How to hold the pick

[jzucker]

Your mileage may vary but this is what I recommend:

http://www.sheetsofsound.net/images/picking.jpg

[lhallam]

The bottom illustration (rotated in this plane) is not clear to me Jack.

Are you saying to angle the pick to the strings or keep the flat side of the pick against the strings?

I find the faster I pick, the more I angle the pick as shown in the bottom illustration.

[jzucker]

I updated the diagram.

[WhosYourPal]

Thanks for the diagram Jack, I realized I haven't been holding it right while doing some of the SOS excercises. I can't wait for the DVD to become available, I think it will clear a lot more up.

[lhallam]

Sorry to be so dense Jack but it's still not clear to me.

Numbering the illustrations 1-3 from left to right.

#1 appears that we are looking from the lower bout of the gtr. ie, from the back of the bridge. If so, it looks as though it's in contradiction to #2.

What am I missing?

[jzucker]

Originally posted by lhallam
Sorry to be so dense Jack but it's still not clear to me.

Numbering the illustrations 1-3 from left to right.

#1 appears that we are looking from the lower bout of the gtr. ie, from the back of the bridge. If so, it looks as though it's in contradiction to #2.

What am I missing?

You're not missing anything other than the fact that I'm lame at drawing 3d diagrams.

Each part of the diagram illustrates a single plane of picking. Illustration 1 is showing that the pick is not angled up or down. It's not meant to show that along with rotation.

Illustration 2 depicts rotation

Illustration 3 depicts tip angle.

[lhallam]

Originally posted by jzucker
You're not missing anything other than the fact that I'm lame at drawing 3d diagrams.


LOL - gotcha.

Just an aside, I use the corner of my pick rather than the tip. In other words, I hold the pick sideways.

I noticed last night that for slower passages I have the pick perpendicular as ill. #2 says not to do. But as I speed up, I rotate as ill #2 shows.

[jzucker]

By the way, I updated the diagram again in an attempt to make it a little more clear.

[jzucker]

Originally posted by lhallam
LOL - gotcha.

Just an aside, I use the corner of my pick rather than the tip. In other words, I hold the pick sideways.

I noticed last night that for slower passages I have the pick perpendicular as ill. #2 says not to do. But as I speed up, I rotate as ill #2 shows.

I do the same thing. I think the sound is better with the pick perpendicular and that's how martino gets such a fat sound. However, in order to do the sax lines, I compromise the tone a bit in order to obtain the raw speed...

[bbarnard]

Originally posted by lhallam
Just an aside, I use the corner of my pick rather than the tip. In other words, I hold the pick sideways.

Then you are in good company. Both SRV and Robben Ford do that as well. I'm starting to play that way more and more too (not that me doing it puts you in good company).:)

[lhallam]

Originally posted by bbarnard
Then you are in good company. Both SRV and Robben Ford do that as well. I'm starting to play that way more and more too (not that me doing it puts you in good company).:)

So does Steve Morse.

And BTW- you are good company even if you did go to Huguenot. :D Eight people died in Richmond from Charley floods. Took my bud 3 hours to get from Broad Street to Jahnke. Shockoe is a total mess and now we've got a new hurricane. That makes two years in a row of Richmond hurricane damage. Unprecedented.

[bbarnard]

Originally posted by lhallam
So does Steve Morse.

And BTW- you are good company even if you did go to Huguenot. :D Eight people died in Richmond from Charley floods. Took my bud 3 hours to get from Broad Street to Jahnke. Shockoe is a total mess and now we've got a new hurricane. That makes two years in a row of Richmond hurricane damage. Unprecedented.

Yeah I talked to my sisters both of whom are in Richmond still. One of them has a basement flooded.

Now of course I'm in FL and Frances is scheduled to come straight thru and almost over Gainesville.:mad:

[lhallam]

Yeah Jack, it's more clear for lunk heads like me. Looks good.

[aeolian]

Sorry to disagree with you Jack, especially as you are such an awesome player. But in my experience, your preferred pick orientation gives the thinnest sound.

I often tell people to try rotating the pick in the third axis you describe and listening to the sound. As you rotate it away from flat, if usually gets softer and rounder sounding. Along with the amount of outward motion (what Eric Johnson calls his "bounce" technique) these two make the bigest impact on tone production that I know of. This is kind of the first lesson in tone production for most folks. When they can vary the angle automatically to get a degree of brightness or darkness to match a sound in their head, without having to deliberately think about what they are doing, then they're on their way.

I also find it easier to do circular picking with it rotated slightly.

As for the first axis, I tend to favor a bit of downward slant (although nothing like Benson or Morse, how they back pick so fast like that I'll never know) for the same reasons of warmth in the tone. About the only time I keep the pick square is if I want to channel Sco or a vintage swing blues cat.

[jzucker]

How can you disagree with a suggestion? I thought I was clear that this is just what I do. It's not the definitive end-all-be-all of picking. There is no such thing. As to it yielding a thin sound, is my sound thin? Is Metheny's, is Benson's? There's a lot more to the tone than that simple illustration.

This is just one of a million ways to hold the pick.

Al Dimeola, John McLaughlin, Frank Gambale, Steve Morse, Eric Johnson, George Benson, Pat Metheny, Pat Martino, yada-yada - They all hold the pick completely differently, yet all are virtuosos and none of them have a thin sound.

The music will dictate the sound in the end. I'm just giving folks a head's up about a technique that'll enable them to effectively play the kinds of saxophonistic lines that are in my book.

[Marcello]

on his website, tuck andress has a cool article about picking tech. He describes the way benson picks, really interesting.

Thanks Jack , thats very cool.

[aeolian]

Sorry Jack, would differing opinion have been a better choice of words? As you say, there are many folks playing very sucessfully with some highly unorthodox techniques. But when giving advice that will be picked up by beginners, I tend toward some degree of orthodoxy. So your centered pick orientation is a good idea. When folks ask about picking and tone production, I often refer them to the Eric Johnson video as he gives a fair cross section of techniques most of which are not too awkward. A fellow who taught around here, Warren Nunes, advocated keeping the hand rigid and flexing the whole wrist. I've always been into the Johnny Smith technique of flexing just the thumb and forefinger which feels looser and more fluid to me. Some folks move their whole arm. But I usually start out with the minimum motion and work my way up to larger body parts if someone has trouble with controlling just their fingers.
Did someone say different strokes for different folks?

[jzucker]

Originally posted by aeolian
Sorry Jack, would differing opinion have been a better choice of words? As you say, there are many folks playing very sucessfully with some highly unorthodox techniques. But when giving advice that will be picked up by beginners, I tend toward some degree of orthodoxy. So your centered pick orientation is a good idea. When folks ask about picking and tone production, I often refer them to the Eric Johnson video as he gives a fair cross section of techniques most of which are not too awkward. A fellow who taught around here, Warren Nunes, advocated keeping the hand rigid and flexing the whole wrist. I've always been into the Johnny Smith technique of flexing just the thumb and forefinger which feels looser and more fluid to me. Some folks move their whole arm. But I usually start out with the minimum motion and work my way up to larger body parts if someone has trouble with controlling just their fingers.
Did someone say different strokes for different folks?

We'll agree to disagree then.

By the way, one of my teachers studied with Johnny Smith and told me that Smith advocated absolutely no movement from the hand or flexing of the thumb or forefinger. Everything came from the elbow.

[JoeB63]

Interesting that you should bring this topic up. A few weeks ago, I realized that I have a picking technique that's different from any other player that I've seen -- so after 25 years of playing, I'm trying to change it -- not easy!

I noticed that everyone else keep their thumb straight (or nearly straight), but I pick with my thumb tip bent back, so that my thumb is in a "J" shape.

This causes me to hit the strings with the pick angled up, instead of down like (seemingly) everyone else.

I've never been an especially fast picker, and I always assumed it was because I'm a leftly playing righty. But now I think it's my picking technique. I'm making progress on changing it, but I've noticed that I'm now modifying my thumb position on the fly as needed to execute each specific passage. That's actually pretty cool.

Jack, What do you think about my "bent-back thumb" technique? Is it as bad as I think it is?

[JoeB63]

Unbelievable!! I just read the Tuck Andress article referenced above -- and he advocates Benson's technique -- which (surprise!) is my old technique. So much for changing.

[Ed DeGenaro]

Originally posted by JoeB63
Unbelievable!! I just read the Tuck Andress article referenced above -- and he advocates Benson's technique -- which (surprise!) is my old technique. So much for changing.
I was gonna say I can think of a few guys doing it that way. And that article is great food for thought.

[aeolian]

Man, Tuck really gets into the meat of things. But having had carpal tunnel, I don't think I could twist my wrist back inward like Benson for very long. Tuck does advocate angling the pick to mellow the tone, which is what I was originally saying.

Interesting about Johnny Smith. Many years ago I took some lessons from a guy to studied wirh him. This guy used his thumb back and forth like Wes. I had already learned circle picking (don't know where, probably some old GP article). My teacher said that Johnny had advised him to keep on with the thumb style he had created for himself, but that I was using the pick the right way. I took this as JS also advocating circular picking, along with Howard Robberts and such.

The great thing about this forum is that I contiue to fill in the blanks in stories I've heard over the years.

[jazzyblues]

Originally posted by jzucker
I do the same thing. I think the sound is better with the pick perpendicular and that's how martino gets such a fat sound. However, in order to do the sax lines, I compromise the tone a bit in order to obtain the raw speed...

Robben Ford does the same thing as well. Me, on the other hand, using poor technique, use as little of the tip as possible. Using just the very tip is what helps me play fast. That way I just skim over the top of the strings.
But that's just when I attempt to play fast. Other times I'll use both the side and tip - whatever works to get the tone I'm after. :)

And I have the pick turned just slighty sideways to soften the tone. For me, it helps to glide over the strings. :D

[lhallam]

I originally used circle picking but found my tone to be rather limp.

I spent years learning the Steve Morse techique in the hopes of getting a ballsier sound. Now I know longer circle pick using primarily the thumb, I still sound pretty weak.:(

[jazzyblues]

Originally posted by jzucker
We'll agree to disagree then.

By the way, one of my teachers studied with Johnny Smith and told me that Smith advocated absolutely no movement from the hand or flexing of the thumb or forefinger. Everything came from the elbow.

I've always played with no movement from anything but the elbow. I had no idea whether it was good or bad technique. It just made is so much easier when playing that way.

[Dave B]

Originally posted by lhallam
I originally used circle picking but found my tone to be rather limp.

I spent years learning the Steve Morse techique in the hopes of getting a ballsier sound. Now I know longer circle pick using primarily the thumb, I still sound pretty weak.:(

In my formative years in college, I pretty much used the Steve Morse 1982 Guitar Player cover story shot and the photo at the beginning of his interview as the physical basis for my picking technique. His right hand position and technique make it easy (for me) to get a very percussive 'pick on string' sound and allows for great micro control, but this way I never could strum well (no Pinball Wizard here), sweep smoothly (Yngwie be gone), or finger-pluck (what I call it when the pick is between thumb and index while the middle, ring, and pinky grab strings with their flesh). So to accomodate all of these weaknesses, now my pick home base and wrist angle are constantly changing positions multiple times per song.

Guess I probably should go back and learn the right way so I don't have to constantly switch positions, but the few times I've tried, I miss the control. Plus it's tough to teach an old dog new tricks. It amazes me, and I really enjoy watching, banjo and classical players do it without anchoring their right hand. Anyone have any suggestions? The embouchure article in GP back around 1990 or so didn't help me. :confused:

[jazzyblues]

Watching Pat Metheny play, his right hand is free. It doesn't rest on the strings, and his little finger doesn't position itself on the guitar.
I've tried doing that, but it's very difficult to do (for me).

[Paul Skidmore]

Thanks for the diagram Jack, its an interesting discussion!. I'm really enjoying Sheets of Sound by the way, opening up my playing a lot, its the best purchase I've made in a long while.

Cheers!,
Paul

[jazzyblues]

Originally posted by Paul Skidmore
Thanks for the diagram Jack, its an interesting discussion!. I'm really enjoying Sheets of Sound by the way, opening up my playing a lot, its the best purchase I've made in a long while.

Cheers!,
Paul

I agree. I've bought other books but have not been as pleased with them. Sheets of Sound allows you to get into styles of different players too.

[lhallam]

Originally posted by jazzyblues
Watching Pat Metheny play, his right hand is free. It doesn't rest on the strings, and his little finger doesn't position itself on the guitar.
I've tried doing that, but it's very difficult to do (for me).

Fripp and many others also use the freehand technique.

My understanding is our own Matte reworked his right-hand at Fripp's suggestion to use the floating technique.

I find it difficult myself and have been struggling whether it's worth it to reprogram at my age.

[jazzyblues]

Originally posted by lhallam
Fripp and many others also use the freehand technique.

My understanding is our own Matte reworked his right-hand at Fripp's suggestion to use the floating technique.

I find it difficult myself and have been struggling whether it's worth it to reprogram at my age.

I think that's a main factor in not changing styles for me in some things - age. There are things that are beneficial to do. But others....it's not worth it.
I'm working on Sheets of Sound and am trying to incorporate what I'm learning into my playing. But some of the techniques, although good - I'm just wondering if it's worth the effort at this point and time.
I guess if I find it necessary in order to play better. :)

[OOG]

in the late 70's i found out that Larry Carlton was taking guitar lessons from a guy at Valley Arts.....
so of course i sign up.
i get there and he says what do you want to learn.
we talked and played for a while and i kind of hinted that i'd heard he was teaching LC
he laughed and asked if i wanted to know what he was teaching him.
"well ya"
Larry was concerned that playing with his picking hand open was costing him some speed.
ok so i go to see Larry play a few nights later and he's just burning (with a closed left hand)
as he got more into it his hand slowly opens up and i don't think i've ever heard any one play faster and say more with their music.

so much for picking technique

[jzucker]

Originally posted by OOG
so much for picking technique

Cool story but I'm not sure how it relates to the merits of developing good pick technique.

[OOG]

the picking technique he'd been working on went to hell and he played his ass off;)

[Testudo]

:confused:
Jack, I'm nowhere near my SOS book, but don't you advocate a rotation fo the pick on one of these axes? It has stuck with me because it confused me. Your diagram that started the thread off is very clear - now what do you say in the book?

[jzucker]

Originally posted by Testudo
:confused:
Jack, I'm nowhere near my SOS book, but don't you advocate a rotation fo the pick on one of these axes? It has stuck with me because it confused me. Your diagram that started the thread off is very clear - now what do you say in the book?

Yes, the rotation as pictured in my book is the shown in the middle picture in the diagram.

[Testudo]

Ah yes. I suppose If I had looked carefully at the diagram I would have noticed that.:rolleyes:
My brain just saw circle-slashes through the rotated drawings and assumed it was that way in all planes. I feel much better now.

[aeolian]

I was watching Bobby Rush the other night and his guitar player was using something similar to the Benson technique, not as exagerated coming up from underneath but he was holding the pick with his fingers kind of straight in a similar fashion. Later in the evening Bobby picked up a Strat and was playing with his thumb, and ocassionally his index finger. Looking back and forth it struck me how similar the hand position was. If you pinched Bobby's fingers together and put a pick in between them, you'd have the same thing. I've seen several other old guys from the south playing with their thumb straight out like this. I wonder if this is the origins of this pick holding technique?

[jzucker]

Originally posted by aeolian
I was watching Bobby Rush the other night and his guitar player was using something similar to the Benson technique, not as exagerated coming up from underneath but he was holding the pick with his fingers kind of straight in a similar fashion. Later in the evening Bobby picked up a Strat and was playing with his thumb, and ocassionally his index finger. Looking back and forth it struck me how similar the hand position was. If you pinched Bobby's fingers together and put a pick in between them, you'd have the same thing. I've seen several other old guys from the south playing with their thumb straight out like this. I wonder if this is the origins of this pick holding technique?

Not for benson. He developed the technique because he used to ride in the back of the van laying on top of the B3 and because he was horizontal, he put his arm under the guitar to keep it from moving around while the van was driving.

[6Tones]

IMO hold the pick how ever you want and are comfortable with, ONLY if it doesnt put undo stress on the muscles in your hand(like some players pinch the pick with their thumb tip and index tip,its not such a good idead in that can lead to handpain in the longrun)Someplayers sacrifice a faster/easier hand position for the sake of tone .


Strangest hand position I seen is marty freidmans lol ,seems to work for him though.:)

[OOG]

i think 6TONES is right on
Metheny's right hand is also really weird and like him or not
the guy can play

from the revues of Jack's method he does touch a lot of people's
guitar playing lives and that is a great thing

[dkaplowitz]

I think of holding a pick like I think about turning a key in a lock. And the concomitant wrist motion is pretty much similar. I got that from Paul Gilbert at GIT way back in the '80s. He seemed like a pretty good guy to take alt-picking advice from.

[Lucidology]

I think of holding a pick like I think about turning a key in a lock. And the concomitant wrist motion is pretty much similar. I got that from Paul Gilbert at GIT way back in the '80s. He seemed like a pretty good guy to take alt-picking advice from.

Whoal Dave... now that's a new one ..
Uhmmmm.. going to have to give that a whirl...!!