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Nicely done. Frank! I really like the tone you're getting on both the single notes and the chords with this technique.
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07-23-2014 08:25 PM
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Answers my question about whether or not you need a pick guard on your guitar to do this technique. I've been lurking on this topic and have been converting to this picking also. I really appreciate all the posts and the videos.
Originally Posted by fep
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+1 Originally Posted by monk
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Frank, regardless of technique, whatever you play is ALWAYS done with impeccable taste. Thank you.
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Nice playing, Frank! Originally Posted by fep
I wonder what it would feel like to play without a pickguard. (It's been such a long time for me!)
I think a pickguard (with the pinky resting on it) and flatwound string are the "default" for Benson picking but clearly, one can use the technique on other sorts of guitars.
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Well, Larry, I'm glad you're giving Benson picking a go. It's not like it requires expensive equipment (Fender Medium picks are about a quarter apiece, and cheaper by the dozen.) Please let us know how it works for you. Originally Posted by Larry Feldman
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Earlier, docbop mentioned Sheryl Bailey's appearance in the current issue of Guitar Player. I did a Google search and found this GP article on Sheryl from 2010. The following two paragraphs are relevant to Benson picking:
>>>>“People are always asking me about my picking,” she says. “I use the ‘George Benson’ technique, where the pick is pointed up and coming at about 2 o’clock across the strings [for a full explanation of her method check out the June 1999 GP article in her press kit at sherylbailey.com], but for me that is not the issue—it is about the relaxation principle. I used to play with my hand at a more traditional angle, and I could still play fast. The thing that unifies the two is relaxing into the pocket.
“I always say to my students that you can name any great virtuoso on any instrument— whether it is Vladimir Horowitz, Yngwie Malmsteen, or Wes Montgomery—and what they all have in common is they are completely relaxed when playing. If you can find that place at any tempo you can do anything you want—you can fly! It’s all about finding the dance in the music. The whole relaxation principle revolves around that: you put the time in your body. If you are standing up, you send the tension down your legs so you can keep your shoulders and your arms really loose and relaxed.”<<<<<
Sheryl Bailey | GuitarPlayer
Btw, I went to Sheryl's site but could not find the 1999 article mentioned above. I'll keep looking....
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I've been practicing this for about 2 weeks with my strat since I need it as a working instrument in the bands I play with. If benson picking doesn't work for me on that, I would have to go back to my old picking. The good news is that it works fine. What I did notice however is that for it to feel comfortable, I had to go to a much higher gauge string than usual. I have 13s on it now which I usually only have on my archtops. It feels very comfortable even without a real pickguard.
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Okay, here it is.
www.sherylbailey.com/pdfs/gp061999.pdf
If that doesn't work, Google "The Unorthodox Path to Tonal Excellence pdf"
Or just copy and paste that whole thing into the address bar of your browser the pdf will be downloaded to your computer
(I can't seem to shed italics. Sorry.)
I actually read that article back then. I had never heard of her. Or heard her music. I tried to mess with the grip but I didn't get too far. For one thing, I was playing a Strat and using effects, so tone wasn't my obsession. (At least, not jazz tone from an archtop with a clean amp setting.) The explanation as given makes more sense to me now than it did then. Perhaps the futzing around with it I did then (and periodically since) has made it easier for me to get now....
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Thanks Monk. Yes, I think this technique works fine for round wounds and for acoustic guitar. Those where D'Addario bronze round wound 12s. Originally Posted by monk
I never thought about that. At home I most often play my dreadnaught acoustic and also mostly play acoustic guitar when learning this technique. I really don't find much of a difference between playing with or without a pickguard when using this technique. Thanks for listening. Originally Posted by Larry Feldman
Thanks for listening. Originally Posted by 3625
Thanks for the encouraging words. Originally Posted by Stu Foley
I don't really care for gigging, mostly because it's a hassle, and partially because I wish I played at a higher level. So, friends and family and this forum are my primary audience. Thanks for listening.
Yeah, no pickguard necessary. This technique is actually quieter than a traditional technique for me on an acoustic. I have found from listening to recordings that my left hand fingers will some times inadvertently tap on the top of the guitar when playing with a 'traditional' picking technique. I don't get any of that noise with the Benson picking technique. Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
Thanks for listening.Last edited by fep; 07-24-2014 at 06:17 PM.
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very very nice Frank! That is a lovely tone from your acoustic guitar and very cleanly and tastefully played. Originally Posted by fep
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Thanks, Jabba! Originally Posted by Jabberwocky
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According to that article, which was written 15 years ago mind you (haven't we all changed a bit since?), Sheryl uses a .60 mm Dunlop Tortex pick (the orange one). And she strings her GB10 with bronze strings using a 15/18 for the top two strings. This was supposedly to "warm it up." Interesting.
Nowadays she plays a McCurdy small doublecut archtop. I wonder if she uses the same type of pick?
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Good question. I suppose you could email her and ask. Or if you'd rather, I'll do it. (Not every musician I email answers me, but more do than don't, and most are generous though not chatty.) Originally Posted by rpguitar
I really want to play a double cutaway archtop someday. I miss having access all the way up the neck. I used to not like the looks of double cutaway jazz guitars, and I'm still not wild about the look. (When Donald Fagen and Walter Becker of Steely Dan first saw Denny Diaz play, he had a double cutaway and they didn't want him to play that with their band. Perhaps an apocryphal story.) But I would give one a go and hope it worked out.
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Actually I searched a bit, and there is a recent photo on Sheryl's site that I zoomed way in on... you can see the orange pick. She's playing the McCurdy.
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Good work! Dedication and attention to detail---the keys to greatness! Originally Posted by rpguitar
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With a title like that, how could you not read the article!!! Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
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Here's an excerpt from an interview with George---but our own Matt Warnock, no less---
>>>>You also have a very unique way of picking, and there have been many myths surrounding your development of this technique. Can you lay out once and for all the story behind your right-hand technique?
George Benson: This is an amazingly simple story. My stepfather, who taught me to play the guitar in the very beginning, one day said to me, “Hold out your hand.” I held my hand out, and he put a guitar pick in it. He said, “Now take the pick in your fingers and take it over to the guitar. Hold it near the guitar. That’s going to be your technique for the rest of your life.” I said, “What?!” [Laughs]
It was very awkward at first, but technique wasn’t very important in those days. When it became important, that style that he gave me was not conducive to playing anything technical. So I devised my own method of playing the guitar in a horizontal way, as opposed to a vertical way, and it worked very well.<<<<
Matt is not responsible for George's answer, and for all I know portions of a longer answer may have been edited out of the published piece. (I used to write for music magazines and know this can happen.) But I find George's answer, as given, useless. I wouldn't expect a wealth of detail about the technique---this was an interview, not a guitar lesson--but it's without ANY detail. As the saying goes about Oakland, "There's no there there."
George Benson Interview : Guitar Interviews
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Here's another bit from George in a "Guitar Player" interview for the release of (I think) the "Guitar Man" CD.
>>>>>I never had technique like Pat Martino, but I devised my own method, which is very fluid. It allows me to change ideas along the way. I’m moving in a certain direction, and I see all these things underneath my fingers when I play. “Oh, I’m passing up three or four chords here. Should I grab some of this harmony? Nah—I think I’ll keep going.” When I get to the end, I have to bounce off of that and go to another phrase, which might take me back around. I can see just as many possibilities on the way back. That method works for me, and it doesn’t take a lot of technique to play that way.
It sure sounds technical.
Well, I’m not afraid of anything. If there’s something that I have to get, I’ll find a way to get it.
Is there a particular pick you use?
It’s called the George Benson pick. Ibanez makes them. It gets a little more accurate sound, because I have them straighten the side edges. A typical pick is a little rounded on the sides. Mine is very straight. When you drag it along the string, and you pull it off of the string, it gives a definite pow. There’s no ambiguity about that note.<<<<
Don't you just love that, guys? "It doesn't take a lot of technique to play [George's] way"!
Guitar Man George Benson | GuitarPlayer
Now about that George Benson pick....
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Here's a shot from an ebay auction of Ibanez GB guitar picks.
Anyone played these?
George Benson Ibanez Tortoise Shell Celluloid Guitar Pick x10 Plek GB01 10 | eBay
I'm happy with the Fender Medium and am not looking to change that. I just hadn't realized there were George Benson picks out there!
A bit more detail here:
http://global.rakuten.com/en/store/c...e/item/s10367/
0.75 mm
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It seems to me the pick manufacturer is not important. Something with a little flex in it will do, a medium of any name. It's funny that the most common and generic pick of all, the humble 'Fender Medium', has become almost a holy grail for some. People are even particular about the color, lol. In a blind test could you really tell the difference from one color to the next.
I like the Fender Medium, it works, it's cheap, it's easy to find, it's also a great golf ball marker. No big deal, any medium pick will do.
Now, is everyone going to jump over to these Ibanez picks? Get a grip people. (Preferable a 'Benson Grip').
You got to admit this is all kind of funny.
All IMHO of course.
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07-26-2014, 01:38 PM #298destinytot Guest
Sharing this interview from May '74:
Last edited by destinytot; 07-26-2014 at 01:50 PM.
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Interesting comment, "I have ... an uneducated right hand, like a barbarian." Kind of echoes Martino's similar comments about his left hand being the college graduate and his right being a drop-out.
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As for the color, some people (a few here, for that matter) have assured me that the other colors of Fender Medium do not have the same sound. I was thinking of going with the "clown vomit" ones (-a term I learned from Monk; I think Fender's term for their multicolored pick is "Confetti") because they're the easiest to find if you drop them, but two different people let me know that the material for them slightly different than for the brown ones and they have a different feel and tone. (As far as that goes, JC Stylles says that the quality of brown Fender Mediums changes and that some batches are a little 'sharper' while others are more 'rounded.' I remember Robert Conti saying the same thing about the Dunlop .38s he uses: he buys a bag of 'em and sorts through 'em for the ones he likes and gets rid of the rest. He said he mentioned this to someone at Dunlop once and they told him that picks vary like that and nothing can be done about it. They're not as uniform as we assume.) Originally Posted by fep
I have no intention of ordering George Benson picks. I was just surprised to learn there are such things. I'll stick with the Brown Fender Mediums. But if I was ever in a guitar store that had the Benson picks, I'd try one just to see how it compares with the Fender Medium.
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