angling the pick.

Perhaps that's obvious. It certainly wasn't to me.

[Christian Miller]

But isn't picking downward on all changes of strings the main thing that is separating this technique from economy and other styles? It's the root challenge of the method in the same way other methods have their downsides.

so it occurs every time I play one string to lower string in which it's not preceded by an upstroke, so it's not uncommon.

If I understand Christian it was not only a downstroke in this scenario, but a rest stroke...and my point is only "it's awkward why not at least make it a free stroke"

For someone yet to master classical rest stroke picking - and btw it is a classical technique for mandolin - I would say “no you may not play a free stroke. Birelli Lagrene etc are allowed. You are not.”

Commit to the thing.

In fact, my advice would be to spend some time playing medium tempo eights only with downward rest strokes. Learn to do it freely and with little tension.

I actually spend quite a lot of time playing this way these days. It sounds better much of the time. It is in fact how Wes played with the thumb (most of the time) too. Which I suspect why Benson is also so good with his thumb. Same basic thing.

Then introduce upstrokes only as strictly necessary. The rules are clear.

I think Joscho Stephan said something like this? Learning to triplet pick - down up down down up down - is a big part of it.

But this is all about practice, exercises, drill, muscle memory (muscles are DUMB) Playing is where we ‘forget all that stuff.’ It’s important to draw the distinction. This will lag your exercises big time, in my experience 6 months - 1 year. Stick to course, it will become your default eventually.

And then when you play, don’t worry too much. Your hand will make optimisations, but they will be governed by your right hand positioning. Which comes from the downstroke.

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