Part 1-Introduction
If you have read my articles about practising and alternate picking (these will be available on iBreatheMusic soon), you will not be surprised that this new article again deals with picking... You might ask yourself "What else is there to talk about?" Well, there still is a lot left to discuss, believe me. The main subject of this one will be "How to hold the pick". There are dozens of different ways to do it, bunches of examples of how well-known players handle this.
Where I´m coming from...
First, I´m gonna tell you about my own experiences with that topic. When I first started playing the guitar, I didn´t initially take lessons. And I started out using a pick, a really thin one. Somehow, I developed a certain way of holding the pick: I held it with three fingers (thumb, index- and middle finger) and used the remaining two fingers for muting the strings I wasn't playing. When I switched to hybrid picking (a combination of flat- and finger-picking), I held the pick with two fingers and used the remaining three for the finger-picking.
That was the way I picked back then, and it remained that way until I attended the Musicians Institute. There, I was introduced to several other ways of holding the pick, and since I was seriously working on my alternate picking during my time there, I started to use a different way of holding the pick. It was recommended to me by many sources that the best way for fast and accurate picking is to hold the pick with thumb and index finger, "roll in" the other fingers (=close my hand) and don´t "anchor" (anchoring= spreading out one or more fingers and holding on to the edge of a pickup or know or just putting them onto the guitar when picking... many agree that this adds some stability and control)
I didnt ask myself "Is this really the best method for ME? Is there such a thing like a right or a wrong way to do this?"
Well, after I developed something I defined as "my own style" (after all, they teach you a lot at schools like the MI, and after you graduate, you should take your time to decide which part of that information you really can use and wanna keep while putting the rest onto a shelf for further study sometime later... you gotta establish something like your own style based on what you learned... that might take a while) I started to work on some concepts I was interested in...
For example, I was experimenting with arpeggios on adjacent strings (one note per string), played with alternate picking instead of sweeping. When I was working on that, I realized that, when playing that kinda stuff, my previous (older) picking technique worked way better than the new picking style I had developed.
I felt that, when holding the pick with three fingers and the pinkie anchored (the way I used to do it), I had a bit more control, and it made string skipping a bit easier to, at least for me. So, whenever I played those arps with alternate picking, I switched from one way of holding the pick to another, which was often not very effective.
In the years after that, I tried several different ways of holding the pick until I finally returned to the way I used to do it in the beginning (as seen in the picture below).
I am holding the pick with thumb, index- and middle finger while using the remaining fingers for muting. Only for things like sweep-picking I change the way I hold the pick temporarily.
Problem No.1 I had to solve was: What to do with the ring finger... it was stretched out halfway and sometimes touched strings, thereby causing unwanted noises. So I bent it, kinda "rolled it" into the palm of my hand. Now my pinkie was responsible for muting.
Part 2-What did I get out of this?
What was the net-effect of all that for me? Well, I felt way more in control when picking, which was a great feeling when playing certain licks. So, you might ask now "You mentioned problem No.1. Are there more problems than that one?"
Well, I figured out for myself that, although this way of holding the pick makes it easier (for me) to pick arpeggios on adjacent strings, it was a bit harder to play fast stuff involving many notes on only one string. The other method works a bit better for that, so you have to work a bit harder to play that kinda stuff with the way I do pick (which by the way is the way Steve Morse is holding his pick, too)
Try it, here are some licks for you to compare. Use your way of picking to play them, then try it with the way of holding the pick that I described above. Give it some time and get used to it for a few minutes, then compare it to the way you normally pick. All that is a matter of opinion and the results are pretty different for everyone, but you might find some interesting new ways of picking....
Here we do have four bars of exercises that you should try to play with the three-finger-to-hold-the-pick-way I told you about...
Those 4 exercises are very similar to typical Steve Morse-stuff:
-Measure 1 is similar to the clean arpeggio-break from the legendary "Tumeni Notes". Steve played this with alternate picking at a tempo of 208 bpm!!! I find this easier to play when holding the pick with three fingers and anchoring / muting with the pinkie.
I recorded a short etude using similar arpeggios, played with a clean sound and using constant alternate picking. It´s a bit slower than the "Tumeni Notes"-verse, so you´ll be able to hear exactly what´s going on. I used different arpeggios on the lower four strings, with one note per string, played with alternate picking (starting with a downstroke).
To listen to it, click HERE
Try coming up with something similar to that. Regardless of how you hold your pick, this is a cool exercise to improve your picking technique. Just like it is the case with the question "Should I use inside- or outside-picking" (Why not work on being able to use both?) you should practise playing arps like that with both alternate- and sweep-picking. It sounds different, and alternate picking might be a bit more difficult to be used here, but is rhythmically more precise and accurate....
-Measure 2 features an exercise similar to a lick Steve played in the Deep Purple-song "Cascades (I´m Not Your Lover)"...
-Measure 3 is similar to the intro of "User Friendly" (The Steve Morse Band, from the "Coast To Coast" Album)
and Measure 4 is some kind of a pedal-tone lick including a changing top-note and a chromatic passing note, similar to what Steve did at the end of his solo in "The Oz" ("Coast To Coast")
As I said, try your picking-technique with it, and compare it to the one I described. It´s up to you to decide which works better for you. But try it. And also try starting with a downstroke the first time, then starting with an upstroke...
Here are some short excerpts from the song "Atlanta Dawn" by the Eric Vandenberg Band. You can hear me playing a short, melodic arpeggio passage, and then some fast picking-licks. I played those holding the pick the way I described before (as seen in the pic). That way of holding it made it easier for me to execute the arpeggios and the fast chromatic lick in the middle...
Click this LINK to hear some short excerpts from "Atlanta Dawn"
Part 3-Why am I telling you all this?
Seriously: I don´t wanna change anyone´s picking technique here. I just would like to point out that it sometimes helps a lot to pay attention to small details like how you hold your pick. Try to experiment and find out yourself what is the best for YOU. Everyone thinks different about this, and I think that, if you´re not playing serious classical or flamenco-guitar, there are no rules, only guidelines for things like that.
When I teach or give a workshop, I tend to see two different attitudes by the students: Some of them need to be told everything, you have to point out what they should pay attention to, they don´t realize that there´s usually something wrong when they´re playing and it hurts or feels awkward.
The others are looking for that themselves. If something hurts or feel awkward, they look by themselves what they can change to stop that. When I ask "Why do you hold your pick that way?" or "Why do you move your elbow closer to your body when playing in that area of the neck?" they say things like "It felt easier that way, or more natural"....
And that is a good attitude, cause it´s creative and kinda independent and fresh, but also helps you to develop and find and solve problems yourself. That does not mean that you should ignore everything your teacher says. But you should also look at yourself when you play and see if you can change something... maybe it makes things easier.
Every once in a while you should analyze things like the way you hold the pick, the way you hold the guitar or move your arms when playing. Experiment and see if it gets easier once you change something, even if it seems to be a minor detail.
A friend of mine once wrote in a column for a guitar mag:" If unique players like Knopfler, Morse or Santana would have attended a school like the GIT, the Berklee or the LAMA, it would have been possible that they might have changed their unique way of playing because someone might have told them that it was "wrong" the way they did it.
Those schools can offer you a plethora of helpful advice, hints on how to improve and different ways to approach your playing. But those are no "Ten Commandments Of Playing The Guitar", but merely suggestions and guidelines.
So try different approaches. Same goes for the actual picking motion. Some players move their wrist only (Gilbert), others combine moving the wrist and their thumb (Malmsteen)... Vinnie Moore (who IMHO is one of the fastest and most precise pickers in the biz) moves his whole forearm and keeps the wrist rather stiff. That is a way of doing it that is definitely not recommended by instructional books and teachers, (it does seem to be uneconomical and even can give you problems with the muscles, joints and sinews of your arm) but Vinnie used it and made it work for him, so why should he change?
I remember an anecdote that the late, great Tommy Tedesco (R.I.P.) used to tell, i.e. in his instructional video. He used to play a gutstring-guitar quite often (by the way, in case you are not familiar with his name... you definitely have heard him play. He was most likely the most recorded session-player ever and recorded stuff like the themes of "The Pink Panther", "MASH" and "Bonanza"!)
So, one day he was invited by a group of classical guitarists (I believe it was in France, but that does not really matter here). And he was asked to play something for them. After he finished, they looked at him funny and didnt say a word. So Tommy said "What? Did I do something wrong"
Those guys pointed out some things they perceived as wrong and pointed out that Tommy played with a pick and that that was wrong. So Tommy said "So you´re telling me its wrong to do it this way ?" and he played a beautiful little melody and some fast runs with the pick.
Then he said "...and this is supposed to be right?". He put away the pick and tried to play that melody and the fast runs without the pick... it didnt work and sound as good as it did when he played WITH a pick.
What Tommy tried to say by doing that (and what I am trying to say with this whole article): If you find something that feels natural and works for you, and if you have tried some other approaches and compared them to the one you feel best with, then do it that way. As I said, rules, guidelines, books & schools can help us to find solutions to problems etc. But just like you listen to those sources, you gotta listen to yourself to and find out what works best for you.
If we all would play the same way and would follow the same rules and guidelines, there most likely would have been no unique and innovative players like Eddie Van Halen, Jimi Hendrix, Mark Knopfler, Jeff Beck, Steve Morse, Vinnie Moore, Stanley Jordan... they would have never come to our attention,
would have never been able to change and shape the sound and techniques of the electric guitar the way they did.
Think about it...
Happy Picking !
"Atlanta Dawn" written by Eric Vandenberg.
Copyrights 2002 Talking Hands Music
Copyrights 2002 Talking Hands Music