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Hey everyone. I'm primarily a fingerstyle player but after long hours of practice my right hand feels like its getting run over by a truck from doing lots of fast rest strokes. So to prevent things from escalating further I might as well incorporate a completedly different way of playing hence the pick. I feel confident enough in my fingerstyle abilities to branch out anyways so getting a handle on the pick would be a good thing for me. I'm a noob at picking though so when I try to speed up I end up not being consistent in the rhythm. Does anyone have any recommendations on how to get started with the pick?
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01-10-2024 07:35 AM
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Are you playing on nylon strings? Then I'd suggest a good damping technique with the left hand so as to let your right hand float free.
When you're only getting startet, you have a good chance to develop a sound technique, not the mess that many players are stuck with because they never learned it properly and now it's too late.
On a nylon string guitar, you'll get the best sound with rest strokes so why not learn Gypsy picking? There are plenty of tutorials, but the gist is:
- use downstrokes whenever you can, particularly when you change strings,
- let your pick rest on the next lower string after a downstroke,
- use the upstroke as a rebound.
As always, you'll have to start slowly and pay attention to the movements. It may be a good idea to make quick movements (i.e. strokes), but not play too fast. Dotted eighth notes are a good way to start. Play a scale in even eights, then dotted eights followed by a sixteenth, then the other way round - a sixteenth followed by a dotted eight. Then move on to even sixteenths. Use a metronome to increase your speed.
Now I wish I had heeded my own advice way back when...
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Thanks for the advice! Yes I play nylon. I love the sound of gypsy rest stroke and I think it can sound great on a classical guitar.
Originally Posted by docsteve
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This is a huge topic! But I recommend checking out some of Troy Grady's videos on youtube. While it's true that he is more of a rock-orientated person, as far as I know he is one of the most knowledgeable people out there about using a pick. Indeed, his knowledge and observations and his coining of terms such as downstroke-escape, upstroke-escape etc. to describe how players use a pick (and this applies to everyone, regardless of genre) were seminal. The only thing I would say is that I wouldn't rely solely on his stuff, you'd probably need a technically-minded teacher to guide you, as well.
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I’ve gone the opposite way…I haven’t played w a pick in months, and even then would only pick it up for fun or when I did a lil mini tour rock thing as a sub.
at first it was an adjustment but now I don’t lack any of the speed I had before. Legato + free strokes. No rest strokes.
no idea how the flamenco guys do those blazing runs w rest strokes, crazy impressive. Fortunately for jazz taking some of the percussiveness w more legato gets you in the ballpark.
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I've gone the opposite way in a different way; if you made a list of the official best practices common wisdom concensus recommendations etc. for how to use a pick, you'd immediately notice I flagrantly violate every one of them. I should stay out of this thread...
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I know it's counterintuitive but rest strokes can be faster than free strokes because you don't have to worry about stopping your stroking motion - it is stopped by the string. Gypsy jazzers are insanely fast, too, with rest strokes. Pat Martino uses them as well AFAIK. But you are right about the legato - someone posted a video here of a blazing fast picker who used distortion (Larry Coryell?), and he sounded like a machine gun. Originally Posted by spencer096
A teacher once showed me that Flamwnco guitarists play the fast picado lines close to the bridge, where string resistance is higher, and move their arm up and down as the fingers move across the strings. Thereby they maintain a consistent angle.
I'm not saying I can do it, but it sure works.
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There’s a few schools of pick technique out there, so advice can appear contradictory. Here are some I know of
1) rest stroke picking
2) benson picking (similar but different grip)
3) pure alternate picking
4) directional/economy picking
All are different and have their own strengths and challenges. I can recommend and advise on 1) myself, but it’s good to choose one approach and stick with it for a while.
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Yes, rest strokes can help you relax and thus can help you increase speed. Originally Posted by docsteve
As far as I'm aware though, Pat Martino was a double-escape player, which means he wouldn't have used a rest stroke.
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I agree with Christian's idea to pick an approach and stick with it. Originally Posted by Christian Miller
I think economy pickers like Jimmy Bruno, Chuck Wayne and Chico Pinheiro have some advantages in executing fast lines.
Warren Nunes' style of alternate picking with pull-offs (with a unique pick) can result in a jackhammer like attack which he made sound great.
Notably, Pat Metheny has said that he has an idiosyncratic and suboptimal approach to picking. Everybody loves Charlie Christian and he played all downstrokes. Tuck Andress has published a very deep dive into his picking approach, iirc.
But, there are many approaches. I'm not sure that any one of them can work for any player. There may be some physiology involved, but I don't really know.
If I had to give advice on where to start, I'd suggest economy picking. It's less complicated and it works great in the right hands. A teacher who has really thought through the details would be helpful.
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I see. I'm guessing the 'ideal' picker would be one who uses different ways of picking to play certain kinds of lines? Playing to each of their strengths... of course one would have to get real good at one way of picking before considering adopting another kind
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Indeed. I primarily use alternate picking, but am not averse to using sweeps for fast arpeggios. Each approach has its potential pitfalls or problems which have to be worked on. Originally Posted by jazznylon
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I think Christian's list of different types is great, and the key to picking one is 1. What comes most easily to you and 2. What sound you like best. A Benson guy won't sound like gambale and vice versa. I tried hard to be a pure alternate picker but eventually realized that economy picking is easier for me and embraced it.
I don't know that it's feasible to try to master all these different styles and then organically switch between them depending on the line. The masters all seem to have one style that they stick with. The point of technique is just to enable you to express what you hear, and it seems that most pros are able to do that with one picking style.
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There’s different sub schools as well. Not everyone uses the same mechanic to achieve alternate picking for example.
Alt picking is the hardest to make work at speed, it’s very easy to do it in an inefficient way that doesn’t speed up well. The trade off is it’s the most naturally ‘in the pocket.’
a lot of people used ‘mixed model’ - for example, alternate with economy. However, I would still recommend sticking with an approach for a while. Maybe a year or two.
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Do what Bill does.
His little finger anchors his hand on the scratchplate. His hand hovers over the strings. The pick is at a right angle to the strings. He plays mostly downstrokes. His can use his free fingers as well.
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Lightning fast is not the first thing that comes to mind when thinking of Bill Frisell, though… Originally Posted by Litterick
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I think the thing about economy picking is that is requires the player be very good at alternate picking as well as obviously sweeps. This is because, aside from things like one-note-per-string stuff or three-note-per-string scales where all the string changes can be swept, most lines (depending how you finger them) will include at least some string changes that can't be swept which means they require all the pick-slanting know-how that alternate picking does. I recall Pasquale Grasso advising on one of his my-music-masterclass videos that when practising scales to change the picking so as to swap around where the sweeps are.
I'm quite deep in alternate picking land at the moment, though I do practice sweeping/economy picking for about 15 minutes a day. I can see how economy picking generally speaking might sound smoother at very high tempi...
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Yeah economy picking isn't about minimizing pickstrokes as some proponents advertise, it's really a system for navigating string changes. I think the advantage is that while you do need to alternate pick certain string changes, you don't ever need to use a double escape motion. Originally Posted by James W
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Good point. Originally Posted by BreckerFan
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Depends on ones definition of ‘very good at alternate picking’ Originally Posted by James W
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To return to the OP:
To begin to remedy the problem you have of inconsistent rhythm, I would advise using a metronome, playing one note on one string but practice switching between different rhythms e.g. 16ths and sextuplets, or play six 16th notes then four 32nd notes etc. try writing down some rhythms that take your fancy and just concentrating on them, using alternate picking, one note, one string. While you should maintain the downstrokes on downbeats and upstrokes on upbeats, if you write any odd rhythm like a triplet you'll notice you will depart from that... Originally Posted by jazznylon
Also a big thing for getting together my plectrum technique has been to practice funk strumming licks based around 16th note rhythms. It's been doing this which has made me realise that, at least for me, most of the place where the technique is located is in how I grip the pick, the difficulty has been in doing the funk strumming and getting an optimum amount of grip/pressure on the pick without dropping it or allowing it to rotate between my fingers. I'd assumed a while back was that the difficulty lay in moving one's wrist/forearm quickly, and while this does require a certain athleticism, it hasn't been the main area of difficulty. I should add that I use a rigid, fairly thick plectrum which while definitely more difficult to use to begin with, does offer more control, if you persevere with it...
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Beware the popular sites that describe picking techniques. I have yet to find one that is coherent; the authors seem to have either a vitamin deficiency (the one that builds strong geometric spatial visualization) or they missed the day in class devoted to the use of prepositions. This is much worse than the old vertical vs horizontal playing being up and down the finger board or across it, thing.
This shows up in the writing about economy picking with regard to "inside" and "outside" picking. They assume it must be clear that the region between adjacent strings is inside and compliment outside, without noticing that a movement like a pick stroke has an origin and a destination. Which serves as reference for in and out? Does "inside picking" mean picking from inside between the strings (inside out) or toward the inside of the strings (outside in)? ... the beginning or the end of the stroke?
I've always thought the former but found multiple places declaring that economy picking is always "inside" defined as from the outside in toward the inside, so suddenly I'm no longer an economy picker. I'm a reverse or outside economy picker without a category.
Then I looked at how I pick very carefully, it's completely different moving up and down in pitch.
ascending uses three variations depending on speed
slow - mostly down
med - "economy" (outside)
fast - "economy" (outside)+legato
descending is always strictly alternate, all speeds
slow alternate
med alternate
fast alternate+legato
Last night I practiced three sets using no pick at all just for spite.
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