The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1

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    Hi folks, total noobie here (my first post, after getting quite excited as a lurker on this forum

    Been playing guitar on and off for a long time, strictly as a hobby. As a big admirer of John McLaughlin, Larry Coryell et al, I was always naturally gravitating toward more muscular playing. Slowly and gradually, managed to build my technique to the level where I felt I could play some of their stuff at a brisk tempo, although never as good as I felt I should (which is understandable, since I'm strictly an amateur player).

    Then I stumbled upon Bireli Lagrene and Sylvain Luc's playing. That was a life changing moment for me, as it forced me to totally reconsider my approach to guitar playing. I realized that my technique was rather poor, and that these players are somehow pushing the guitar to another level, in terms of articulation.

    Upon closer examination (recording myself 'burning' of the guitar and then listening back very carefully) I came to the realization that my plain vanilla alternate picking technique is producing flat, lifeless sound. I then went back and started learning about Bireli's approach, and of course that led me to the manouche, or Romane, or gypsy jazz picking technique. From the theoretical standpoint, the gypsy picking doctrine sounded absolutely counter-intuitive and almost ludicrous to me, but since I was losing faith in my playing, I had nothing to lose so I tried the gypsy technique.

    Much to my amazement, despite the fact that this technique felt extremely alien to me, I started almost immediately hearing a much better articulation pouring out of my guitar! Despite clumsiness, despite pain and discomfort that I started feeling in my picking hand wrist, the improvement in the tone and musicality of my playing was undeniable.

    So now I'm trying to unlearn years and years of flat, lifeless alternate picking habits and learn the new 'rest stroke-follow through-bounce up' gypsy approach to picking. It's going painfully slow, as you might imagine, but it's going nevertheless.

    So what, you might say? Yes, sure, that's nothing to write home about, however I now have a problem that no one seems to be addressing in any of the tutorials/training courses. My problem is, now that I'm floating my picking hand and not touching any part of the guitar, I get incredible amount of sympathetic open string vibrations while playing arpeggios or single line runs. Previously, with my flat-on alternate picking technique, I was resting the heel of my picking hand on the bridge or on the strings close to the bridge, which gave me the ability to mute open strings at will. But now with my picking hand floating in the air, those open string are left free to ring, and often times the ringing could be so loud that it almost competes in volume with the notes I'm picking!

    So my question to this esteemed panel of experts is: what's the secret to suppressing open string from ringing when you are floating your picking hand? I don't hear similar ringing when listening to many amazing gypsy players, yet I can't see on any videos how are they dampening the open strings? I must admit that I'm stumped at this point.

    Thanks in advance for any advice, and please do not hesitate to criticize anything you feel I may have done incorrectly here

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  3. #2

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    Well first of all if your alternate picking sounds lifeless to you, I would investigate why that is so rather than reach to a conclusion that alternate picking = lifeless sound. Let's just say it's doesn't take much afford to find counter examples to that rule. It could be the lack of swing feel or (judicious) accenting of upbeats.
    I don't use Gypsy picking so sorry I can't be of help there.
    Last edited by Tal_175; 01-25-2018 at 04:43 PM.

  4. #3

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    Pure GJ technique never sounds too good on electric. What problem you described is the natural side effect. You have to mute strings if you want a nice clean lines. You can use rest strokes though, but it doesnt need to be a floating right hand.

  5. #4

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    I encountered the same problem, and these days use a small variety of techniques depending on the musical situation of the moment. But I'm no speed player, so would not even consider mentioning those players you mention. I mostly play acoustic archtops, and find the transition to amplified electric archtop difficult. In short, you are not alone!

  6. #5
    I'm using the floating picking hand technique only on the acoustic guitar.

  7. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Tal_175
    Well first of all if your alternate picking sounds lifeless to you, I would investigate why that is so rather than reach to a conclusion that alternate picking = lifeless sound. Let's just say it's doesn't take much afford to find counter examples to that rule. It could be the lack of swing feel or (judicious) accenting of upbeats.
    I don't use Gypsy picking so sorry I can't be of help there.
    That's a good point. I have indeed investigated why is my alternate picking sounding lifeless and flat, and came to the conclusion that it is due to my insistence that my upstrokes should sound indistinguishable from my downstrokes. And because when alternate picking the upstrokes tend to sound weaker, I practiced toning down my downstrokes, so that they're not as forceful. The outcome is that everything sounds kind of tame, sort of as if merely skimming the surface.

    When I switched to gypsy jazz picking, the forcefulness of the sound returned, and everything suddenly came to life!

  8. #7

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    Up strokes are meant to sound weaker. Strong/Weak alternation is fundamental to a lot of music. Take a scale passage like

    C D E F G A B C

    The strong beats outline C Maj7 - C E G B
    The weak beats outline Dm7/G11 - D F A C

    Looked at from the Dominant:

    G7 - G B D F
    C6 - A C E G

    As long as you don't pretend you are Charlie Parker, and add another note in there somewhere, you should be alright

    That said, many swing and BeBop players use more down strokes than up. As long as you are aware of the effect your stroke is having, you should be able to adapt it to your musical interpretation at any moment. Sometimes I definitely want strong/weak, down/up, but other times I feel myself wanting mostly downs. Depends on the musical moment.

    But if there is no difference between your downs and your ups - makes no difference what you do.

  9. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Rob MacKillop
    I encountered the same problem, and these days use a small variety of techniques depending on the musical situation of the moment. But I'm no speed player, so would not even consider mentioning those players you mention. I mostly play acoustic archtops, and find the transition to amplified electric archtop difficult. In short, you are not alone!
    Thanks for your advice. In my experience, I am encountering the same issues regardless of whether I'm playing fast or slow. As soon as I forcefully pick a string with a floating picking hand, the other five open strings start their sympathetic vibrations, which sometime almost drown the note I picked. I remain mystified when looking at good gypsy jazz players -- how are they suppressing those sympathetic vibrations of open strings?

  10. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Rob MacKillop
    Up strokes are meant to sound weaker. Strong/Weak alternation is fundamental to a lot of music. Take a scale passage like

    C D E F G A B C

    The strong beats outline C Maj7 - C E G B
    The weak beats outline Dm7/G11 - D F A C

    Looked at from the Dominant:

    G7 - G B D F
    C6 - A C E G

    As long as you don't pretend you are Charlie Parker, and add another note in there somewhere, you should be alright

    That said, many swing and BeBop players use more down strokes than up. As long as you are aware of the effect your stroke is having, you should be able to adapt it to your musical interpretation at any moment. Sometimes I definitely want strong/weak, down/up, but other times I feel myself wanting mostly downs. Depends on the musical moment.

    But if there is no difference between your downs and your ups - makes no difference what you do.
    That's a very good explanation, thanks. For some reason, I prefer when playing single melodic lines to make almost every note sound at approximately the same volume. That evenness of the flowing lines is the effect I'm going for. Maybe that's a wrong approach, but it's a stylistic choice I'm pursuing, for better or for worse.

    Gypsy jazz picking is geared toward maximizing the number of downstrokes. That gives it certain flavour, which sounds pleasing to my ears. But even upstrokes in gypsy jazz picking sound more articulate than I can make them sound when alternate picking. This is due to the slant of the pick and the fact that after a downstroke that rests on the higher string, it is easier to bounce back and more forcefully hit the lower string with an upstroke.

    So all that works nicely for me, save for the droning of the open strings which vibrate if I'm not dampening them with my picking hand. That aspect of the technique remains a mystery to me, and I wasn't able to find any resource dissecting it or discussing it. I once asked a fairly famous gypsy jazz picker on some online forum about that issue, and he replied that it's an interesting question and that he'll look into it and get back to me, but he never did.

  11. #10

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    I float when I play as well, been playing like that for a while. George Van Eps played like that too, so does Howard Alden. In terms of muting, I just let the thumb side of my palm grace the strings if stuff gets way too sympathetic and overtone ridden.

    I don't use as much of an exaggerated angle at the wrist, so my picking hand doesn't float as high.

    By the way, your wrist shouldn't hurt with gypsy picking, your fore arm should hurt. Use gravity and larger muscle groups to play through the string. Howard was trying to teach me how to use gravity with the pick stroke and I'm still working on it.

    Floating is hard, but keep at it. I like how it allows me to access everything through the same technique. Now, I am working on building up speed with accents.

  12. #11

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    I always like sticking my fingers out to keep them outta the way when I palm mute. You can get a nice light mute on all 6 strings that way. But when I float at the neck I curl them up cuz you like them rubbing on the strings to help you balance.

  13. #12

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    If you really want to improve your picking technique, grab a copy of this book. I don't care if you're not interested in bluegrass, it's about right hand technique and you can apply it to any genre. Follow exactly as he says .
    Speed Accuracy, & Tone - Learn all of Brad Davis's trade secrets for h – Brad Davis Music Store

  14. #13

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    the fretting hand can also do a lot of muting, ecpecially if you use a more traditional hand posture that is not that parallel to the strings. You can than use the thumb and the fingers that actually fret the played strings to mute adjacent ones

  15. #14

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    Quote Originally Posted by Alter
    the fretting hand can also do a lot of muting, ecpecially if you use a more traditional hand posture that is not that parallel to the strings. You can than use the thumb and the fingers that actually fret the played strings to mute adjacent ones
    That's exactly what I do, due to the inability to rotate my picking arm, I cannot palm mute at all, so I play more with the pads fretting notes and use my finger tips to damp strings.

  16. #15

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    Quote Originally Posted by whiskey02
    If you really want to improve your picking technique, grab a copy of this book. I don't care if you're not interested in bluegrass, it's about right hand technique and you can apply it to any genre. Follow exactly as he says .
    Speed Accuracy, & Tone - Learn all of Brad Davis's trade secrets for h – Brad Davis Music Store
    He's the "Down-Down-Up" guy, right? I've heard of that but haven't worked on it.

    What has your experience been?

  17. #16

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    Sorry for the late reply Mark,
    My experience is that I just discovered Brad about a month ago, around the same time I'd decided I needed to tighten up my picking technique. I bought this book and started working with it. There is a wealth of detailed info within, and how it is graduated just makes sense. I love picking apart the minutia of complex yet very subtle details and refining them, and that's just what this book presents. The book will take over six months to finish, and then it is suggested you start again at the beginning and repeat; always working on the fundamentals, just 10 minutes a day of specifically performed exercises.

  18. #17

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    I can totally relate to your experience and have been or are in a similar situation. I absolutely love the sound and energy that gypsy picking creates. And yes - man did it feel alien at first! I have practiced it every day now for more than three years and finally feel that I pass the point where I was before. I‘ve been to a number of GJ workshops (with Joscho) and the good players pretty much all say the same - it took them years and in between they were worse on guitar than before.

    Specific difficulties that I faced were a lack of consistency, in particular on the ‚bounce‘ strokes, timing inaccuracies from the odd mechanics, ringing open strings from a lack of right hand damping, difficulties to play simple things that are readily picked alternate (e.g. a simple major scale with consistent timing and articulation) and a tendency to get stiff in the hand at higher tempos or with nervousness which led to a complete breakdown. Eventually slow practice with a metronome addressed most of these issues.

    I still think that it is advantageous to have more than one technique handy. For example it is really hard to play GJ picking in rock guitar with gain (yet ... Marty Friedman ...). The great pickers also divert from any picking dogma if the situation calls for it. Very apparent with Birelli, but also with others. E.g. gypsy going up and alternate going down can be quite good, depending on the sound one wants. Some arpeggios will only sound ‚right‘ the GJ way of course.

  19. #18

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    Sometimes GJ community tend to judge a player by how proper they mastered GJ technique. That's kind of 'unique', I can't think of any other genre where you're only considered worthy if you stick to exact rules of how you play, rather than what you play.

    I do agree that for acoustic instrument GJ is very very efficient method. But still not the ultimate one.

    Aa far as electric, I'm currently on Ernest Ranglin kick, and GJ way is out of the question or any floating either, because percussive right hand muting is such a big part of the style! I love it, it brings out so much more dynamics and textures, I highly recommend to check the guy out, the percussiveness of sound can add a lot to your palette.