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What ? Upstrokes don't always sound different and you guys must be kidding about someone playing with all downstrokes...lol.
Originally Posted by christianm77
You won't be able to hear a difference between my upstrokes and downstrokes...
depends who is playing.
The better Benson Pickers also you can't hear a difference...
Many or most advanced players do not have audible differences between up and downstrokes...
I should not even have to mention this...Last edited by Robertkoa; 12-02-2015 at 09:50 PM.
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12-02-2015 09:44 PM
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When I wrote that I thought, hmmm that's probably an over-statement but I'll throw it in and see what happens. Originally Posted by Robertkoa
All downstrokes is a valid picking strategy. Look at Wes Montgomery and Jim Mullen. The idea of someone doing this with a pick might be perverse but I have found that down stroke only is the best for feel.. Charlie Christian is meant to have played downstroke only - and he could make this kind of tempo (200bpm in quavers):
I have found this to be within the realms of possibility but pretty difficult. The Lennie guys were obsessed with CC. Tristano himself regarded him as having the best time of any jazz musician - so the guitarists of this school were very interested in emulating his approach as much as they could.
GJ picking is not far removed from this world, and I think it is likely that rather than pure downstrokes, Charlie Christian used a similar technique to GJ picking, in common with many players of the swing and bop era.
The way I teach my students to Gypsy pick is based on the rule 'Never use an upstroke unless you absolutely have to.' My picking, like most GJ players, is 80% down strokes.
As the up stroke in trad grip GJ picking and variants comes from a completely different physical motion it does sound different.
You can equalise the up stroke and down stroke (something I am in fact doing with my electric playing) but this is fighting the inherent inequality - the down strokes goes with gravity. In GJ we use the gravity, the arm weight to play the instrument. The up stroke is really a bounce....
In electric technique your concern is to even out the up stroke and down stroke - at least if you play jazz...
This creates that smooth, even, modern sound, but is pretty useless if you want to dig in and utterly useless for any kind of acoustic projection or sound. I would go as far to see there is no point using alternate picking on a carved top archtop guitar - you will never drive the top - but Im sure many would disagree with me. If you alternate you may as well play a telecaster (which is what I do now - I am going for the smooth modern sound on electric ;-))
Anyway, have a go at recording a solo in pure downstrokes and see what you think. My feeling is that upstrokes have an inbuilt slight tendency to rush and you have to do a lot of work to undo this tendency.Last edited by christianm77; 12-08-2015 at 07:04 AM.
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Well...my chops( especially recently) and sense of Time are two things I have that put me more in the League with the Big Boys...lol.
Remember as a Student you concentrate on your weaknesses but putting out some Music or jumping into the Pro Arena you feature your strengths..
So I do harmonically expanded Rock and R&B and have been able to come up with
" interesting" chord voicings and Rhythms for a long time...if I Jam in Public with a Jazz Virtuoso...it won't be " Autumn Leaves" or "Giant Steps " it will be one of my Tunes or
" I Heard it Through the Grapevine"( great Bridge for riffing/ blowing -almost Jazz)-
then the Playing Field will be more level- lol.
( I am fooling around with "Rhythm Changes" and love that Bridge when it comes in though).
But there are Jazz Guys - maybe you but many- who can sit there and almost instantly improvise beautiful Chord Melody stuff - ridiculous depth of Talent and Music- that's amazing to me !- ripping single lines in Time and Swinging is much simpler than that.
Decades ago I recorded a Solo .. very Carlton-ish playing an ES 347 just with Thumb downstrokes and it forced me to play slowly - it was a very " lucky" Solo because it is actually a Melody - it' s a good
" Head" for a Tune in a Steely Dan- ish vein with a nice Rhythm Guitar...
One of the Reasons I am learning more about Jazz is for better Bridges and B Sections as a Writer..Last edited by Robertkoa; 12-14-2015 at 01:55 PM.
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True and good exceptions as you say are Originally Posted by christianm77
Eric Johnson who is quite Legato even picking every Note but can also be staccato when he does Country.
A great example is also Jonathan Kriesburg who gets a pretty, legato sound when picking every Note ( digital delay helps ).
I use a light picking attack which is almost legato then to "Swing" I pick harder ( deeper into strings) and more staccato- for Benson- ish hard swing you need the attack.
My technique is not far from these two but Musically they are far above what I do- especially that they play nearly perfect ALL THE TIME !? Lol. Benson is like this also- perfect mostly.
Benson does not play Legato but he does pick softly sometimes and fade down into the Mix..
The Gypsy Guys as great as they are sometimes sound like they are using hammers and screwdrivers etc on the Strings.lol..not legato much.
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Gj picking is too much on electric. You can still employ rest strokes though, and use an anchored/muted hand position. Birelli uses this when playing electric, and according to Troy Grady ej does something similar. Originally Posted by Robertkoa
Many contemp jazz players seem to be aiming for a sound where every note is picked but in a very legato way. Check Lage Lund as well as Kresberg. Metheny too of course, and kurt rosenwinkel. Tim miller and Gilad heckselman use more left hand slurring.
Btw things get a bit confusing with terminology. Could we agree a convention - I suggest legato for the musical effect, ligado or slurring for hammer ons and pull offs?
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So pat martino is a floating hand wrist based alternate picker after all...
The evenness of the picking is definitely an important element in his sound I would say, hence surprise at the possibility he might play mostly downstrokes...
The advantages of this specific technique are a bit lost on me, but I would say evenness of articulation coupled with a slightly stronger articulation than anchored picking would be the main ones, right?
Disadvantages is I would say accuracy in cross picking would be difficult to achieve - would you agree Robert from your experiences?
Incidentally I know a couple of guys on the london scene who use Jesse van ruellers approach which is always downstrokes on beats upstrokes on off beats. They are floating hand pickers and are able to get a pretty legato sound...
I'm particularly interested in this discussion not for my own playing so much, but for teaching I am looking to codify a good practice for electric jazz playing. At the moment I teach gypsy jazz students only so its very clear and traditional.
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Come to think of it do floating wrist alternate guys use rest strokes for spatial orientation? Or not?
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I am not sure about the anchored versus very slightly resting ( like me ) or EJ does
(more to mute adjacent strings on his part)
on my part it's to mute adjacent strings AND to serve as a depth gauge for how deep and thus how hard I hit the strings.
Remember that Eric Johnson is a Master Guitarist and Musician and I am NOT- however I do have excellent speed and time and freedom when picking.
It took me a few hundred hours to get comfortable "swinging" -I had done it before playing Blues and some Rock but not as strict and not for 32 bars- so the Endurance was tough at first.
I learned by "pretending" I was playing perfect note choices concentrating on swinging 8ths and then double time swinging 16ths all over the fingerboard so getting the Rhythms and Articulation and speed and timing first ..then and still plugging in better Notes at Melodic Cadence points- backwards but if you can pick already much quicker- so I got the Rhythms and "Flow" first - I spent about 30 to 40 hours a week since I began frequenting here working on it till I got it and it sharpened my rhythm sense for soloing a lot .
I had sharp timing on Rhythm Parts and finger picking from Pro Recording( in studios) and Amateur Recording over many years but swinging really sharpens soloing even in Non Jazz..
I notice that I slightly arch my right wrist because it "frees" the wrist for wider movement across Strings wider intervals and skips.
The problem with thinking there is a "better" way like I think this Advanced Alternate Picking I use is really good cause I don't need to "sweep" or "economy" pick for slow or medium or fast across string stuff is:
There is always someone as good or better than you doing something totally different-
Like I heard a fast version of Cherokee by Andreas Oberg who is a great Player..but then I searched and found this:
George Benson " Cherokee " live in NY 1974:
Freaking 1974! Benson usually doesn't care to play this fast but listen to the Time and
"Hard Swing" - Benson just has this Urba n Feel to me...and and playing super fast and a little off time is easier than playing with near perfect timing like
the " King of Hard Swing "- Bad Benson.
OK remember DiMeola floats his right hand and he was one of the first super fast Fusion Guys...but he doesn't " swing" and usually doesn't do many Arpeggios.
Seems " safer" to me to lightly rest the heel to mute unplayed strings and have a little depth gauge...and slightly turn wrist out and away from guitar face and slightly arch the wrist ( like some Gypsy Guys do) for more bite on upstrokes and more lateral wrist motion.
If wrist is straight you can't "skip" strings as easily due to joint mechanics( but no doubt there is someone who can lol).
I was doing this in the 80s before I saw the Gypsy Guys but it seems they NEED monster right hands to play that style and they evolved what works.
I have enough projection for regular Acoustic Guitar but I doubt if I could project like most of the Gypsy Guys.Last edited by Robertkoa; 12-20-2015 at 05:58 PM.
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Yeah totally right about George benson vs al dimeola. Different idea of music.
Myself, I tend not to think to much about chops. I'm too busy trying (and failing) to play in time :-)
It's funny how if you really get in the pulse there always seems to more time between each beat...
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Yes. Kriesburg is great for a legato sound when picking every note.
I had to go the other way picking harder and slightly staccato to " hard swing".
It may be more common to " muscle " the Guitar the way the Gypsies ( Gypsys ?) and be very forceful and a hair ragged
here and there ( akin to Flamenco in some ways) than to finesse the Guitar effortlessy the way Kriesburg does also rare is to use the Technique so artistically...as Kriesburg..pick and fingers...solo Guitar...all fingers...and his musical approach is very open and expansive...a real composer on the Instrument...and " Live " he' s perfect or nearly perfect the whole set !
My even- ness comes from alternating and getting powerful upstrokes to match downstrokes.
If you practice tremelo alternate picking
you can develop the evenness ....
Then chromatic stuff 4 notes per string and even stay on one string and start on upstroke on the 1 and get it loud .
The upstroke hits the front lower quadrant of the string on the way up.
You may be too musically advanced to do the purely mechanical " dumber" things you need to do to sharpen your Timing- ever think of that ?
Interesting observation about the Time Sense when in the Pocket ...the spaces seem to open larger and more "holes" to drop the notes into -yes.
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Re gypsy picking - if you are ever interested in learning this technique an important realisation is that there is very little muscle it force involved. It's like front crawl.
But it does sound that way. The central purpose of this technique is to project acoustically. Anything else is up for compromise - including timing, although this can be worked on.
I think you can be very precise using that technique (Django anyone? Slow him down and marvel) I think a lot of the GJ players like a slightly wild sound... Like you say Flamenco/Gypsy spirit. And of course flamenco players can also be terrifyingly accurate.
I have to say I haven't studied Kreisberg's right hand in any depth. I probably should :-)
That's a salient point about doing mechanical things to improve your timing. I have thought about that an awful lot... But also being too mechanical about it can also be a mistake, because you can start to focus too much on the instrument and neglect to strengthen the link between the ear and the instrument.
What technique can deliver is, for example, evenness in articulation or control over accents. It can't offer better time/feel from the groove perspective.
But there is a very rich relationship between the instrument, your own natural sense of time and the way you play. Technique in the conventional sense is just one strand of that.
I honestly feel one of the best ways to work on technique is to do it in strict combination with transcription, and playing very exactly with recordings. Working on it in too much in isolation may be a mistake...Last edited by christianm77; 12-24-2015 at 12:23 PM.
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OK looks to me like Kreisberg is using side to side alternate picking with a hand anchored above the bridge, primarily using side to side movement to articulate. Mostly alternation?
Very much an electric/rock technique, and not a bad thing obv - works extremely well for him and his music. This is how I have been playing electric guitar for a while - very similar technique. You can still use rest strokes and pick angling of various kinds this way though (cf Troy Grady)
It's interesting to contrast this with the right hand chops of a few of his peers:
Straight up Benson picking (Adam is more conventional than JK in many ways) although with more alternate cross picking... Also he hits some open strings here and it doesn't really matter.
Lage Lund's right hand is very sweep/economy oriented. Again an anchored approach:
Mike Moreno's right hand is interesting - like a mix between Adam Roger's and Jonathon Kreisberg...
Kurt Rosenwinkel also grips the pick in a way not massively disimillar...
So the thing they have in common is that they are all anchored approaches...
Since we were talking about GJ picking not being quite right for electric, here is Birelli Lagrene playing electric. Notice that he too is anchoring. I would describe this is electric modified GJ technique.
Last edited by christianm77; 12-24-2015 at 06:52 PM.
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Tal Farlow used economy picking a lot. He was great at up-tempos in his younger days, but as he grew older, his technique made him rush quite a lot. Economy picking is delicate and if you don't keep working on it, it can spin out of control.
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I was under the impression Tal was an old school downward pickslanter (so did some economy in one direction) a common technique. That said I'm gig on what Troy Grady said, I haven't studied Tal's right hand in any detail.
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Exactly. When you're feeling it, you put your ass into it. When you don't do that, it's audible, most of the time. Of course, we've all had folks come up after a gig and say "that was great!' and we're sitting there going "huh?" because we know we could/should/had done it better. But fire doesn't just make light, it makes sound, too. Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
In improvisation (which for me right now is blues and rock, I'm not adept enough at jazz to assay it with the confidence needed outside my living room, and it's mighty poor there), I try to avoid a lick-based approach. My goal is to have my mind's ear and my fingers in direct communication. Of course licks jump in there sometimes, because muscle memory iposes its own demands. But especially with blues, I'm having a hell of a lot of fun surprising myself by getting out of my own way.
I don't like playing set solos. I'll keep key moments, heads or melodies that push the changes along, but the rock-guitarist's approach of playing it consistently the same every time has never appealed to me, even in my earlier metalhead days.
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How do you know what type of picking TF used when he was in his prime (the 1950s)? Originally Posted by Staffan William-Olsson
There are no videos of him playing back then.
It sounds like he's an alt. picker to me, except on arps.
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It has a more legato sound when changing strings than alternate picking, and playing Cherokee in bpm 390 is next to impossible without economy picking. Originally Posted by sgcim
Very few guitarists change their picking concept during their career.
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Yep sounds like there's some sweep/raking going on for sure, can't speak for the string changes, but I would hazard that most of the arpeggios are ascending, which would imply a traditional downward pick slanting concept (like Django, Benson and Yngwie) which would tend to favour economy picking going down the strings (towards the floor) rather than up. But that's not necessarily cast in iron, and I might be wrong (many GJ players employ upward sweeps and strokes when changing strings when they are really flying - it just creeps in.)
Have you listened to this slow? Sounds like there's a bit of slurring going on too.
I remember Troy Grady stating that Tal was a DWPS player, but I haven't seen any details on this from him yet. He even compares some of Yngwie's slurred articulations on descending scales and arpeggios to Tal's.Last edited by christianm77; 07-19-2016 at 06:41 AM.
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It's really visible here: Originally Posted by christianm77
There's is almost no "outside picking" ever. The catch is that it is very hard to maintain a precise technique over the years with economy picking. Most people start to rush when they turn 50. It's comparable to cymbal playing. Some drummers control the "ching-chicka-ding" and can play it in any tempo. Other just let the stick bounce, and end up with a "brr, brr" starting on two and four, and the tempo speeds up.
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Hank Garland loved Tal and was obviously very influenced by him, but he played alternate picking which made his playing more solid imo.
Here's some footage (non-jazz, irritating slapback echo) showing his picking:
Here's Garland playing "Move":
There are possibly some 3-string sweeps a few places.
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Do you have some other examples of economy players that you feel also rushed as they got older? Originally Posted by Staffan William-Olsson
Economy picking at least going down across the strings was (AFAIK) pretty common in the era immediately post Charlie Christian - to the point where I would say it was the default approach, not least because a downstroke heavy approach helps you project on an acoustic instrument.
OTOH I'm not convinced that alternate picking assists time feel on it's own. It's more complex than that, although certainly sweeping can certainly cause you to rush. If so I'm doomed, because I rush sometimes, and I'm not 50 yet :-).
And what do you think about LH slurring?
I always thoughts Hank's alternate thing came out of his country background - is that right, as far as you know? Anyway, crosspicking is a whole other discipline. Great playing, and a tremendous achievement to be able to that in a bebop context - but very 'picky' for my tastes. It's certainly in time and super accurate, if a little 'downbeaty' compared to Gary Burton's glorious phrasing.
I would say relatively few of the bop players alternate pick. Pat Martino is an example off the top of my head....
I'm kind of with Moreno regarding picking though. If it's too fast to do downstrokes only, then alternate picking every note sounds kind of too staccato for my tastes. Alternate with intelligent slurring - now that might be worth looking into. Moreno uses economy + slurring, and I think that's the most horn like sound available.Last edited by christianm77; 07-19-2016 at 02:24 PM.
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I would say you're right about his use of economy picking on Cherokee and FR, especially on the arp passages, but it looks like he does alt. pick some of his scale lines. Originally Posted by Staffan William-Olsson
Even in the 50s, some people accused TF of rushing, but his picking seemed to get more precise by the end of that decade.
I find that I can play some of his best (IMO) solos of the 50s with mostly alt. picking, except for the 16th note triplet arp figures, which have to be swept or economy picked.
I don't recall if Steve Rochinski spent much time on TF's picking method in his book "The Jazz Style of Tal Farlow".
Rochinski seemed to concentrate on TF's left hand stretch fingerings, and even gave some exercises on stretching a fourth between 1 and four, instead of the customary minor 3rd. I don't own the book, so I can't look it up, but it would be helpful if someone who does have it would see if SR mentions Tal's picking method in it.
I also agree with you that Tal's time seemed to fall apart after his break from playing in the 60s. I bought "The return of tal farlow" and couldn't believe it was the same player. Then I saw him live a few times, before I just gave up on him.
Your theory about player's rushing after the age of 50 is interesting. Does that apply to only economy pickers?
If so, that would apply to many players, such as Mark Elf, Chuck Wayne, Joe Pass, Carl Barry, Jack Wilkins, and others. Do you find that they all rush(ed)?
While I respect and admire all of the aforementioned players, their playing does not speak to me in a special way like the playing of 50s Tal, Jimmy Raney and Wes do.
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Not sure if it's relevant, but if you use certain fingerings with a dwps (downward pick slanting) style approach to picking - which is what Troy Grady says Tal Farlow did FWIW - you will end up alternate picking much of the time anyway.
Dwps picking is not the same thing as economy picking, although it has elements of it.
For example - I use even notes a strings fingerings for descending bop scales which end up being alternate picked. But my ascending arps will all be swept.
I haven't studied the Tal video in detail. That said, to me it appears he is changing strings on upstrokes, so he's clearly not a purist gypsy style dwps player.Last edited by christianm77; 07-20-2016 at 08:56 AM.
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Al DiMeola? John McLaughlin?
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Actually - has anyone mentioned Pat Martino? If not that's a pretty big omission.
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