-
Originally Posted by sgcim
Listening to PG record himself using alt. picking was a revelation. He was actually making clear musical statements that swung, because he was accenting the upbeats on his distinct phrases.
Does that make my "conclusion" seem less "odd" "lol"...
I mean, I know what you mean, I'm not trying to be obtuse, and you've highlighted the thing I find a bit lacking in CW style players like PG. Alternate picking could well be a mechanical way of achieving a more articulated sound but I don't think it's the reason as much as the means if that makes any sense.
For instance, it's not how Adam Rogers appears to do it and he is one of my favourites in terms of articulation.
OTOH you can alternate pick and have completely shit time and no swing. That said, I do think strict alternate picking can allow players access to a deeper pocket. Personally I find myself gravitating to it more.
Of course there are alt. pickers who are "musically marginal", why do you think I opened my post with the fact that Pat Martino spent 36 straight hours practicing?
A friend of my father's lived above Johnny Smith in the Bronx. JS terrorized the guy's poor family by practicing ALL DAY AND NIGHT, every day.
We have no idea how Tal picked in the 50s, because there are NO films of his playing during that period.
If you came off your high horse and actually read my post, you'd know that Tal's playing after the 50's was seriously flawed due to a neurological disorder. To assess his playing on the basis of that pitiful trio with Lennie Breau is simply wrong.
If you listen to Tal's best playing of the 50s, almost every note is clearly plucked, with obvious slurs thrown in.
Raney made that tape of him trying to imitate Bird's phrasing for pedagogical reasons. When I saw him live for four hours straight, the vast majority of his picking was alt. with those swinging accents on the upbeats. I spoke to him and asked him how he picked, and he demonstrated his alt. picking technique for me.
Of course, he does use slurs to great advantage, but he in no way used the Chuck Wayne method that PG used. In fact, his opinion of CW was not all that high.
No one can use alt. picking exclusively, due to the nature of the instrument (arps etc...), but as Reg has said about his picking method here many times, Farlow and Raney also used it as their default picking method. Others do not.
OTOH players such as Joe Pass, Wes, George Benson and probably Charlie Christian (and obviously Django) employ variants of what we may call gypsy or rest stroke picking, varying with pick grip and well - whether there is in fact a pick - but all sharing the same basic non-alternate 'across the string' mechanics. I'd have to check but I think Johnny Smith also advocated for this approach IIRC.
The effect of these techniques is that every note is picked and STRONGLY articulated, but the pick does not always go up and down like alternate picking. There are a few hallmarks of this approach, one is a propensity to play ascending as opposed to descending arpeggios* and to favour even combinations of notes per strings descending (or three notes with pull offs), which makes it quite well suited to bebop language in fact. This kind of picking tends to sound quite springy and bouncy and articulated, not like CW style economy picking at all.
It is also quite a lot easier to do than pure alternate picking especially as the metronome creeps up. However the flip side is that I’ve certainly found the across the string stuff (arps etc) can rush if you’re not careful, compared to alt picking.
(It's also the way I play, but don't let that put you off haha.)
This is what I see Tal doing in the videos I’ve seen - in the case of Tal's playing in his heyday, the best way to know is to transcribe his lines and see how well they fit this kind of technique, but listening, it sounds like that's the way he's playing to me and it certainly doesn't sound like alt picking to my ears. Without clinching evidence that he did alter his technique later in life, it seems a reasonable assumption that he stuck with the same approach.
I have a theory that many players who think they alt pick or have practiced alt picking at moderate tempos kind of fall into this regime for fast playing if their pick stance facilitates it, which is to say one can play this way without realising it. (That's another conversation.)
*Jimmy Raney was clearly not a rest stroke picker for this reason... He seems to have a mixed approach.Last edited by Christian Miller; 02-14-2023 at 06:27 AM.
-
02-14-2023 04:37 AM
-
Originally Posted by Christian Miller
-
Originally Posted by MikkoKarhula
He is the author of brilliant educational videos and wonderful books.
I have been practicing his melodic lines for over 30 years and trying to get to know his way of thinking musically.
I know I will never play like Pat Martino but I also know that I learned a lot from him.
-
Also I think with CW economy picking much of the sound comes from how the stroke is made as much as what strokes are being used; which is playing from the finger joints. Articulation from the wrist and arm results in more ‘snap’
However from my own experience I’ve found that using hybrid picking (as PG does) forces me away from using wrist articulation because it puts me out of position for using my fingers - so you almost inevitably gravitate towards more finger articulation.
Mind you I always think Kenny Burrell’s ‘circle picking’ sounds great. Not many people talk about Kenny in these discussions but he had mega chops on those old recordings.
-
Originally Posted by Alter
-
Originally Posted by Christian Miller
Both Farlow and Smith came for The South, and country music had a strong influence on their picking, To make things even more complicated, Smith was a child prodigy bluegrass violinist, and used to win several State championships for virtuoso violin playing.
This governed his approach to picking he said, with a link between down and up bows being related to down and up picking.
To stretch out Smith's influence on the subject of this post, Johnny Smith was a strong influence on Pat Martino's playing from a young age, because his father would always take him to see him play live. Martino always used to acknowledge Smith's influence on his technique.
Farlow was also into bluegrass, and one knowledgeable guitarist called Farlow's playing "Hillbilly Jazz", because he picked every note, like the country players did, and even used some pentatonic Major licks in his solos.
The friend of mine who's written an unpublished book on Farlow, studied with him for a long time, and said that Tal didn't have a systematic way of picking, but it definitely wasn't the CW way.
As you (or someone else) so astutely pointed out in this thread, Joe Pass did not play rhythmically in the bop style that Farlow and Raney (and Wes) played in, and my theory is that that was the result of the Gypsy, rest stroke picking that he used. In Jimmy Raney's words, "He (Pass) sounds like Charlie Parker,all straightened out".
I say this because when he used his thumb to play, he didn't have pre-bop rhythmic feel to his playing.
-
Originally Posted by sgcim
The problem of flat picking is obviously that you have to do string crossing all the time, more so than you would in bop guitar… but that is the primary problem on guitar that we are all trying to solve. Playing on one string is fine haha. Alternate picking complicates the problem in the name of coupling the picking hand to the beat in the same way as strumming. Directional picking styles obviously optimises the motions at the expense of coupling the pick hand to the beat. Choose your poison!
While that alternating/beat coupling seems to help groove for guitar players, some people - Adam Rogers and George Benson spring to mind - apparently don’t need that physical connection.
Im not sure if I buy that theory re: Pass and ‘gypsy picking.’ Otoh I’m not sure if I don’t buy it, either.
As an aside… My theory is that this was the default way to play acoustic guitar because you needed to dig in and rest stroke picking is LOUD. Rest stroke technique was also afaik taught on mandolin and plectrum banjo. I believe the latter is where Django was meant to have learned it (but as with most things Django it’s hard to separate hearsay from fact.) I’ve heard rest stroke picking referred to as classical mandolin technique, and it’s also the way the Cuban tres is played. It appears to have been invented in several cultures independently (including India and the Arab world) which leads me to believe it’s quite a natural thing that arises from playing acoustic string instruments. For this reason I really don’t like calling it gypsy picking which implies it’s specific to that music.
Nb alternate picking appears to be how lutenists played in the Middle Ages and I’m sure there’s other examples, so I think it’s also quite an ancient technique for string instruments.
One reason hesitate to accept your theory fully… Wes actually used something very similar to rest stroke picking without a pick. There’s a great video somewhere shot over the shoulder and you get a really good look at his right hand. He is clearly playing rest strokes into the guitar and crossing the strings via raking in the exact same way as one would expect of a rest stroke picker albeit without an actual pick.…Second - As mentioned before GB plays with the same string crossing mechanic but with a different pick stance. This carries over into his thumb playing.
-
Here around 8m Johnny Smith discusses gliss picking and his approach to cross picking arpeggios btw
Great interview that goes into a lot of depth re: technique. It’s clear he’s experimented with a lot of ways of doing things.
interestingly his preferred right hand stance (discussed around 14m) appears to be similar to a rest stroke pickers (‘downward pick slant’) even though he alternates except when playing the aforementioned arpeggios. In this he is not unlike Mike Stern. I also think he maybe playing rest stokes on the downstrokes
(If you want to know what the opposite looks like, Peter Bernstein would be a good example.)
-
Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
-
Originally Posted by charlieparker
-
Originally Posted by Christian Miller
That fact, coupled with Jimmy Raney's biting comment that JP sounded like Charlie Parker all straightened out, and other comments on this subject by jazz musicians on other forums and that I know, means it's an accepted fact.
It can't be simply a matter of him not alternate picking, because Johnny Smith looked even worse when followed by solos by Hank Jones.
But it also can't be a question of the difficulty of the instrument, because Raney was not as technically accomplished as JP, yet Barry Harris made the comment that Raney "sounded closer to 'Yard'" than any other guitarist he ever heard, on the liner notes to Raney Live in Tokyo, where he both listened to and played with JR. And Pass still sounded the same no matter what tempo he played at.
One thing I noticed comparing the ideas of Pass to other guitarists like Wes, Raney, Farlow and Martino, was that Pass played more bop cliches and less interesting ideas than the other four. So that is probably part of it.
But there's still the rhythmic aspect of JP's playing that seems to be stuck in the middle of the bop and swing periods. He made a record, "I Remember Charlie Parker", so it's not like he didn't want to sound more bop-oriented than he did.
And then there's the matter of the fact that he did sound less swing oriented on the Carmen McRae album "The Great American Songbook" where he mainly used his thumb.
So that could either mean that he got carried away when he used his pick (he almost completely abandoned it later), or that he was using a plectrum method (Gypsy picking- he wasn't kidding when he made the album "For Django") that was rooted in the Swing rhythmic period.
I still stand with the latter.
-
Originally Posted by sgcim
Your point that this is general quality of JP’s playing is a separate thing.
That fact, coupled with Jimmy Raney's biting comment that JP sounded like Charlie Parker all straightened out, and other comments on this subject by jazz musicians on other forums and that I know, means it's an accepted fact.
It can't be simply a matter of him not alternate picking, because Johnny Smith looked even worse when followed by solos by Hank Jones.
But it also can't be a question of the difficulty of the instrument, because Raney was not as technically accomplished as JP, yet Barry Harris made the comment that Raney "sounded closer to 'Yard'" than any other guitarist he ever heard, on the liner notes to Raney Live in Tokyo, where he both listened to and played with JR. And Pass still sounded the same no matter what tempo he played at.
One thing I noticed comparing the ideas of Pass to other guitarists like Wes, Raney, Farlow and Martino, was that Pass played more bop cliches and less interesting ideas than the other four. So that is probably part of it.
But there's still the rhythmic aspect of JP's playing that seems to be stuck in the middle of the bop and swing periods. He made a record, "I Remember Charlie Parker", so it's not like he didn't want to sound more bop-oriented than he did.
And then there's the matter of the fact that he did sound less swing oriented on the Carmen McRae album "The Great American Songbook" where he mainly used his thumb.
So that could either mean that he got carried away when he used his pick (he almost completely abandoned it later), or that he was using a plectrum method (Gypsy picking- he wasn't kidding when he made the album "For Django") that was rooted in the Swing rhythmic period.
I still stand with the latter.
I think you have to musical about the way you pick. I like JR for this mentality. It’s entirely possible to over think the whole thing.Last edited by Christian Miller; 02-15-2023 at 04:32 AM.
-
Btw I think Django shouldn’t necessarily be written off as rhythmically unadventurous even though his phrasing is very swing era. For example, there’s this odd grouping ‘falling up the stairs’ line he plays on Sweet Sue which reminds me of the sort of thing that JR would later make his stock in trade. (0:55) The tempo is about 260 so about the same as the Oscar/Joe example which lends support to what you (and JR) are saying about JP’s phrasing.
It’s easy to stereotype Django’s playing especially as later Manouche players sort of revert to a tidied up or stylised version of what Django did.Last edited by Christian Miller; 02-15-2023 at 04:44 AM.
-
Originally Posted by sgcim
But playing more "square" rhythmically is not why I'm not a big Pass fan, there's something else about his playing that seems square for my tastes. I know that won't offend JP fans on this forum because most of you know better than to give 2 hoots what I think !
-
-
Pass is without a doubt one of the greatest to ever pick up the instrument.
I almost never listen to him.
Raney (elder and younger), at least once a week. Something about those Raney's.
-
Innit
-
Originally Posted by David B
-
Since trying to learn Gypsy picking, my right hand technique has improved immensely. Of course, I cannot play like Stochelo Rosenberg, who, to me is the prime example of Gypsy, picking:
Starting at approx. 1:04, this is some of the most soulful and expressive fast playing I have seen. This video gives a fantastic view of his picking hand. Notice the double down strokes when going from higher pitch strings to lower. I still don't know how he does it!
-
Originally Posted by Christian Miller
-
any discussion about speed is incomplete without mentioning Scotty Anderson
-
Originally Posted by armando
Henriksen Blu 6 w/ gig bag
Today, 03:29 PM in For Sale