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Bassist Dr. Lyn Christie (surgeon) is Australian by the way. My buddy New York TRUMPETER Dwayne Clemons plays with bassist Murray Walls. He is also from Australia. They have a steady gig at Smalls and The Metropolitan Room in NYC. I was born in 1960. I caught the tail end of all this. My grand pop owned a club in Astoria New York. That's how I learned to play. He payed me $10 a night to stand up there on the band stand at 12 years old every weekend. I had to learn everything by ear. Grand pop, Riccardo Corbisiero gave Tony Bennett his first gig believe it or not. New York was different then. Chuck Wayne, Tony Mattola, Al Caiola used to play there at Riccardo's. Chris Walken's dad had a bakery down the street. Ben Gazzara lived around the corner. The Steinway brothers had a piano shop "The basement" right there. They named the street after them - " Steinway Boulevard". A real cool place. Sorry for the OT everybody.
Originally Posted by 3625
Last edited by ChuckCorbis; 03-07-2013 at 09:41 PM.
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03-07-2013 09:08 PM
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@Chuck Corbisiero.
Thank you! I love these kind of stories.
You should start a thread about this stuff... or, write a book! I'd buy it!
Cheers, Ron
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I come from the rock and metal world, where my other guitars had a bridge humbucker. I learned my picking technique while watching Petrucci videos for years and anchored my pinky finger almost all the time.
Now I have a hollowbody with only a floating neck humbucker. I rest my ring finger and pinky on the pickguard most times but am finding this doesn't work for every picking situation. I just try to feel out what works best, but I think I will continue anchoring to some extend simply because of how many years I did that.
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But you have to agree that there is some physics going on. If you study all the elements like pick angle, grip angle, wrist movement, wrist rest, finger rest...and on and on and on ad nausea, you would at least come to the conclusion that there must be an ergonomic way to do this. An efficient way that obeyed some rules of physics.
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So many great players used either way; it comes down to personal preference and the anatomy/technique of the player.
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An interesting, if occasionally vituperative, thread.
Before I comment on use of a pick and that technique, I wanted to point out something that many have probably noticed. As a classically trained guitarist in my tender adolescent years, I was taught not to anchor the picking hand on the guitar. Even more fundamental was the right wrist position. In classical teaching (at least my teacher's approach), we are taught to maintain an arch in the wrist and a certain angulation that facilitates the 'floating' style of fingerpicking. So that's where I started.
But, as in all things, what floats my boat may not be what works for anyone else. And I take the Joe Pass approach - do what works for you. I doubt that there is "one true path" for everyone to follow, though I do believe that certain styles of fingerpicking or using a pick can encourage tendonitis problems. To illustrate my point about individual styles, I have always noted that the great Chet Atkins shared something technically with many country and rock players. If you watch a video or two of him playing, apart from the use of a thumbpick (which I could never get the hang of properly), his wrist in relation to the guitar top surface is the opposite of arched - in other words, in crude terms if the classical guitarist's wrist is arched like an inverted V (A), Chet and many others wrist approximates the guitar top in the V form when he picks with the thumbpick and his other fingers (a m i). That seems like an invitation to develop tendonitis, but ...different strokes for different folks.
I tend to play more fingerstyle than with a pick, but I use both classical technique as well as "hybrid" tech. That is sometimes I float, and sometimes I anchor with the pinky on the top or pick guard. Sometimes I adopt an altered hand position that is closer to that of Martin Taylor. But when I use a pick, I vary things a lot - truly hybrid, using my m and a fingers to pluck the strings in a classical way and the pick between thumb and index. But I also use the m finger for a 'frailing' style down stroke as well. And I adjust the pick position between thumb and index to sometimes get a bit of harmonics in the articulation by lightly touching the string with the index finger. There is a term for that technique but I can't remember it at the moment.
Anyway, in the end the music must speak for itself. If you get your phrasing and tone across and avoid injury in the process, who is to say "you're doing it wrong!" As for the issue of timing and phrasing, I think playing like a metronome can be boring in the extreme, though you do have know where the pulse is and the groove.
I'd like to hear some weigh in on something a bit different, which is the issue of how some players fret predominantly with three fingers, like Wes Montgomery and others, versus using four (the pinky). I was thinking about that the other night as I was listening to Wes play. I think it contributed to his 'signature' sound in many ways. I sometimes experiment with that style, and I think it contributes to making your phrasing more 'angular'. But maybe that is another thread....
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If we discuss this subject of picking on an electric guitar.......an amplified electric guitar.......then we HAVE to discuss muting with the picking hand.
In my view , you simply cannot have ringing open strings. Perhaps you will "get away with it" if you are playing mainly acoustic but you certainly won't if you are amplified.
So then.....the angle of the wrist, the arch and whatever else comes into play must work around a muting solution.
IMO you cannot mute everything with the left hand. You can only mute some things with the left hand.
Muting is part of electric guitar playing.
So "whatever works for you" in my view would more likely read "whatever works for you, but you must be able to mute"
Having to mute with the side of your hand is a game changer when it comes to how you grip the plectrum.
I also think that if you are playing at home at a low volume it is very likely that your technique will be exposed and fail in a much louder live situation if you cannot mute correctly.
I can imagine the mood on the way home from the gig.
I have mentioned before that I made some significant break throughs when I adopted the "Benson" picking technique.
But I was having terrible issues with muting. Issues that I could not correct until I changed my hand position and pick grip yet AGAIN.
These days I can mute and still strike the string with the pick angle I desire whilst maintaining a free wrist.
What a journey!
One thing that has come from this discussion is that there is no "correct" or one size fits all" method of picking.
It should then follow that an examination of what the player is doing with the the right half of the body should follow.
We know they do it for all other instruments and any physically challenging pursuit for that matter.
Technique is a science......no?
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This is really interesting thread! I'm new here, and regarding picking anchoring vs floating... what kind of approach do you reckon John Scofield has? I've been fascinated with his picking style for years! I know he's always said his right hand is not very good, but it's just so different, clumsy but in a cool kind of way. Any thoughts on that? Thanks!
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Float. FOR ME it works, gives ME better tone, gives ME better freedom to move. Relaxes MY playing. Makes ME more efficiant. Gives ME more control. There is no right or wrong in this, everyones picking style varies from person to person. Joe Pass floated, Pat Martino anchors, Pat Metheny anchors with an unorthodox pick holding style, Julian Lage floats, Abercrombie uses his thumb, Stanely Jordan taps, Martin Taylor uses fingerstyle... so many different styles in sounding a guitar. Do what is the best for YOU.
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I absolutely agree. I really do not want to ever have to actually think about my picking hand. I want it on auto pilot. The only time I want to think about my picking hand or technique is when I purposely alter it to achieve a different tonal approach or attack. Originally Posted by willschmid97
Last edited by Patrick2; 11-02-2013 at 12:41 PM.
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I'm not sure that I agree with the necessity of muting stuff. Wes is never muting, and he seems to do alright. Benson, Hall, Pass. I don't see any of these guys doing muting. Are you talking more about playing with overdrive? I really only play with small jazz combos, so my experience is probably different than folks who are doing rock or fusion stuff. Originally Posted by Philco
It is always a concern for me in the back of my mind that I might be wasting time on the Benson stuff if it turns out to be a bigger problem down the road with larger venues or different settings.
I'd be really curious to see any vids you might have done about the alterations you made to the Benson grip. You had pretty monstrous chops going on in the last threads about it, and it'd be interesting to see your approach. Is it something kind of like what Adam Rogers does?
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Originally Posted by ecj
I can't show you a video to prove it but I would lay a bet the Benson is really good at muting. I just haven't heard an open string ringing out on anything I've heard.
I can understand if you are playing at really low volumes that you may never hear some ringing strings but at any reasonably amplified level just do a sweep or arpeggio from low to high and tell me if you can't hear you strings ringing.
Playing uptempo arpeggios from low to high is a good test I think. I don't know how you could achieve that without muting the strings after you play them.
I'm not referring to an overdrive sound. Heaven forbid. I truly despise that sound in a jazz setting. I'm talking about playing clean bop lines from low to high.
If you can do that cleanly then you are doing something right and you don't need to give it a second thought.
I see what you mean about Wes but he was playing fairly low volume I think. Joe plays fairly low as well. If Pat Martino didn't mute there would just be a wall of ringing strings.
I actually think that all those older guys who used those string dampers mounted on the headstock were trying to solve the open string ringing and not feedback as is often given as the reason. Perhaps both.
I think my approach now looks more like Metheny. I'm holding the pick in the second finger not the first. Now there's a guy who can mute.
You don't have to have the side of your palm anchored the whole time to mute properly. In fact I see GB moving his hand all over the place. I've had good results by employing an up and down motion with the hand (float above the bridge and then rest back on the bridge) you can do this very quickly to kill the bass strings.
If I record a solo and I hear open strings ringing when I solo the track it really annoys me. Erase. Do it again.
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Hmm, interesting. I haven't ever noticed a big problem with ringing strings, even when cranking my amp in loud restaurants and things. One of my really excellent teachers used the free-floating Benson picking method, and I never noticed it with him, either, when he played out in front of big bands, etc. Originally Posted by Philco
I will say that some slight sympathetic ringing doesn't bug me, at all, so maybe it's just a difference of acceptance of that stuff. The part in the Andress article where he said, "Maybe it's not actually a problem," sounded right to me.
I've always thought that Benson probably did most of his muting with the fretting hand. He really plays almost with the pads of his fingers rather than the tips, and I wonder if he's actually muting the strings surrounding the fretted not with his left. He does the thumb overhang thing a lot, too, which helps.
I'll have to keep an eye on what's going on with my picking and ringing over the next few gigs and think about it. Probably it's just a factor of me generally playing at pretty low volumes.
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The problem I have with the advice of "whatever works best for you" is that in my experience ingrained bad habits are just more comfortable at the moment and switching to more technically correct technique can feel very awkward in the beginning. Leading us to believe that our inferior technique "works better" for us. But if I put in the time to sufficiently drill correct technique I almost invariably find that it's an improvement. Plus usually "correct" technique is more bio-mechanically sound and can help avoid repetitive stress type injuries later in life.
He goes into it a bit in his old instructional video. The one where he's doing a clinic for about a dozen guys and mostly talks about playing scale sequences based on the modes. He uses more of a legato style left hand technique due to his inability to pick every note cleanly. I'm a big Sco fan too. I think the clumsy but cool thing you're referring to has less to do with his technique and more to do with his feel and sense of timing. He touches on that a bit in the video too. Originally Posted by Hep To The Jive
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This is a topic that interests me.
I have changed my technique many times. I started out alternate picking, then economy picking, but I always somewhat rested my palm on the bridge more or less so I never used a pure "floating" technique.
However, as I started learning gypsy jazz, I mimicked the technique of Stochelo Rosenberg to the best of my ability.
People who say that gypsy jazz players don't anchor are plain wrong. The most widely accepted and adopted gypsy picking right hand technique involves anchoring with the 3rd and 4th finger of the right hand. But there is no fixed point. The fingers barely touch the guitar, and the hand moves freely with the pick. The non-fixed anchor(the fingers slightly touch, "brush" against the guitar) helps facilitate loose and relaxed wrist movement and orientation. You want the movement to come from the wrist, and not the elbow.
Watch Stochelos right hand. He has the absolutely best gypsy picking right hand technique. For acoustic guitar, gypsy picking is simply superior.
This video gives a great view of his right hand:
I have adopted it to archtops now too(standardized my technique, prior to that I had different picking techniques for acoustic and electric), and sonically it gives a percussive Benson-type sound due to all the downstrokes.
Listen here to the percussiveness of gypsy picking on an archtop, maestro Rocky Gresset playing:
Actually, that video sold me on gypsy picking for archtops. Watch how elegantly and easy he plays with that technique.
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Is Joe Pass doing what you are talking about above with his 3rd and 4th fingers of the right hand Amund?
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I love me some Stochelo.
When I started playing again....about 4 years ago now...... I think (looking back) that it was a video by Stochelo that made me want to deconstruct my picking technique.
I had, until then, been able to mimic my heroes fairly well. Mclaughlin, Martino and Benson (although there were definite things that troubled me about Benson and some of the things he could do).
But my technique failed me when it came to the gypsy players and what they could do.
There was one Stochelo video. Just him on a stool in a room....no audience. It's a piece in B minor that was one of his.
I transcribed it. There were certain sections.....fast arpeggios, that I just couldn't play. No matter how hard I worked on them.
I realised that these guys were approaching picking in a completely different way.
And that perhaps the technique of holding the pick the standard "rock" way was totally bogus and had inherent limitations.
Then of course I also realised that I had no idea why I held the pick in the "traditional" grip and that there were no experts on this subject. No one really knew what they were talking about. But the gypsy pickers knew something and so did Mr Benson.......because I could hear it.
That's when I started experimenting with gypsy Wegen picks and changing the angle of my wrist and how I struck the string.
Not long after that I read the Tuck Andress blog on Benson picking.......and away I went.
If I were to break down all that I have learned so far about these techniques I would say the most important factor to playing with ease is the wrist.
It's all about the wrist and how relaxed it is.
That's my take on it anyway.
It's a work in progress.
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I can't confirm that for sure, but it looks like it. In one of his instructional videos(I think it was "Jazz Lines") he talked about how he would use a downstroke for every string change, no matter where it goes. This is what the gypsy jazz players do. He argued that it gives better accents and flow, which is exactly what I discovered for myself. Coincidentally, Joe was a huge fan of Django Reinhardt. Originally Posted by ChuckCorbisiero
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Anyway, the gist of it is that when the wrist is not locked to the bridge, there is less contact with the guitar to dampen vibrations. Then, the freely moving very relaxed anchor with the 3rd and 4th fingers together with the floating wrist facilitates relaxed wrist movement. In that hand position, the picking movement is more of a "rotation" of the wrist because when the hand is allowed to "drop" naturally into position, the wrist curves inwards just slightly.
The elbow/upper arm/bicep rests on the "top" of the guitar to allow the hand to drop into that natural, relaxed position.
The Stochelo video illustrates all that, and in particular the wrist "rotation". It's like he flicks his wrist, which is made easy by the hand position. It gives more momentum to get the necessary volume, tone and projection for gypsy jazz guitars.
On archtops, we get the benefit of a percussive sound with accents.
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This coheres with my experience, too, although I was never as good at the standard approach as your are, Philco. I think the big "Aha!" moment for me came with the rest stroke concept. The whole principle of eliminating the need to control follow through changed everything for me. Originally Posted by Philco
Still working on improving my strict alternate picking for the sake of versatility. But it's so easy to play "fast" with rest strokes. Now I understand how Montgomery managed to sound so relaxed on up tempo stuff. And to me, that's the biggest issue. Wes and Benson both sound relaxed and have great groove. Most other jazz guitarists sound jumpy to me, like they're struggling to keep locked in.
My favorite guitarists are: Charlie Christian, Django Reinhardt, Joe Pass, Wes Montgomery, George Benson. At one point I wrote out that list and thought, "Whoa, they all use gypsy-style picking patterns." Then I started to wonder why I didn't.
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I studied with Carmine D'Amico. He played using down strokes to start all his lines with his right hand 3rd and 4th finger gliding on the top of the pick guard. He was adamant about it being the best way to sound in the pocket but he used a thin pick and a light string set of 10s with medium action. Seems like Rocky Gresset is using a lighter set up than you would think. When you don't use the BENSON angle to the strings, do you find that a lighter set of strings with some give helps the feel with this approach? Correct me if I'm wrong but Rocky is using a different pick angle or angles compared to Benson. Does anybody know how Hank Garland picked? Seems like he did this too (rest stroke). He had a pretty light set up on his Byrdland.
EDIT - Since Reg took a shot at this and posted a video of his picking earlier on, I'll do the same. Go easy on me guys and girls. I've been out of the loop for awhile but here is me toughing through a Parker solo. I think I do the 3rd and 4th finger right hand guide too but I use hammers, gliss and pull offs to get the sound I want. Sorry the camera isn't completely showing the right hand all the time but this is the only video I have in my computer right now.
Last edited by ChuckCorbis; 11-02-2013 at 04:11 PM.
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Hey Chuck, hard to make out your picking hand cause of the lens angle - but you're pulling a damn good tone! a real old-school sound
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As 3625 mentioned it's hard to see the pick hand but you seem relaxed and crossing strings looks quite effortless for you. I also like the tone. I call it "stringy but still electric".
Sometimes I like what Youtube does to the sound......and also crappy camera microphones can sound great!
The pick angle thing is a bit mysterious.
I dunno. I've seen a ton of videos of GB. It looks to me as if he is changing the angle all the time and not because he thinks about it. He's just so fluid and "elastic". He just plays the thing and makes it groove.
His right hand is all over the place. I think there is a basic "default" angle. But it looks to me to be about 45 degrees. And then it changes.
Mike Moreno and Pat Metheney are doing something similar and both of them have that "loose" thing going on.
IMHO it's not about being "rigid" in any way.
I wonder if all the Gypsy players debate the best way to hold a pick! I bet they do.
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I also agree that jazz guitar players have unconvincing right hands and have always wondered why. The answer is, of course, that's it's bloody hard! Just playing 8ths, in the pocket, uptempo (280+) is demanding enough, but when you skip strings regardless of pick direction, slide, slur, try to accent, etc etc, it can get tricky to stay in the pocket. I sometimes find it easier to stay in the pocket at fast tempos, but struggle at slower ones. That's because the way I pick, or fret my lines has been (over?) practiced at faster tempos, thereby making it hard to play in relative slow motion. Slurring slower takes more strength! Even sweeping slower is hard to control, takes way more right hand control the slower you go (for me anyway). Originally Posted by Philco
But I'm not sure the solution is GB or Gypsy picking. especially as there seems to be dynamic advantages with the "standard" grip, certainly easier to control accents, as well as muting etc. But really, I have never heard the perfect right hand on Jazz guitar. Martino sounds too undynamic, but in a weird way, so does GB. Most of the other greats also sound unconvincing to me, with perhaps 2 glaring exceptions, - you must agree that Django's right hand was flawless, probably the most dynamic and exciting flat picker ever. The other is the calloused double jointed thumb of Wes'. Two very different, unique and highly idiosyncratic players. So much so that you can't emulate them, and it would seem foolish to even try!
Dunno, I still like to believe that one's technique catches up to one's ear. If you hear certain things in your head that just have to come out, then eventually, with enough practice, they should. Thumb, fingers, pick, coin, button, gypsy style, standard, GB, whatever. Whether it takes 4 years, or 40....Last edited by princeplanet; 11-03-2013 at 04:30 AM.
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It's easy to be guilty of over thinking everything as well.
You simply can't cover ALL the bases. One lifetime isn't enough.
The biggest mistake would be to spend a chunk of that lifetime trying to emulate and not innovate.
The energy needs to flow in a different direction.
There has to come a time when you go your own way and write your own style and play some simple and beautiful things.
That will be enough.
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