George Benson / Pat Metheny style 2-5-1, using ghosting instead of inside/outside picking


There have been a ton of discussions on the guitar forums about how to handle playing cross picking lines between 2 strings. Most jazz guitarists use inside picking, meaning they are picking notes with a downstroke on the higher note, and an upstroke on the lower note. This means they are playing on the inside of the two strings which can be a bit difficult. More recently, many jazz guitarists have migrated to what's called outside picking where you use an upstroke on the higher note, and a downstroke on the lower note. You are then playing on the outside of the 2 strings.


When Pat Metheny was developing his technique, he had a different approach. He does not pick the lower note. He hammers it all by itself. This is known as the hammer-on-from-nowhere and is a common technique for speed rock guys. The metheny version of this is cool because you can do a full hammer or hammer the note very lightly so its effect is a ghost note. To me this sounds like horn player phrasing and not guitar phrasing which I consider a win/win...


At any rate, this line uses some george benson techniques including bluesy licks over the tonic chord (Ebmaj7).


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