Guitar Picking Doubts (Light vs Strong)

[Carloscepinha]

Gilad says he picks really light and he likes his strings as low as possible (for his opinion).

I find that the minimum string height will be diferent according to personal tastes.

Thanks for the info on Wes.

Destinytot nice video, cheers.

It's not a matter of piano vs forte since you can play with the strenght to break strings and still have low volume or you can play really light and sound really loud. There are too many factors.

I started searching for how much is too much and how little is too little.
Thank you so much guys for all the info and input provided.

[christianm77]

So light vs strong translated in common music language would be piano vs forte? Kinda funny if you think about it, discussing if someone only plays piano while some always on forte.

I too play acoustically some time, and I'm lucky I have a resonator, otherwise no way I could be heard with a band. But even so, I can only play chord breaks as solos, no amount of strong picking would make it sufficient in volume for single lines. I'm talking about noisy pub environments here, of course. A gently listening audience may be a different story, but it's not my gig.

I agree 100%. There's a limit to how much energy you can dig out of a single string, even on a guitar which doesn't 'top out' volume wise (i.e. an archtop or a resophonic guitar I guess.) A chord makes 3 or 4 times as much sound to my ears.

Eddie Lang aside, acoustic archtop players didn't tend to use single notes.

[christianm77]

I have an old Wes jazz instruction book from 1970 where he says to "let the amp do the work." Good advice.


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I actually had a lesson with Wes. In a dream the night before last.

He showed me how his touch on the guitar was by letting me play through his L5 plugged into a Fender Twin so I could calibrate how hard his touch was.

Much gentler than I thought - but still authoritative because of the rest stroke. About the same as you would for playing electric bass (most guitar plays tend to play electric bass too hard I am told.)

It's cool that I can remember the sensation really clearly from the dream.

[destinytot]

Gilad says he picks really light and he likes his strings as low as possible (for his opinion).

I find that the minimum string height will be diferent according to personal tastes.

Thanks for the info on Wes.

Destinytot nice video, cheers.

It's not a matter of piano vs forte since you can play with the strenght to break strings and still have low volume or you can play really light and sound really loud. There are too many factors.

I started searching for how much is too much and how little is too little.
Thank you so much guys for all the info and input provided.

This is what floats my boat:

[destinytot]

I actually had a lesson with Wes. In a dream the night before last.

He showed me how his touch on the guitar was by letting me play through his L5 plugged into a Fender Twin so I could calibrate how hard his touch was.

Much gentler than I thought - but still authoritative because of the rest stroke. About the same as you would for playing electric bass (most guitar plays tend to play electric bass too hard I am told.)

It's cool that I can remember the sensation really clearly from the dream.

Lucid.

[destinytot]

I actually had a lesson with Wes. In a dream the night before last.

He showed me how his touch on the guitar was by letting me play through his L5 plugged into a Fender Twin so I could calibrate how hard his touch was.

Much gentler than I thought - but still authoritative because of the rest stroke. About the same as you would for playing electric bass (most guitar plays tend to play electric bass too hard I am told.)

It's cool that I can remember the sensation really clearly from the dream.

Are you sure it was Wes (and not Ali G's Uncle Jamal)? lol

[nikotro]

...then there's this clip featuring Jeff Beck, the real prototype for Tufnel:

Jeff beck says at 4:52 that it´s a L-5, but he is playing on an ES-175. Right?

[Little Jay]

Jeff beck says at 4:52 that it´s a L-5, but he is playing on an ES-175. Right?

Yup, that's a 175, not an L5.

[destinytot]

Yup, that's a 175, not an L5.

Ectoplasm, actually.

[destinytot]

Wailing on nylon at home (acoustic amp + headphones) with a Cool Thin - below the 'piezo-quack' threshold.

[Epistrophy]

There are so many ways and differing preferences, but here's a personal experience and a recent discovery of mine

I've always picked with stiff picks. I don't want the pick itself to flex/compress, I want to control the dynamics myself and feel the string resistance.

Small picks was my choice until recently (Dunlop Jazz size or slightly larger). It felt like I had better control with only a small portion of the pick sticking out.

However, as I moved on to playing guitars with thicker strings, and especially acoustics, it just didn't sound good with that small thing. Too wimpy. So I started using slightly larger picks with less pointy tips. Much better sounding. However...listening to recordings of myself, I felt I sounded much too dynamic. As if I lacked areas in between soft and loud.

I was still only letting a small portion of the pick stick out, meaning it would allow for less pick wiggle...as I thought this would mean less movement for my hand, and more control. How wrong I was.

Only in the last few weeks I've started practicing letting the pick stick further out. And in that time I already have more control over dynamics, better sound, AND better and more precise technique! This way, letting the pick wiggle a bit more, makes it slide so smoothly over thick strings, and if I instead want the string to give in (go louder) I just give the pick a firmer grip. I do not have to adjust how deep I dig, so going from soft to hard and everything in between suddenly comes so natural. And that thumb doesn't accidentally mute strings any more (e.g. when doing chord patterns/arpeggios).

It even seems I move the hand less than before, and can more easily do large string skips. Kinda like when using a pencil...it may initially feel like holding it right at the tip gives you more control, but holding it further up makes you use less movement and gives smoother lines.

Yes! Exactly this! I also don’t like to hold the pick close to the tip. I’m more relaxed while the pick wiggles.