Benson Picking technique on Gibson L5 Wesmo

[nunocpinto]

I'm 99.9% sure that Jody is talking about the fact that George played the lick slowly. If you have the full lesson (which I do) you'll see Jody stopping George during literally every example to ask him to slow it down. George, apparently, can't or won't? He doesn't like to slow it down.

If you watch the whole thing it's pretty obvious, and Fisher never asks him specifically about muting, although he does ask him about thumb picking.

Well this in not quite acurate: he does play one time slowly, and i never did say that Jody asked him about muting in specific. He his by "default" doing it and it's very apparent on that place. Will post a video soon with GB playing slowly muting on the left and free strokes on the right.

And by the way, nothing here is obvious or we wouldn't be talking about this in the first place Ecj.

[nunocpinto]

Here is the video: horizontal g M scale. Free strokes on the right, and left hand muting after each note on the left.

He is clearly not strictly alternating, and seems to have a very "liberal" approach to whatever works best for him. But i guess that is another !? advantage of this technique.

https://mega.co.nz/#!FplChCJK!761TN2...gsC6HsjhCXKw-M

[MarkRhodes]

My month of coaching ends tomorrow. I'm happy with my progress. Real happy.

[ecj]

Here is the video: horizontal g M scale. Free strokes on the right, and left hand muting after each note on the left.

He is clearly not strictly alternating, and seems to have a very "liberal" approach to whatever works best for him. But i guess that is another !? advantage of this technique.

https://mega.co.nz/#!FplChCJK!761TN2...gsC6HsjhCXKw-M

For some reason I can't see the picture on this, just the audio.

[nunocpinto]

For some reason I can't see the picture on this, just the audio.

Tested the video in both windows and Mac. Try a diferent player?.

[ecj]

Tested the video in both windows and Mac. Try a diferent player?.

No idea. It's not working for me. I'll try it when I get home.

[MarkRhodes]

Someone PM'ed me about the JC Stylles deal and while replying, I went back through my emails from JC to check on a detail. I noticed his response to a question about fingering and thought I should place it here.

[From JC Stylles]>>>>Good question, Mark. Actually I am going to be putting out a Tutorial exactly on this often confusing question, so you will have to sit tight a little longer. I hope to have it out by October as lots of guys have issues with fingerings, many again picked up from places that were supposed to give them a basic understanding, but not deal with tricky situations that actually require additional options quickly.<<<

I'm certainly looking forward to that!

(NB: this is not a formal announcement or a promise. He certainly intends to put out such a tutorial and hopes to have it out in October. Let's hope it works out that way.)

[ecj]

I corresponded with him about this, as well. Looking forward to the left-hand tutorial.

[setemupjoe]

I find this all interesting. I never worked hard on rest strokes. But when you say "by allowing the string below to stop my movement I don't have to waste energy or tighten a muscle to make the pick stop" I think, gee, I never thought about making the pick stop....

Take tremolo picking. It would be really weird---for me, at least---to drive the pick all the way to the next string. When I tremolo pick, my thought is 'never make the pick leave the string!' My visual image for this is logrolling. I imagine the pick 'rolling' from the top of the string to the bottom without ever breaking contact with it. (I'm not saying I achieve this but it is how I approach it.)

And my sense is that tremolo picking is the starting point. That's the refinement of the pick stroke. You get that down well and go to two strings...

My sense was that you wan to keep the pick stroke as small as possible.

I certainly get not going PAST the next string, but if you don't push hard, the pick will stop without before it moves that far....

Hi Mark,
Regarding the rest stroke I find that because of the angle of my pick in relation to the string that it is contacting both adjacent strings at the same time. It fits neatly in the space between the two strings. So when I pick a string it has no option but to make contact with the string below it because it takes up all the space between these two strings.
Now the question is whether I push on the adjacent string as I come to rest. This is determined by how hard or fast I'm picking. Slow strong strokes mean I'm pushing and bending the adjacent string as I come to rest against it. Fast tremolo style picking would be "feathering" against the string. My pick is contacting the adjacent string but placing little or no weight against it.

[Groyniad]

i'm already having to over-haul my fingerings. i have the 6 position disease - i got my dose from ted greene's books on soloing which i used heavily in the first year of playing

it is obvious to me that i have to throw them out and replace with much more up and down the neck patterns (i can't work out which way of playing should be called 'vertical' and which should be called 'horizontal') - if i'm to get the most out of the new much more productive right hand technique

its a lot to do - but its grrrrrrreaat - so much smoother. playing across the neck as i do a great deal (in one 'position') generates lots of little picking hiccups and trip-ups that i've had quite enough of

[Groyniad]

Exploded viewing is revealing:

I think this is borne out by observation of the 'play' of the pick at .25 speed (without sound) in the five-second (slowed to ten seconds) close-up of Perry Hughes that begins at the 3m27s mark in the Sadao Watanabe ATTYA clip, posted by kind favour of mylesgtr.

(Being able to slow video down is a great help; YouTube's settings are useful for this, but I didn't realise there was a variable speed setting on Windows Media Player until just now.)

Thank you very much for the George Benson AVI, nunocpinto. I've now watched it repeatedly at half speed with time stretched audio.


Watching the section from 0m32s to 0.34s at half speed, GB's right hand can be observed as he deliberately plays slowly (in consecutive down strokes). I think you're right about the left hand, but I'm not entirely sure about the right.

I do think this is a crucial point, and I find setemupjoe's observation to be significant:


I'm going to continue exploring this point through careful observation and practice (making the most of three weeks off from my day job!) because I suspect that Perry Hughes experiences the same in that ATTYA clip.

I'm also going to give more focused awareness to 'the pocket' when playing double-time phrases at manageable speed; regardless of the speed, 'the pocket' is like a motorway rumble strip.

great detail man - enjoy your musical time off!

[setemupjoe]

i'm already having to over-haul my fingerings. i have the 6 position disease - i got my dose from ted greene's books on soloing which i used heavily in the first year of playing

it is obvious to me that i have to throw them out and replace with much more up and down the neck patterns (i can't work out which way of playing should be called 'vertical' and which should be called 'horizontal') - if i'm to get the most out of the new much more productive right hand technique

its a lot to do - but its grrrrrrreaat - so much smoother. playing across the neck as i do a great deal (in one 'position') generates lots of little picking hiccups and trip-ups that i've had quite enough of

No need to throw anything away. But working on patterns that run up the neck do seem more comfortable with this technique.
Without realizing it I naturally gravitated to these patterns after a few years of playing with this technique. I like the ability to make long lines, especially with arpeggios. It sounds very dynamic to be able to move great distances on the guitar from the 1st to the 15th fret.

[Groyniad]

Without realizing it I naturally gravitated to these patterns after a few years of playing with this technique. I like the ability to make long lines, especially with arpeggios. It sounds very dynamic to be able to move great distances on the guitar from the 1st to the 15th fret. - setemupjoe

it feels great - i used to get 'boxed-up' moving round and round between two pitches not that far apart very often. its important to be able to make all the changes within a small range - but boy - you want some ideas that cover a wide range too

[MarkRhodes]

I corresponded with him about this, as well. Looking forward to the left-hand tutorial.

Great! I wish I had more details about what he has in mind....

[setemupjoe]

it feels great - i used to get 'boxed-up' moving round and round between two pitches not that far apart very often. its important to be able to make all the changes within a small range - but boy - you want some ideas that cover a wide range too

Agreed. I was always amazed and mystified by how Benson moved so easily up and down the neck. It sounded so exciting and I was always stuck in position playing. I studied the Leavitt 12 positions. Nowadays I'm a mix of everything.

[MarkRhodes]

i'm already having to over-haul my fingerings. i have the 6 position disease - i got my dose from ted greene's books on soloing which i used heavily in the first year of playing

it is obvious to me that i have to throw them out and replace with much more up and down the neck patterns (i can't work out which way of playing should be called 'vertical' and which should be called 'horizontal') - if i'm to get the most out of the new much more productive right hand technique

I don't see why you need to throw anything out. More to the point, I don't see how one can.I don't play out of the pentatonic boxes I learned as a kid, but I still know them. I still know the 'cowboy' chords I learned as a kid even though I don't use them much.

[Groyniad]

Without realizing it I naturally gravitated to these patterns after a few years of playing with this technique. I like the ability to make long lines, especially with arpeggios. It sounds very dynamic to be able to move great distances on the guitar from the 1st to the 15th fret. - setemupjoe

it feels great - i used to get 'boxed-up' moving round and round between two pitches not that far apart very often. its important to be able to make all the changes within a small range - but boy - you want some ideas that cover a wide range too

[MarkRhodes]

Hi Mark,
Regarding the rest stroke I find that because of the angle of my pick in relation to the string that it is contacting both adjacent strings at the same time. It fits neatly in the space between the two strings. So when I pick a string it has no option but to make contact with the string below it because it takes up all the space between these two strings.
Now the question is whether I push on the adjacent string as I come to rest. This is determined by how hard or fast I'm picking. Slow strong strokes mean I'm pushing and bending the adjacent string as I come to rest against it. Fast tremolo style picking would be "feathering" against the string. My pick is contacting the adjacent string but placing little or no weight against it.

I get that. I see that sometimes when I'm playing. Or rather, when I've paused and make it a point to see 'what's going on down there.'

But other times I play on the very tip of the pick and it doesn't travel that far... I never seem to stay right on the tip for too long, though....

[monk]

Great! I wish I had more details about what he has in mind....

Mark,
I have no idea what Mr. Stylles has in mind with his proposed left hand tutorial but I can offer you this thought. My friend Leon Rhodes (no slouch in the velocity department) once answered a question about how he got around so quickly on the fingerboard by saying that he "fingered every note as if it were red-hot". In other words, he released every note as soon as he sounded it.
Regards,
Jerome

[Groyniad]

can i add - on a purely personal note - just sharing

with all the glorious playing we've been sharing with one another over the last pages - my favorite - from a player i'm genuinely embarrassed not to have known much about before - has been


Sadao Watanabe Official Web Site

sadao watanabe

secret love is one of my favorite tunes too - never heard it done better

[nunocpinto]

Last post ( with yet another video with George) emphasizing the importance of free strokes + left hand muting (and also the flex & follow trough) as the basis of Benson picking and not the rest strokes on every down stroke.

https://mega.co.nz/#!B0kGGZIT!tHnsqT...IbuDtOgCC2VBJ4

[Groyniad]

and now i listen again perry hughes plays with the incredible horn like flow that mesmerizes from watanabe

i have never heard alto like bebop phrasing like that done so perfectly on guitar before - i need more perry hughes

[MarkRhodes]

Mark,
I have no idea what Mr. Stylles has in mind with his proposed left hand tutorial but I can offer you this thought. My friend Leon Rhodes (no slouch in the velocity department) once answered a question about how he got around so quickly on the fingerboard by saying that he "fingered every note as if it were red-hot". In other words, he released every note as soon as he sounded it.

Thanks, Jerome. That's interesting. (And for those unfamiliar with Leon's picking, check out the clip below. Nice shot of his right hand around 0:35; not exactly Benson picking but the pick is clearly on the pad side of the index and the dude was not only fast but smooth.) Would fingering every note as if it were red hot be anything like, well, tapping? That's how I'd touch something I thought might be hot...

[Groyniad]

I don't see why you need to throw anything out. More to the point, I don't see how one can.I don't play out of the pentatonic boxes I learned as a kid, but I still know them. I still know the 'cowboy' chords I learned as a kid even though I don't use them much.

fair enough mark - at least initially i need to stop relying on them so as to learn a new way to phrase/finger - but you're right of course - i couldn't 'throw them out' if i tried

[MarkRhodes]

Last post ( with yet another video with George) emphasizing the importance of free strokes + left hand muting (and also the flex & follow trough) as the basis of Benson picking and not the rest strokes on every down stroke.

I hear it but see nothing. (I saw and heard the previous thing you posted---G B playing that descending G scale.)

Please make a short video where you very slowly give an example of left-hand muting. And explain it.

Unless you just mean 'release pressure on every fretted note as soon as you strike it.' Easier said than done, but if that's what you're saying, there's no need for a video of George or anyone else.