What are your improvised techniques?

[CowTipton]

I'll give you an example:

I suck at pick scrapes. For some reason I never quite got it right and it always sounded like a dying whale's last moments. So instead I have my own little pseudo-pick scrape technique where I push down on the d and g strings with my pick and quickly run it down about half the length of the fretboard. The sound isn't really the pick sliding over the strings, it's my hand running over the frets.

It's not the right way to do it, but I don't really care anymore. I've been doing it for years and it sounds good.

What do you you do "wrong" but works for you?

 

[jhumber]

I'm not really a DJ, but when I want the sound of a DJ scratching vinyl, it's a high-gain patch and the outstretched fingers on my right hand swiping up and down the wound strings between the pickups ;-)

 

[Jeremy_Green]

Years ago (a lot of them) when I was trying to learn Little Guitars by Van Halen I couldn't do the string skips with muting so I used my fingers AND a pick. Of course this is hybrid picking, and of course this is really the only way to play that passage but at that time I had no idea of any of that. I started using that technique for everything that was arpeggiated.

It's funny the stuff you jimmy up to solve problems but often they are very valuable techniques.

P.S. Bad pick scrapes are mostly to do with using too heavy a pick. Get a thin pick and listen to the difference.

 

[CowTipton]

P.S. Bad pick scrapes are mostly to do with using too heavy a pick. Get a thin pick and listen to the difference.

Hmm, worth a shot. Thanks!

 

[GD1977]

I can't play guitar very well, so I pretend to be into noise rock so that my ineptitude has the appearance of brilliant creativity. 'Course I'm only cheating myself… I hate noise rock, and often weep to Chet Atkins records.

 

[cram]

hybrid by accident or laziness is my thing.
It's as if I was struggling with getting something to play and my other three fingers just dip down and strike the note at times.

I love plucking behind the nut on my strat with some gain on the guitar. In this one jam we do, you can get freaky with it. I'll let it feedback and then touch it up with wah to go somewhere else with it.

wah + moderate gain + slap back + thumb rubbing on wound strings just in from the bridge = pages violin bow. (watched bonnamassa do this a long time ago)

 

[Satyrist]

I can't play guitar very well, so I pretend to be into noise rock so that my ineptitude has the appearance of brilliant creativity. 'Course I'm only cheating myself… I hate noise rock, and often weep to Chet Atkins records.

That's awesome, made my afternoon. Thanks.

As for me, It's not really wrong, but I'm a lefty playing righty, so my picking hand is actually my weaker hand. Never been able to pick with the speed, fluidity and precision I 'd like, but I have learned to compensate with legato and hybrid pick and fingers playing. Wrong? Who knows, but it works for me.

 

[acka_jacka]

For whatever reason I've always had a lot of trouble with this standard Chuck Berry pentatonic lick:

-12------------
----15p12----
-----------14b--
-------------
--------------
--------------

So generally when there are a lot of these repeating I'll sweep the first two pick strokes. I'm not sure if that's the wrong technique but I always thought it was a cheat.

 

[Heady Jam Fan]

I think the most common is picking hand technique - your hand shouldn't rest anywhere, but watch any famous guitarists video, they rest their pinky or hand on the bridge... another one is how most blues players throw their thumb over the top of the neck instead of pointing straight up.