Benson Picking technique on Gibson L5 Wesmo

[Philco]

We've drilled right down to where we should be. The minutiae.
Expect some mock concern from the cynics.

After all these posts and personal observations it seems to me that we have learned much about wrist and hand movement but there is still one great mystery.
How does GB really grip the plectrum?
What part of the thumb?
Where on the index (how far up or down)?
How much pick hanging sideways?
How much pick hanging down?
How tight is the grip?
And the big one as 3625 pointed out....what angle?
There are so many angles!

Why don't we know these things?

Because.......GB changes his grip. Think about it. We all do it. Minute movements to get more comfortable. A tiny change of angle to accommodate a certain feeling in the strings. The pick moves up the index, down the index. The thumb pushes from the tip and then may slide to more of the pad.
That's why we can't find a definitive picture. It's a moving target.
But there's a general position and I think we have a good understanding of it.

Personally I don't think you can look down at your hand and say "ok.......I have assumed the GB grip and I will not change a thing whilst I'm playing"
Everything about this tech screams "groove, elastic, move, flop, bend, flex" etc. So this also applies to the general and specific point where you anchor the pick.
It changes.
There is no one way.
And that's just fine. That's the individual physiology thing we've been talking about.
That's why Henry is different to George. That's why GB's grip looks different on any given day.

I think you find the general position and work with it until you are comfortable and find your sweet spot.
Always keeping in mind the small movements relaxed wrist and other parts of the tech we have discovered.

My general point is that we are never going to nail it down to an exact and correct grip.......and I'm only specifically talking about the coal face. The exact spot where you apply pressure to grip the pick.
It changes and it's meant to change.

Now watch what GB does right at the end of that clip. Just before he does the big last strum.
Right on! He completely re adjusts his pick grip. His body knows that to make the big strum he is going to have to reposition his grip and he makes the change.

Now that's not exactly what I'm talking about but you get my point. There are small adjustments all the time.......and every now and then there is a big adjustment.......where necessary.
So my opinion is that it's perfectly fine to keep fine adjusting as you play and that in fact these constant adjustments are part of the tech which as I keep postulating is a very fluid and natural thing.

[Shadow of the Sun]

The mention of anchoring with the two last fingers on your right hand is something that's helped me manage to get this to work without straining my wrist, so thank you for mentioning that.

[MarkRhodes]

I made an odd discovery yesterday. It had to do with the thumb of my picking hand. Keeping in mind something JC said in his tutorial about the pressure point being at the upper right edge of the thumb. (The right edge would be the edge closest to the palm.)

I thought, "what would happen if I reversed this, and went with the upper left edge, the side of the thumb furthest from the palm?"

The result was interesting in that it changed the way my hand moves and the movement seems more uniform.

I suspect that in time I will move back toward the middle of the thumb. When I use the upper right edge of the thumb, my thumb angles away from my palm. (I'm not saying that is good or bad; it makes a real difference, though.)

If this still seems like a good idea (-or at least a touch of progress for me) over the weekend, I'll post a clip so you can see what I'm talking about.

Btw, this thread is nearing 40,000 views. Yay, Philco: you really started something here!

[destinytot]

it's perfectly fine to keep fine adjusting as you play

+1

I've loosened my 'clamp' and am back to Medium (Planet Waves by D'Addario .70mm).

[Groyniad]

Thought I'd hit the refresh button and share this.

Arguably one of the most revealing videos of GB's right hand.
I mean……you can actually see it in action from a side view.
This video (from his instructional video) made me stop a re evaluate what I was doing.
Things I learned from this.

• His pinky and third finger are really "quite" locked to the pick guard.
This means that the rest of his hand has to move…..not so much the wrist….the rest of the hand.
Watch the hand extend when it has to. There's that "pointing" thing.
This is happening because he leaves those fingers locked to the guard. Yes they eventually move a little…..but only when they have to. He is "reaching across". This is very important because it means smaller movement of the wrist.

• Note the thumb and index actually flexing sometimes to almost "pinch" out a note. Only sometimes.
This is an even smaller movement than the "hand reach"
So from large to small movement we have 1/wrist 2/ hand stretch 3/ thumb and index pinch.

• Pick Flop. Wow look at that pick move! Now it's a FM so it can't flex. This is "Flop" for want of a better word. It's moving between his fingers.
This is a game changer. If you grip your pick tightly you simply can't do this. He must be gripping lightly.
That changes everything.
The groove goes from his wrist to his hand to his thumb to his pick. It's ALL moving.

• Economy picking. At the very start is a 2/5 lick chromatically heading down to the 3rd of the 5 chord. After that note then he plays across the strings in a single downward motion. In other words he uses a common down stroke across 2 strings.
The thing is it's not a triplet sweep. He does this a lot. Like Gypsy players do.

• Triplet sweeps……well we knew that.

Evaluate for yourselves and see what you make of it.

you're right that if he holds the pick loosely that is a game-changer

again i think the much maligned chuck andres is quite good on this point too - he says you should start by clamping the pick so it can't move in your fingers, but that once you get the feel for the technique you could loosen things up for various reasons.

he also stresses that one of the reasons ERADICATING pick movement in your fingers is important is that it allows you to explore the musical consequences of using different bits of yourself to initiate the pick movement (elbow, wrist, hand, fingers/thumb). a new orleans wiz-kid i heard once (who used benson picking) told me he used movements in his fingers quite a lot (a bit like writing he said).

[MarkRhodes]

you're right that if he holds the pick loosely that is a game-changer

again i think the much maligned chuck andres is quite good on this point too - he says you should start by clamping the pick so it can't move in your fingers, but that once you get the feel for the technique you could loosen things up for various reasons.
.

I think that's important too. One reason I can say this is that I have born the sour fruit of neglecting this advice! One of the challenges of this technique----especially for those of us who came to it having played another way for some time---is that it is hard to remain consistent in whichever variation one is presently working. (Who among us hasn't been keenly aware of how we hold the pick to start out, then play a bit and look down to discover with surprise that the pick is no longer in the position we thought. Further, we're not sure when it changed. But it's not altogether bad now. So maybe THIS is it.... And off we merrily, only to look down again in a bit and realize we're no longer holding the pick quite THAT way either... Maybe it's just me...

[Groyniad]

oh no that isn't just you

often the best way to go is to keep playing and playing - often problems seem to iron themselves out

but then again, it often happens too that what started out great starts working less well

chuck's point is certainly an interesting one - if you do stop variation at the point of contact with the pick it immediately allows you to explore other types of variation (fingers, wrist, elbow etc.)

my latest worry is that i've got serious problems CO-ORDINATING the picking and the fretting. i'm really not sure that this is the case - though i am pretty sure that i still have serious problems...

[ecj]

It's "Tuck" not "Chuck" Andress.

I think it's really important to not make too many changes. You have to adjust, but you also have to put some consistent work in on one thing before you figure out whether or not it actually works.

[Groyniad]

sorry tuck

- but i am the guy who keeps singing your praises round here...

[MarkRhodes]

I think it's really important to not make too many changes. You have to adjust, but you also have to put some consistent work in on one thing before you figure out whether or not it actually works.

That makes perfect sense. You have to be doing it, say, This Way consistently for some time in order to assess whether This Way works for you. The challenge with this technique,though, is that it is made up of several distinct elements and you can't work on just one at a time. The pick, the thumb, the index, and the movement of the wrist are interrelated. If you, say, just move your thumb, it could change everything else too (-and to varying degrees). And your hand moves some when you're not looking at it. It's quite possible to, say, play for an hour but have only held the shape in what you consider the best way for fifteen minutes and another way or two (-which you didn't notice) for most of the hour..... O, well, it's keeping us all very young....

[ecj]

sorry tuck

- but i am the guy who keeps singing your praises round here...

Just wanted to make sure Tuck gets proper cred for his "discoveries". No disrespect intended.

That makes perfect sense. You have to be doing it, say, This Way consistently for some time in order to assess whether This Way works for you. The challenge with this technique,though, is that it is made up of several distinct elements and you can't work on just one at a time. The pick, the thumb, the index, and the movement of the wrist are interrelated. If you, say, just move your thumb, it could change everything else too (-and to varying degrees). And your hand moves some when you're not looking at it. It's quite possible to, say, play for an hour but have only held the shape in what you consider the best way for fifteen minutes and another way or two (-which you didn't notice) for most of the hour..... O, well, it's keeping us all very young....

It's certainly a challenge. I think eventually the thing that "works" starts to overpower the stuff that doesn't as the default. There's only so much control you can have over all the variables.

I'm referring more to stuff like changing grip, hand position, picks, strings, on a weekly/monthly/quarterly basis. I stuck with 0.14 Thomasteks with a Fender medium, 17" guitar with 25.5" scale for a year without changing anything at all until I got JC Stylles' hand position and picking motion to work. I knew it worked because I could see him doing it. I eventually got to where I am.

I'm tinkering around with things a bit now, but I think it would've been a mistake to make any changes until I was able to do what I set out to do in the first place (with a little coaching). Like if I'd started and 2 months in thought "hey, I wonder if a heavy pick will sound better". Well, I don't know if JC Stylles could play what he's playing with a heavy pick, so it would be silly to switch it half way down the path just to see.

Sometimes we outsmart ourselves.

[MarkRhodes]

Sometimes we outsmart ourselves.[/COLOR]

Yes, we do. Sometimes we get impatient too. I know I do. Sometimes when the new way is frustrating, it's easy to slip back into something old and familiar (-which could be a change of how you play or what you play---something old and familiar is easier to play fast than something new and untamed). But bit by bit, day by day, we move ahead. I realize that is the most important thing for me: to always feel like I gave it a good go today and there's plenty to come back for tomorrow.

[nunocpinto]

lousy video quality but great playing and some very nice shots of GB right hand.

And another Take 5 excerpt in Australia 1982.

[MarkRhodes]

Whoa, Tom Snyder from the old "Tomorrow" show. As the saying goes, "Much time has passed."



The RH footage around 1:15 is great. ("Right-hand footage" sounds odd when you think about it...)

Thanks.

[3625]

lousy video quality but great playing and some very nice shots of GB right hand.

Nunocpinto, thanks for posting this - that's one of the clearest views of his right hand I've yet seen. Nice one.

[Stu Foley]

One can see the attraction of the 'Benson' technique when demonstrated by the man himself. It is so fluid and relaxed, even when compared to other top guitarists, in my humble opinion.


What I do notice is that, talking left hand for a moment, he seems to fret using the pads of his fingers rather than the tips and as such, the fingers are almost straight and in plane with the fretboard. Anyone else experimented with this? None of my teachers told me to do it like this!

[MarkRhodes]

What I do notice is that, talking left hand for a moment, he seems to fret using the pads of his fingers rather than the tips and as such, the fingers are almost straight and in plane with the fretboard. Anyone else experimented with this? None of my teachers told me to do it like this!

Interesting observation. One of the points Mark Stefani (JazzOnSix) likes to make is that a lot what George does has to do with the left (fretting) hand. But I think he was talking more about muting and slurring rather than using the pads of the fingers to fret with.


Do we think this is something George normally does?

Do we know of anyone else who normally does this?

What difference does it make? (Guess I'll log off and pick up my guitar...)

[ecj]

One can see the attraction of the 'Benson' technique when demonstrated by the man himself. It is so fluid and relaxed, even when compared to other top guitarists, in my humble opinion.


What I do notice is that, talking left hand for a moment, he seems to fret using the pads of his fingers rather than the tips and as such, the fingers are almost straight and in plane with the fretboard. Anyone else experimented with this? None of my teachers told me to do it like this!

Benson does everything exactly opposite of the way that all the guitar teachers and books tell you to. And he's better than everyone that tells you to do it the other way.

It's kind of ridiculous.

[edh]

What works, works...no?

[MarkRhodes]

What works, works...no?

Yup. If only I could find what works like that for me! ;o)

[nunocpinto]

Calvin Keys (unknown player to me) with the one and only Joe Henderson.

[Stu Foley]

For this muscle to be fully engaged and therefore firm, I would have to pinch my thumb and index finger together very hard thus eliminating pick flop altogether. This level of tension in the muscle suggests that one is supposed to squeeze the life out of the pick but this is not what I was seeing in the slow motion clips of George that Philco provided. I'm by no means far along the road, but I seem to have less drag on the pick when gripping it only just tightly enough for it not to fly out of my hand. IOW, when I grip the pick tightly I find that there is a tendency to catch on the strings rather than glide over them.

[MarkRhodes]

For this muscle to be fully engaged and therefore firm, I would have to pinch my thumb and index finger together very hard thus eliminating pick flop altogether.

To me, this doesn't seem tense at all. I feel like I'm holding the pick loosely. Indeed, sometimes I think I hold it too loosely and should tighten up a bit more...

[destinytot]

For this muscle to be fully engaged and therefore firm, I would have to pinch my thumb and index finger together very hard thus eliminating pick flop altogether.

Greetings from chilly Valencia!

What you're describing is precisely how I expected it to be.

I could further speculate that the high degree of flex in the Fender Thin pick somehow compensates for the firmness of The Clamp - and it may be so - but it's also a red herring and beside the point, which is that there needn't be any more firmness in The Clamp than in any of the fingers on my fretting hand. That's what I take away from my experience of switching back to a medium pick (on an archtop semi).

This is not at all what I'd expected, and it's a liberating shift in thinking. Here's a metaphor: there's no greater air pressure in one part of an inflated child's balloon than there is in another.

I'm going to test it out tonight (and report back briefly on the morrow).

[destinytot]

To me, this doesn't seem tense at all. I feel like I'm holding the pick loosely. Indeed, sometimes I think I hold it too loosely and should tighten up a bit more...

I've gone off the deep end before (Alexander Technique), but I might as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb...

Speaking for myself only, I strongly suspect that faulty perception and projection come into play. (I've become more disciplined in practising Tai Chi, and this is influencing my outlook in other areas.)