Picking technique

[Motherofpearl]

Trying to learn how to use a pick and three fingers at the same time it's a bit frustrating any tips?

[jedzep]

Reincarnation?

[Motherofpearl]

Haha ya seems about right lol

[Murph]

Mirrors....

 

<_<

[ParlourMan]

Persistence mate, nothing else comes close. Start with achievable goals, nothing too mental to start with, the small tastes of victory will drive you to better and bigger goals. That and a few years of playing time.

[EuroAussie]

Divorce, quit your job, have no social life ..... and practice 17 hours a day. Thats just a start...

[E-minor7]

Presume you are talkin' thumb-pick as you mention three fingers. Correct if wrong.

I experiment a bit with ordinary pick combined with occationally next to littlefinger hits.

Fascinating territory, , , and pretty hard.

 

Brick by brick by brick, , , then suddenly something that could turn out to be Rome.

[duluthdan]

Sat 6 feet away from David Crosby at a songwriting clinic he gave. It can be done, apparently.

[Motherofpearl]

So it's a little late in the game now I guess

[E-minor7]

Sat 6 feet away from David Crosby at a songwriting clinic he gave. It can be done, apparently.

Ouuhh, tell us more - huge, in fact life-size, Croz fan here. . .

[MissouriPicker]

Are you talking about a thumbpick or a plectrum (pick)? I use both. For years I'd use a thumbpick for fingerpicking, but over the last several years I've become pretty adept at using a regular guitar pick for whatever notes I want and my fingers for others or visa/versa. Aside from fingerpicking books, etc, which can definitly give you some good fundamentals, the rest is doing-what-comes-natural. Once your fingers know where they are you'll be picking notes on beats, frets that are not a technique you got from a book. It will be YOUR technique that you developed as you played your favorite songs over the years. You'll use that techinique on other songs, but find you need to adjust it to get exactly the sound you want. I've never taken formal lessons, but over the years I've developed my own style and had others ask me how I do that, because it's not in any "given" book. Perhaps a combination of two dozen books and 40-years of doing the music I'm comfortable with. It's not complicated, but it takes some time. Meanwhile, once you've established the basics of "your" style, you'll have a blast and you'll keep improving on it. Good thread.

[Motherofpearl]

Not talking thumb pick I'm talking about a plectrum. Brad paisley plays this way though I'm not a huge fan of his music he's a great guitar player. Just feels awkward when I practice because your hand is so close

[Rambler]

Brad paisley plays this way

Its from banjo and dobro players. Usw done with the pick and 2 fingers, which lets you do rolls and such. It goes back to Mr James Burton (guitar man for Ricky, Elvis and Miz Emmy, to name a few). A notable devotee is Richard Thompson. Lessons? Arlen Roth.

[retrorod]

So it's a little late in the game now I guess

 

Perhaps if you had started at age 5.....and the rest of the previously-mentioned ideas!

[milod]

I don't play that way, but it's quite similar to a thumb and two/three fingerpicking thing to train for. A buddy played that way in a country band and it appears Roger McGuinn tends to play with that form.

 

What I'd recommend is picking a bass string with the plectrum while doing an upward stroke with at least the ring and middle fingers. When teaching fingerpicking, I've referred to this as a "clamp" motion, although with a plectrum it's almost more of a twisting of the hand which brings a plectrum downstroke while creating a finger upstroke. Then one might alternate just a bass note with the plectrum and then the clamping motion.

 

That's just a start that can make such a hand motion start to feel more natural. Then one might start to figure how to play something quite simple like the old folkie "Freight Train" using that sort of motion. And then arpeggios...

 

I've practiced using my pinkie - cowardice since in one of my lives I was concerned about losing flexibility in my fingers - but it's not all that easy.

 

Most folks I've known who played in this style used steel fingerpicks.

 

m

[duluthdan]

Ouuhh, tell us more - huge, in fact life-size, Croz fan here. . .

Was summer of 2008, perhaps 2007. The Aspen Writers Foundation hosted a whole slew of writers that summer, and Crosby was one of them. He spoke for two hours about rehab, Judy Collins , and song-writing. He played 2 songs. DejaVu and Gunnivere. Both in open tunings, and both done on a twelve string D-28. He made that guitar sound like a whole orchestra - he used a regular pick and 2 fingers. I realized at that moment, two things. 1.)I would never play in open tunings and 2.) I would never be able to even dream of being able to use his pick and 2 fingers technique, oh and 3.) I may never come close to writing like he did. He appeared to be aging rapidly, wispy white hair, but still had a twinkle in his eye. Was a fun front row experience.

[E-minor7]

Was summer of 2008, perhaps 2007. The Aspen Writers Foundation hosted a whole slew of writers that summer, and Crosby was one of them. He spoke for two hours about rehab, Judy Collins , and song-writing. He played 2 songs. DejaVu and Gunnivere. Both in open tunings, and both done on a twelve string D-28. He made that guitar sound like a whole orchestra - he used a regular pick and 2 fingers. I realized at that moment, two things. 1.)I would never play in open tunings and 2.) I would never be able to even dream of being able to use his pick and 2 fingers technique, oh and 3.) I may never come close to writing like he did. He appeared to be aging rapidly, wispy white hair, but still had a twinkle in his eye. Was a fun front row experience.

Sounds great –

I shook hands with him after a concert as a young man, saying : Magnificent show oll boy. Remember him smiling with both eyes like halfmoons.

 

Saw him several times since f.x. in a very small venue where I played a few times myself. It was with the CPR band and there were almost no people in the hall. The music rose like mountains anyway.

Luckily he's still alive and still very sharp musically. Attended a venue with Nash in 2011 and they were top-tuned – and relevant.

 

Your experience must have been something third – we know he's a 12-string guy, but a D-28 solo – Wow.

What I really dig about mister Croz is his uncompromising urge to dive into unknown terrain, , , and actually come back with jewels.

He covered ground very few was able to find and stayed out there in the border-zone his entire life.

 

"I write the weird stuff", as he said under a CS&N performance. Yes maybe, but almost always with big value to it.

[MissouriPicker]

I use these quite-a-bit. Once you get used to them, they work very well. For one thing, you eliminate the chance of dropping the pick. Second, and maybe most important, if you're not playing as well as you want with the plectrum, you can go right into straight fingerpicking. http://www.jimdunlop.com/product/herco-flatthumbpicks

[Tman]

Persistence mate, nothing else comes close. Start with achievable goals, nothing too mental to start with, the small tastes of victory will drive you to better and bigger goals. That and a few years of playing time.

 

[Rambler]

He made that guitar sound like a whole orchestra - I realized at that moment, 1.) I would never play in open tunings

. Why, DD? OTs can be learned. THink, 'yes I can!'

[E-minor7]

. Why, DD? OTs can be learned. THink, 'yes I can!'

Speaking of Crosby, he once released a solo-album with the titel, Oh Yes I Can (the second). Now one might think that was the spirit which actually got him somewhere in the beginning.

 

Rather it was an answer to his first magnificent album made almost 2 decades earlier. That record was called If I Could Only Rember My name.

[Gruffchris]

That sounds like a hard thing to do, I think as MissouriPicker has recommended it's gotta be better/easier to use a thumb pick, because then your index finger is free to pluck.

 

Anyway good luck :).

[Rambler]

That sounds like a hard thing to do

but think about the rewards. All it takes is that first step, and the reps.

 

"I believe in starts. Once you have a start the rest will follow" Joey 'The Lip' Fagin to Jimmy Rabbitte

[ParlourMan]

but think about the rewards. All it takes is that first step, and the reps.

 

"I believe in starts. Once you have a start the rest will follow" Joey 'The Lip' Fagin to Jimmy Rabbitte

 

Very charicaturesque film, but I thoroughly enjoyed it at the time..... some great lines in it. Especially the horse in a lift because 'the stairs will kill him'

[jt]

Its from banjo and dobro players. Usw done with the pick and 2 fingers, which lets you do rolls and such. It goes back to Mr James Burton (guitar man for Ricky, Elvis and Miz Emmy, to name a few).

 

Yes, the one and only James Burton is the original and current master of this technique.

 

When co-hosting the unveiling of Buddy Holly's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame a couple of years back, I flew James out for that evening's concert and also took him to the Hollywood Guitar Center:

 

 

While there, James demonstrated the technique for me by picking Merle Travis's "Cannonball Rag." Such a versatile technique. But, I decided that this dog is too old to learn new tricks and I've stuck with my thumbpick.

 

BTW, we were there to pick out a guitar that I later presented to Phil Everly (pictured here with Buddy's widow, Maria Elena Holly):