Anyone not use rest strokes?

[pauln]

Just wondering. I used to not know what rest strokes were. Later, I learned what they were and noted to myself I don't use them, never have. More recently I mentioned around here that I don't use rest strokes and was questioned (politely lightly challenged), but some self examination confirmed I absolutely do not use rest strokes whatsoever... apparently this is highly unusual, especially in Jazz? Am I alone? Do some use rest strokes, but maybe not all the time?

[pamosmusic]

Just wondering. I used to not know what rest strokes were. Later, I learned what they were and noted to myself I don't use them, never have. More recently I mentioned around here that I don't use rest strokes and was questioned (politely lightly challenged), but some self examination confirmed I absolutely do not use rest strokes whatsoever... apparently this is highly unusual, especially in Jazz? Am I alone? Do some use rest strokes, but maybe not all the time?

Nope. I don’t all that often.

I certainly use them from time to time, but it’s kind of an effect. Like when I play a group of swing quarter notes and I want them to jump. Or strumming a chord and I want the top note to be super clear. Just playing lines, not so much.

[fep]

One can get by without rest strokes.

[pauln]

One can get by without rest strokes.

That is interesting; those motions of her pick look and feel very familiar and natural to me.
However, compared to her hand mine is motionless; my thumb and index moving the pick.

[Cunamara]

I am not aware of ever using rest strokes when I play with a pick. I've made the attempt to learn to use them, but find it an awkward movement that provides me with no expressive benefit. So I gave up, there are useful things to learn. Perhaps it's my hand position over the last two or three frets or the way I hold the pick with only a couple of millimeters of tip exposed that makes them unhelpful (I consider a Jazz III to be a "large" pick and think that the majority of guitar picks are far too large to be useful).

I have noticed that I do rarely use rest strokes when playing finger style with a vaguely classical technique.

[Jonah]

I do.
For me it is just one of the way of articulation. (So definitely not all the time)

I also think that for students/beginners practicing rest strokes (both with a pick or in fingerstyle) developes better feel and connection with the strings and instrument.

I ususally suggest that they put a pick on a string and push the string downwards and a bit toward the top, and just bounce this way on it a little to feel the resistence of the string. And then release it but in a very relaxed way as if the pick/picking hand just falls down and lands on the next string.
The important thing is to achieve it with a good tone and good immidiate attack.
Eventually it developes very strong picking control so that they can play without the rest stroke but with the same power, constrol, depth of tone.

Basically it is very similar to classical guitar (or lute) thumb rest stroke.

[James W]

One can get by without rest strokes.

Coincidence, yesterday I was checking out some of her videos with Troy Grady. One of the reasons it's hard (for me) to play double-escape like Molly Tuttle is that you can't check the motion with a rest stroke.

I use rest strokes, but not generally when I improvise - which might be a problem. But they're great things, rest strokes, I certainly remember how my right-hand improved when I became wise to them.

[Christian Miller]

Notice how Molly changes picking stance between strumming and flat picking

compare to Tony Rice

tony as I understand it was a rest stroke picker. It looks that way from the position of his right hand. However, compared to Manouche jazz players for instance there’s a lot of mobility in his fingers, suggesting a more flexible approach. (I use this myself or at least try to.)

not saying one is wrong and one is right - they are manifestly both right. It’s just interesting, divergent solutions for playing similar music.

I have found one of the most important things to work on as an acoustic guitarist is the balance between strumming and single note articulation. I think rest stroke picking helps with that.

I made a video with what I thought was a different perspective from what I’d heard.

the idea is that strumming is the most natural way to play the guitar both mechanically and in terms of rhythmic coupling to the meter, but when we play single notes we are forced to compromise one of these for any picking approach.

Molly compromises the mechanical side (by modifying her pick stance and alternate picking) while Tony compromises the rhythmic coupling (by adopting for instance double down up for crosspicking* - iirc - please correct me if I’m wrong). In terms of the latter the accentuation can be helpful for the feel, but ime you have to be very careful not to become decoupled from the metre - in general you have to work hard to tame mechanically simple picking (like rest stroke or economy), while strict alt picking is ‘locked in’ but harder to achieve mechanically - Troy has uncovered a number of different strategies.

Tony was obviously a master of rhythm as is Molly, but the two approaches represent different challenges, at least for us mortals.

*Lage Lund and I think Chico Pinheiro and Jonathan Kreisberg also crosspick in this way.

[James W]

Molly compromises the mechanical side (by modifying her pick stance and alternate picking) while Tony compromises the rhythmic coupling (by adopting for instance double down up for crosspicking - iirc). In terms of the latter the accentuation can be helpful for the feel, but ime you have to be very careful not to become decoupled from the metre - in general you have to work hard to tame mechanically simple picking (like rest stroke or economy), while alt picking is ‘locked in’ but harder to achieve mechanically.

Tony was obviously a master of rhythm as is Molly, but the two approaches represent different challenges, at least for us mortals.

Indeed. I think once you've 'unlocked' so to speak a double-escape motion, that is the hard part done to some extent, while with rest-stroke picking the hard part isn't so much the motion, but rather being able to improvise within that particular motion/mechanic.

[Christian Miller]

Indeed. I think once you've 'unlocked' so to speak a double-escape motion, that is the hard part done to some extent, while with rest-stroke picking the hard part isn't so much the motion, but rather being able to improvise within that particular motion/mechanic.

Bear in mind that Adam Rogers said ‘if you can play it fast you’ve played it before’

i think trying to improvise freely and fast is perhaps unrealistic. I don’t think anyone can do this. What you can do is combine small modules together into long lines and chunk them together.

I’ve never felt held back by my pick technique when improvising. When I’ve felt it most is playing other people’s music.

[pamosmusic]

I use rest strokes, but not generally when I improvise - which might be a problem

When I was studying classical guitar there was a move away from rest stroke. The consensus with some more modern players was that the sound of a rest stroke could be pretty closely approximated with a free stroke without the loss of dexterity you end up with by playing rest stroke.

Two caveats: 1. It’s not a fringe opinion, but still kind of a minority opinion at this point, I think. And 2. there are technical benefits to a pick rest stroke (all the benson picking stuff) that don’t really have an analog in classical guitar.

Anyway … maybe that was apropos of nothing, but it is interesting the way attitudes about these things are so cyclical. Always other ways make the music happen, I guess.

[pamosmusic]

Notice how Molly changes picking stance between strumming and flat picking

compare to Tony Rice

tony as I understand it was a rest stroke picker. It looks that way from the position of his right hand. However, compared to Manouche jazz players for instance there’s a lot of mobility in his fingers, suggesting a more flexible approach. (I use this myself or at least try to.)

not saying one is wrong and one is right - they are manifestly both right. It’s just interesting, divergent solutions for playing similar music.

I have found one of the most important things to work on as an acoustic guitarist is the balance between strumming and single note articulation. I think rest stroke picking helps with that.

I made a video with what I thought was a different perspective from what I’d heard.

the idea is that strumming is the most natural way to play the guitar both mechanically and in terms of rhythmic coupling to the meter, but when we play single notes we are forced to compromise one of these for any picking approach.

Molly compromises the mechanical side (by modifying her pick stance and alternate picking) while Tony compromises the rhythmic coupling (by adopting for instance double down up for crosspicking* - iirc - please correct me if I’m wrong). In terms of the latter the accentuation can be helpful for the feel, but ime you have to be very careful not to become decoupled from the metre - in general you have to work hard to tame mechanically simple picking (like rest stroke or economy), while strict alt picking is ‘locked in’ but harder to achieve mechanically - Troy has uncovered a number of different strategies.

Tony was obviously a master of rhythm as is Molly, but the two approaches represent different challenges, at least for us mortals.

*Lage Lund and I think Chico Pinheiro and Jonathan Kreisberg also crosspick in this way.

Yeah I’ve been yammering on about this a lot elsewhere, but I’ve been really interested in weird picking stuff.

I’m an “alternate picker” I guess, by which I mean I don’t do a ton of economy picking, but I also slur a lot, which I’ve realized means I skip strokes a lot (down-slur-down, for example). I’m not quite sure it’s that I’m keeping the picking rhythmic like you would with strumming (down on downbeats, etc), but it’s kind of a weird thing. I guess it stuck me as odd that I’d practice scales alternating strictly when I’ve worked really hard on a left hand that makes that unnecessary or even undesirable, so I’ve been trying to think of ways to practice the way I play.

Lately I’ve been working with snare drum stuff and changing the R L for down-up. It’s a serious brain scramble and slow going but kind of fun.

Our instrument is crazy.

[spencer096]

im all free strokes, fingers or pick.

[pauln]

That Tony Rice video is interesting, too. His thumb really wiggles around.
I hold the pick with my thumb tip and it also wiggles around (but that is
why my hand position stays almost motionless).

[Christian Miller]

That Tony Rice video is interesting, too. His thumb really wiggles around.
I hold the pick with my thumb tip and it also wiggles around (but that is
why my hand position stays almost motionless).

you can change the pick angle by using the fingers and thumb which is necessary I find for descending cross picking. My technique was really having trouble with descending triads until I started working on this. So you can overcome a pitfall of rest stroke style. You can probably also develop pure alternate picking this way.

[Christian Miller]

When I was studying classical guitar there was a move away from rest stroke. The consensus with some more modern players was that the sound of a rest stroke could be pretty closely approximated with a free stroke without the loss of dexterity you end up with by playing rest stroke.

Two caveats: 1. It’s not a fringe opinion, but still kind of a minority opinion at this point, I think. And 2. there are technical benefits to a pick rest stroke (all the benson picking stuff) that don’t really have an analog in classical guitar.

Anyway … maybe that was apropos of nothing, but it is interesting the way attitudes about these things are so cyclical. Always other ways make the music happen, I guess.

when I started beginner classical guitar I was taught free stroke only. Which is kind of at variance to most methods I’ve seen. So I never developed rest stroke early on. I find it quite hard to do with any agility, my free stroke is OK (but not great.)

[mr. beaumont]

I honestly wasn't sure, so I watched some videos of myself on YouTube. Apparently, I do, occasionally, when playing slower, bluesy stuff in particular. At least it looked like I was. Or maybe I just pick hard and it looked like the pick was coming all the way through to rest on the next string. But not very often.

I imagine a little bit of it found it's way into my playing when I was trying to do the whole "gypsy jazz" thing about 10 years ago.

[Glin66]

I use rest stroke when ever I need a note to be louder and/or fuller than what I would get with a fee stroke, usually in a particularly romantic/schmaltzy/expressive piece of music.

Usually if I have a melodic line that really needs to stand out over the accompaniment, then I will use rest stroke.

[CliffR]

I don't use rest stroke. In fact, I devoted quite a lot of time to economy of motion in my pick movements. I also aim to pick softly and with a minimal amount of pick peaking out between thumb and finger. Not that my approach counts for very much of anything .

These bluegrass videos remind me of my old friend Chris Moreton, a consulate flatpicker:

[James W]

Bear in mind that Adam Rogers said ‘if you can play it fast you’ve played it before’

i think trying to improvise freely and fast is perhaps unrealistic. I don’t think anyone can do this. What you can do is combine small modules together into long lines and chunk them together.

I’ve never felt held back by my pick technique when improvising. When I’ve felt it most is playing other people’s music.

Yeah, I think it's good to be as flexible as possible with one's technique so that this filters through to one's improvising. I know that even with a double-escape technique you still have to practice ideas/patterns etc. but it does seem to be the more flexible kind of mechanic. A little while ago I decided to add a few patterns from Guthrie Govan's book Advanced Techniques into my practice schedule - of course, there is no mention of rest strokes or pick slanting in this book but given what we know about technique now, many of the ideas presented in the alternate picking chapter would have to be played with a double-escape motion. When I had a few lessons with Joel Bell a few years ago and I mentioned Guthrie's book he was a bit wary about it telling me that Guthrie is a virtuoso etc. etc. that may be so but it doesn't mean these things can't be worked on (but I credit Joel as being the person who first made me aware of Troy Grady's stuff). Likewise some of Jens Larsen's material for advancing one's picking technique presupposes a double-escape mechanic. So I like to practice all kinds of material from lines that are specifically idiomatic for particular escape picking to ones that are mixed AKA double escape. Both approaches are worth working on.

[James W]

Yeah I’ve been yammering on about this a lot elsewhere, but I’ve been really interested in weird picking stuff.

I’m an “alternate picker” I guess, by which I mean I don’t do a ton of economy picking, but I also slur a lot, which I’ve realized means I skip strokes a lot (down-slur-down, for example). I’m not quite sure it’s that I’m keeping the picking rhythmic like you would with strumming (down on downbeats, etc), but it’s kind of a weird thing. I guess it stuck me as odd that I’d practice scales alternating strictly when I’ve worked really hard on a left hand that makes that unnecessary or even undesirable, so I’ve been trying to think of ways to practice the way I play.

Lately I’ve been working with snare drum stuff and changing the R L for down-up. It’s a serious brain scramble and slow going but kind of fun.

Our instrument is crazy.

All of this applies to me... and yes, the notion of diverging from the beat-stroke alignment i.e. playing an upstroke on the downbeat and vice versa, scrambles my brain also, but I'm going to have to get over that if I want to play some of these nice Cecil Alexander lines that are in his picking masterclass...

[pauln]

...and yes, the notion of diverging from the beat-stroke alignment i.e. playing an upstroke on the downbeat and vice versa, scrambles my brain also...

I'm the opposite; deliberately aligning to beat-stroke (just thinking about it) scrambles my brain. My up and down strokes are even in force, level, and intensity, unless I want to make strong/weak beats, which I do without regard to up/down. Everything I play as single notes may be started on either an up or down, doesn't matter - I never think about it, nor notes per string, nor how many notes in a phrase, etc.

In the beginning I gave each of my hands one rule. I told my left hand that my musical ideas will be directed to it alone and when determining a fingering solution its only rule is to use all four fingers, all styles, all positions, all tempos, no exceptions. I told my right hand that it's on it own to figure things out and its only rule is to do whatever is required to execute the left hand's fingering solution. This has worked well for me because it turns out the right hand's picking solution is basically just one attribute (string sequence) of the left hand fingering solution (string sequence, fret, finger, a few other things...) which means it is already done, integrated, instant, and natural.

I can't imagine "learning how to pick".

[pamosmusic]

All of this applies to me... and yes, the notion of diverging from the beat-stroke alignment i.e. playing an upstroke on the downbeat and vice versa, scrambles my brain also, but I'm going to have to get over that if I want to play some of these nice Cecil Alexander lines that are in his picking masterclass...

Actually I meant kind of the opposite!

Because of how much I use a left hand slur, I think it’s pretty natural for me to skip strokes. And I slur (i.e don’t pick) into lots of down beats, so those up and down strokes are kind of all over the place and I was trying to figure out some ways to work up some facility in that sort of weird asymmetrical picking.

what scrambled my brain was the picking patterns derived from the drum sticking (Miles Okazaki has done a lot of this).

So if you play a scale in eighth notes and might normally go down-up-down-up or up-down-up-down … try going d-d-u-u or d-u-u-p … my favorite so far has been the paradiddle … d-u-d-d u-d-u-u.

It’s kind of wild.

[pamosmusic]

Here’s a video I made for a friend who was like What the ever-loving **** are you talking about.

EDIT: I got a lot of these patterns from Stick Control for the Snare Drummer and the idea is not to shed the heck out of one idea but to go through a page of twenty or so and play each of them several times before moving onto the next. So is this pattern in and of itself helpful? Probably not. But the idea of starting at a slow tempo and working through several of these seems helpful for developing pick control more generally … we’ll see

[Christian Miller]

Yeah, I think it's good to be as flexible as possible with one's technique so that this filters through to one's improvising.

In my experience if it’s fast enough that you really have to get concerned with Troy Grady’s mechanics stuff, it’s likely to fast to be truly improvised. You should have a flexible and consistent technique up to medium-up (200-220 ish) 8th notes in my opinion but I don’t think the escape mechanics are so critical at these lower speeds. North of that improv becomes a bit more chunked and Modular; not licks necessarily but the technique can be handled/practiced differently.

I know that even with a double-escape technique you still have to practice ideas/patterns etc. but it does seem to be the more flexible kind of mechanic. A little while ago I decided to add a few patterns from Guthrie Govan's book Advanced Techniques into my practice schedule - of course, there is no mention of rest strokes or pick slanting in this book but given what we know about technique now, many of the ideas presented in the alternate picking chapter would have to be played with a double-escape motion. When I had a few lessons with Joel Bell a few years ago and I mentioned Guthrie's book he was a bit wary about it telling me that Guthrie is a virtuoso etc. etc. that may be so but it doesn't mean these things can't be worked on (but I credit Joel as being the person who first made me aware of Troy Grady's stuff).

Heh I know Joel although I haven’t seen him for ages. Never talked to him about technique really. I think his picking approach is quite different to mine iirc.

I too feel a little uncomfortable in the overlap between shred guitar and jazz guitar when it comes to discussions of technique because I think the requirements and challenges are different. Tbf Govan is a quite linear, jazzy shred player (as are a lot of the players he influenced like Plini) and can play the head Donna Lee well, but I would say a jazzer needs to work on evenness, clarity and timing much more than sheer speed. I think this generates slightly different requirements of technique.

it’s also easy to get hung up on the technicalities so it becomes a bit of a mental barrier.

Likewise some of Jens Larsen's material for advancing one's picking technique presupposes a double-escape mechanic. So I like to practice all kinds of material from lines that are specifically idiomatic for particular escape picking to ones that are mixed AKA double escape. Both approaches are worth working on.

I think the best picking exercises I’ve ever worked on are bop heads like Moose the Mooche. I’m not really an exercises and etudes guy myself though, I know many are.