Alternate Picking (Floating hand VS Anchored)

[goldenwave77]

You should read this article by Tuck Andress. Andress attended Stanford Univ., though he may have dropped out to pursue his musical career. He is clearly very, very intelligent, and describes himself as having a "logical engineering type of mind" and his analysis of pros/cons of various picking approaches is valuable, I think. He pursued finger style because it is more powerful for accompaniment, allowing himself to tour with his wife, and use fewer personnel.

In other writings, he has interesting insights into sound production in a commercial setting, as in when asked about how important his vintage L5 was to his "sound"---he said not very, and that no home "living room" player could replicate his sound, anyway, without using the industrial-strength EQ equipment that he tours with. This is pricey but essential gear, according to him, and he said that he spends a LOT of time before a show tweaking it to get the sound he wants. These articles use to be available on his web site, and may still be, though I haven't looked at them lately.

[Groyniad]

As a first approximation, Johnny Smith's elbow moves his hand between strings and his wrist picks on single strings.

He fluently synthesizes the two techniques.

i just posted on exactly this on another thread. after months of hard work playing from the wrist, i suddenly discovered the advantages of playing from the elbow. its really very striking indeed. it seems to make changing strings MUCH smoother and quicker - i'm very excited about it.

[Patrick2]

As a first approximation, Johnny Smith's elbow moves his hand between strings and his wrist picks on single strings.

He fluently synthesizes the two techniques.

[bobby d]

Howard Roberts spoke of using the elbow as well as the wrist and fingers as a lever. Fine control is in the wrist in fingers. Roberts also suggested not to anchor too heavily, but to keep the right hand partially free. Of course different strokes for different guitarists.

[m_a]

Don't shoot me, but if you aren't aware of "Cracking the Code" it might be worth a look. The entire website is about analyzing the right hand speed picking techniques of very, very fast players. Mostly metal but here's Mike Stern with close ups and slow motion of his right hand.

Check out Season 2 for in-depth analysis of picking mechanics (Season 1 is definitely skippable—I watched the whole thing in a single binge).

Using a more angled pick and downward pick-slanting (as Troy calls it in CtC) I was able, thus far, to play the first 3 Conti Precision Technique exercises at 170bpm—which is insanely fast for me and using a Fred Kelly Fat Pick.

YMMV.

The more I spend time with it the more I believe what Troy is doing to be important, future reference work on picking. The material that comes with the Season 2 package is great. Mainly Yngwie stuff redone by another virtuoso with a more contemporary sound all his own, I never thought I would ever come to appreciate Yngwie's genius but there you go. I do find great beauty in those lines. The important point though is that the Yngwie techniques can be applied to anything. They're not exclusive to Yngwie though - Troy says he believes Django was doing essentially the same, a fascinating insight. But it also visually illustrates, and makes full sense for me of the Tuck Andress article. I watch Troy pick and it is essentially application of the principles discussed by Tuck, except Troy uses the more conventional leading edge (as opposed to trailing edge) pick attack - which I believe is easier to do. The Tuck article would still be useful in its discussion of hand oscillation which Troy hasn't addressed yet in writing, but perfectly illustrates in his clips. Interesting too that someone mentioned Tuck's engineering bent because Troy also makes engineering references, describing downward pickslanting as an "engineer's dream" in its economy and efficiency.

[paco]

Funny, I emailed Troy back-and-forth discussing a few of the finer points with him. His take on CtC, which is congruent with your conclusion, is that he's trying to document the right hand techniques for future guitar players so that they don't have to reinvent the wheel on their own.

For me the lights came on after checking out CtC and then reading what Tuck Andress had to say about RH technique. Glad to see my long-ago education in engineering has paid off!

In case you haven't seen Troy's Kickstarter Magnet. Obsess over your own weaknesses...captured on high speed video!

[Takemitsu]

I have been reading this thread and Benson picking thread for the last week and a half and I would like to thank you all. Because of you, I am now for the first time aware of my right hand to the point that nothing works anymore.

[ChuckCorbis]

Was trying to find a video clip of Hank Garland playing jazz. No dice. Here's what I found. Hank "Sugarfoot" Garland - Sugarfoot rag:

[ChuckCorbis]

HANK GARLAND JAZZ GREAT PLAYING RIOT CHOUS:

[MarkRhodes]

Was trying to find a video clip of Hank Garland playing jazz. No dice. Here's what I found. Hank "Sugarfoot" Garland - Sugarfoot rag:

Golden fingers indeed. I'd seen that clip before but I was happy to see it again.

[Patrick2]

"Technique should be the servant . . . not the master" (Jim Mullen)

I heard him say this in an interview a while back. It resignated with me then as it still does.

[Patrick2]

It should be and we are talking about one of the most virtuosic jazz guitarists of an era not a country bumkin at all. I broke down what he was doing Pat because there's a lot of people splitting hairs reinventing the wheel. In other words, Hank's got a pretty standard set of chops. Nothing really unorthadox at all.

My reference to Jim Mullins' quote wasn't specific to your post of Hank garland. It was just commentary on the on going discussions regarding technique. I get a bit perplexed when I hear the arguments (friendly discussions) and debates about floating vs anchored, should the pinky touch the pick guard, sweep picking is cheating, strict alternate picking is more jazz like than economy, gotta mute the stings, shouldn't mute the strings, myriad versions of Benson's technique, hold the pick loose, hold the pick tight, too much angle, not enough angle . . . and on and on and on. It always takes me back to the Jim Mullins quote . . so I just thought I'd throw it out there because it seems to make so much sense to me.

Actually, I've never even seen a video of Hank Garland playing. I've got to check out the ones you've posted here . . they'll probably lead me to others on You Tube.

When I first started playing guitar, I took the pick in my hand . . looked at it . . saw the pointy end and figured, "this must be the end that you hit the strings with". Never gave it a second thought since and never had any of the jazz guitar instructors comment positively or negatively on my right hand technique. There were only two comments ever made on any of my technique. The first one, I'll never forget and it is still a technique that I live and swear by. Al Faraldi once scolded me because the fingers on my fretting hand weren't perfectly parallel to the frets and perfectly perpendicular to the strings. I took me about 3 weeks of solid concentration to correct that glitch. But, now it's the only way I can play. When I see Jimmy Bruno play, I just say to myself . . "yeah . . that's perfect form". When I've seen Tal play . . I'd just wince. But, hey . . he was Tal. Didn't much matter how he positioned those massive meat hooks.

The second time was when Vinny Corrao told me I shouldn't be holding my guitar in between my legs in the classical guitar position. We had some words about it. But, I just continued to hold my guitar the way I felt most comfortable with it . . still do!!

OOPS!! There was a third time!! One of my teachers told me that when I'm playing runs, I lift my non fretting fingers too high away from the fret board. I worried about it for a while . . . until I saw Pat Martino and Barney Kessel play. Then, I stopped worrying. ;-)

[christianm77]

The more I spend time with it the more I believe what Troy is doing to be important, future reference work on picking. The material that comes with the Season 2 package is great. Mainly Yngwie stuff redone by another virtuoso with a more contemporary sound all his own, I never thought I would ever come to appreciate Yngwie's genius but there you go. I do find great beauty in those lines. The important point though is that the Yngwie techniques can be applied to anything. They're not exclusive to Yngwie though - Troy says he believes Django was doing essentially the same, a fascinating insight. But it also visually illustrates, and makes full sense for me of the Tuck Andress article. I watch Troy pick and it is essentially application of the principles discussed by Tuck, except Troy uses the more conventional leading edge (as opposed to trailing edge) pick attack - which I believe is easier to do. The Tuck article would still be useful in its discussion of hand oscillation which Troy hasn't addressed yet in writing, but perfectly illustrates in his clips. Interesting too that someone mentioned Tuck's engineering bent because Troy also makes engineering references, describing downward pickslanting as an "engineer's dream" in its economy and efficiency.

I've found Troy's videos to be useful in refining my picking - very quickly with little practice. He's really homing in some fundamental stuff.

[m_d]

I've found Troy's videos to be useful in refining my picking - very quickly with little practice. He's really homing in some fundamental stuff.

If you have time, please check the beginning of a Barney Kessel performance of the tune Alfie on the Tube and tell me what you think . I'm not crazy about the tune proper but what interested me was the view of Kessel's right hand playing the intro chords with the precision of a Swiss watch bringing immediately to mind the "pickslanting", downward and upward, concepts discussed by Grady. I would never have seen that otherwise. Meaning they could be applied to strumming just as well (in fact I'm now working on just that and it's beginning to gel). I noticed the same in a Mark Whitfield clip where he does a beautiful Ellington-inspired fast strummed sequence, which again would have left me forever befuddled without the Grady decoder. Good stuff.

[AndyPollow42]

Floating or anchored - I think their both good. Ive been tryin all that stuff for alot of years playing Yngwie, Macalpine, Racer X, ... And sliding fingers on the pickguard too like Yngwie does. The most important thing to me with the pick is to keep the index and thumb stiff so you force the movement to come from wrist and/or arm and not the fingers. I had a bad habit of moving my index finger for upstrokes and when your trying to pick fast that is like a wrench in the machine - it slows you down.

[christianm77]

Yes I agree. It must be locked. On the other hand tension is not the desired outcome.

I've watched more of Troy's videos. They are pretty clear, recommended. Rest stroke picking for shred metal. Who'd have thought it, eh?

[christianm77]

Sure. It's important to establish a technical understanding that'll work for everyone though. I think such a thing does exist out there.... 'Classical pick technique'....

Gypsy picking is a great starting point because it is so well understood and works great - being able to play fast is pretty standard on the gypsy jazz scene (even if everything else is lacking sometimes haha.)

The fact that Troy's DWPS technique is the electric guitar version of that is very nice... I mean, even if you don't like their music, Yngwie and Eric Johnson get a great tone out of the instrument as well as uber-chops.

Although I do find some difficulty adapting my gypsy technique to incorporate RH muting. Just got to keep practicing it....

[christianm77]

Interesting thing is, it turns out that picking is picking.

The main difference is the need for RH muting for electric/heavily ampified playing. Archtop/acoustic players don't need to worry so much.

Playing the guitar is playing the guitar. What you choose to do with your technique us up to you and your ear.

[threetwoone]

Alessio Menconi with a great right hand tecnique

[FatPick]

Thanks for the video! That's exactly the RH technique I'm trying to develop...only about 8,000 hours left to go for me...

[Arpeggio]

I find floating can make the "Troy Grady Pick Slant" (downward) easier, but I still tend to want to anchor the hand (more touch, not so much anchor) while doing so as a physical touch reference so that I can more easily judge the distance of the pick to the strings without actually looking at my picking hand.

[MatsP]

Sorry made a mistake here, I meant to say when I was playing the G,B and high E strings, the base of my thumb is lightly grazing the bass strings. But all of this is obviously variable from person to person, posture, angle of guitar etc.

I play from the wrist, not the elbow. Kind of a floppy, dangling kind of motion (best I could describe lol)

That's about the way I'm doing it right now. Floating the hand, but grazing the bass strings with the base of the thumb as a point of reference. All this takes some practice, that's obvious.

[MatsP]

No matter what technique you name, you'll find someone who uses it an plays well. Mimi Fox, Jimmy Bruno, Kenny Burrell, and Wes Montgomery all do it differently . . . and are all very, very good.

So true. It doesn't matter what technique you use as long as you master it. By the way, I went back to anchoring (lightly) the pinky side of my palm to the bridge. It is able to freely move up and down the bridge, though. Since I'm doing rock/fusion stuff as well, it's awkard to switch to palm muted play when using a floating hand, in my book. To each his own.

[christianm77]

It does matter if you want to play acoustic and project. I mean actually acoustic (no amp.) It matters rather a lot, it's a very unforgiving thing (but freeing if you can do it.)

That said Julian Lage uses a anchored electric style pick hand and sounds pretty darn nice on an acoustic. I wonder if he gets sufficient projection without amplification and if so how. Often the struggle is balancing strummed chords and single note lines.

I've started practicing with an amp (because I was struggling to get my amplified sound clean.) As I mention above my acoustic picking technique is great for levels of amplification, but if I want to play more at true electric volumes, my hand naturally wants to mute and go to a 'lazier' way of doing things.

A challenge for me is not to pick as hard, not feel I have to make every note super-assertive, and then I get a more legato, modern tone.

Another struggle is when I pick softer to make everything even. This, I suspect, is why alternate picking is so popular with electric players.

So I think it's an unconscious or semi-conscious 'feel thing.'

I see a lot of players locking up their forearm and wrist and anchoring to the top E string near the bridge. Good players too. It looks uncomfortable to me, but they sound great. Can get away with that on an electric.

[MatsP]

It does matter if you want to play acoustic and project. I mean actually acoustic (no amp.) It matters rather a lot, it's a very unforgiving thing (but freeing if you can do it.)

That said Julian Lage uses a anchored electric style pick hand and sounds pretty darn nice on an acoustic. I wonder if he gets sufficient projection without amplification and if so how. Often the struggle is balancing strummed chords and single note lines.

I've started practicing with an amp (because I was struggling to get my amplified sound clean.) As I mention above my acoustic picking technique is great for levels of amplification, but if I want to play more at true electric volumes, my hand naturally wants to mute and go to a 'lazier' way of doing things.

A challenge for me is not to pick as hard, not feel I have to make every note super-assertive, and then I get a more legato, modern tone.

Another struggle is when I pick softer to make everything even. This, I suspect, is why alternate picking is so popular with electric players.

So I think it's an unconscious or semi-conscious 'feel thing.'

I see a lot of players locking up their forearm and wrist and anchoring to the top E string near the bridge. Good players too. It looks uncomfortable to me, but they sound great. Can get away with that on an electric.

Yes, it does matter when you play acoustic for the projection, like you mention. And those gypsy jazz players need to get a lot of volume out of their instruments, just like the jazz players with weak (or no?) amps in the past, when they tried to match the sound of the huge orchestra. I should have been a bit more lax in my statement. And of course, an ergonomically "good" technique is of course always better than one where you have to strain your muscles.