Can't wait for your boy Marcel to see this, because he is a hardcore wrist floater. So much so that he has a short out there where he pretty much admonishes anybody who touches their wrist to the box at all. Love your channel, Andy!
I’ve been struggling with the pick getting tangled in the strings and I think part of the problem is left/right coordination. Recently I started an excercise that puts the metronome on 2and 4 and practicing chromatic scales across all strings with alternate pick strokes trying to disappear the click with the upstroke. I think it’s helping me play cleaner fiddle tunes.
One huge problem in my opinion is that most people never learn how to use rest stroke picking at a high speed (like Gypsy Jazz players or George Benson, etc). Troy Grady has a funny short called “When the loudest bluegrass plater at the jam is the gypsy”, where he picks like this but doing bluegrass licks. Now, I understand that bluegrass playing in particular is almost always Free strokes because of the string jumping required for the right hand to play all of the open string-based licks…BUT, there is an entirely separate group of muscles in the right arm and right hand that never get developed when people never learn downward slanted rest stroke picking angles. Now, I’m not saying this is necessarily wrong. A perfect example like you mentioned is Molly Tuttle, who always plays with an upward slant and seems to do just fine and I almost never hear her play a rest stroke. Her arm seems to have the anatomy to wear her wrist and elbow can stand this. But for a lot of people like myself, the muscles that connect to the back of the elbow just get too tight, no matter what if I continuously play with an upward slant. That’s why I personally always recommend people learn as many, picking styles as possible, and get all of those muscles developed, that way they can switch between them for different kinds of playing in different kinds of flicks. Most people I meet are completely stuck in one type of picking. But if you learn multiple angles and multiple styles and come fast at all of them, all of the surrounding muscles and tissue in the different areas become strong and it access sort of a buffer for when you have to do one for a longer period of time you don’t get tight as quickly and this allows you to stay loose and play fast. I guess I just have a little bit of a bone to pick with the general consensus that is preached, which is that oh just fine what works for you and your body, but that usually makes people get stuck with what they think feels is natural when in reality they’re just not getting outside the box and really trying other things and that’s why they still can’t play fast after years and years of playing. Tony Rice is a great example of a bluegrass player who had those same muscle groups developed and would change the angle of his hand and use them when needed, even though he still wasn’t slamming rapid rest strokes and 16th note triplet blasts like a gypsy jazz player…he still had all of the different picking angle muscles all developed and this is how he didn’t just play fast but also could play loud while playing fast. Most people get way softer the faster they play, because they’re getting tight and stiff.
I'm biased as a gypsy jazz player but it really is a wonderfully effective technique. I feel like learning it has improved my sound and versatility when I'm playing in other styles too.
Thanks for your interesting comments. I began playing with a Doc Watson type technique - forearm free to move, ring and pinky fingers resting on the pickguard, but free to glide over the pickguard. The idea of what might be good or not-so-good technique never crossed my mind. Then, after about four years, I came across the view that a more wrist-type action was better, rather like Dan Crary. I tried for this about five frustrating years - heel of he hand resting lightly on the bridge pins, fingers curled into the palm of the hand and not extended. It simply didn't work for me. I found it physically hard work, and it created a lot of tension in my arm muscles. I went back to my original method over a period of a year or two. I think that there are risks in trying to change once a particular method of picking is embedded. I certainly wish that I hadn't tried to do so. I agree that the Django Reinhardt way of picking is amazing - but that's a whole different approach. I accept that at age 75 I'll never be a gypsy jazzer - but I'll certainly enjoy listening to the music!
@@gam1471 Doc Watson's sounds a bit like a Renaissance lute technique almost, with the pinky touching the top. Perfectly usable! Anchoring heel to bridge pins sounds like you'd be asking for unnecessary tension. Gypsy jazz the wrist is floating - Angelo Debarre being a great example
@@oldtimetinfoilhatwearer I've often found myself wondering if the lead guitar in bluegrass fits the sound of the original style - I've been a bluegrass fan since the mid-1960s. I can't imagine Monroe's 'Bluegrass Instrumentals' LP with lead guitar, for example - but having said that, those tunes sound good when played well on guitar. Not much attention seems to get paid to the importance of backup - but it's got to be done right and is I'd say an art in itself. One things for sure - I think you've stirred up a hornet's nest here!
That might just be the coolest and smoothest rendition of East Tennessee Blues I’ve ever heard. I’m intimidated but must get into it. You make everything look easy. My approach is making easy tunes look hard.
This is awesome. I have lots of trouble with pick-pressure and will strike one string differently than I did before, this causes me to be late to the next note and it's really aggravating. I plan to work on this and thank you for your help! (PS: I've got some 65 yr old, beat up hands from time in industry but still love to play)
Hello from St. John's Newfoundland, Canada. Great playing (and teaching), Andy. I'm an intermediate player. I've been trying to learn and incorporate some bluegrass techniques to improve my overall playing but I'm not a bluegrass player (if that makes sense). Thanks for the clip.
I saw a Jake Workman clinic on picking a few weeks ago. He mentioned moving the pick back a little so part of it rests on the bone of the thumb after the joint. That's been helpful. Also, the left hand thing is so true. I take lessons with AWood, and he's grilled me on that!
and this is why I don't listen to THEM, I listen to Andy... Now I know I want to work on my left-hand right-hand coordination learning East Tennessee Blues...
Sure, the gypsy jazz guitarists do play like that. My normal audience is bluegrass musicians, and there are very few flatpickers who adopted that approach historically. There are a few who are now.
I get so many questions about the right-hand, it's crazy. I almost always come back to 'find what works for you' and practice in front of a mirror. Oh, and "I try to do what Doc does." haha. I like the simplistic approach here, Andy. Thank you!
@@mwr I get it....I mean it is important, but mostly in terms of pick strokes, right? People get pretty serious about it, I think at the sake of more important things
@@mandohatinteresting! I saw a video with Bryan Sutton years ago where he talked about having a passionate debate with Critter about this. Bryan was adamant that you needed to drag a finger as a reference point, and Chris said you should float. But I can see it being situational. Regardless, you are right up there with those guys, in technique but especially in creativity!!
![Yailin La Mas Viral, @kreizyk.official - Dale 2 (Remix) [Video Oficial]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/JaYHBzgqz94/mqdefault.jpg)
Can't wait for your boy Marcel to see this, because he is a hardcore wrist floater. So much so that he has a short out there where he pretty much admonishes anybody who touches their wrist to the box at all. Love your channel, Andy!
@@matthouston1975 we've had words in the past regarding this. He'll come around😉
I’ve been struggling with the pick getting tangled in the strings and I think part of the problem is left/right coordination. Recently I started an excercise that puts the metronome on 2and 4 and practicing chromatic scales across all strings with alternate pick strokes trying to disappear the click with the upstroke. I think it’s helping me play cleaner fiddle tunes.
One huge problem in my opinion is that most people never learn how to use rest stroke picking at a high speed (like Gypsy Jazz players or George Benson, etc). Troy Grady has a funny short called “When the loudest bluegrass plater at the jam is the gypsy”, where he picks like this but doing bluegrass licks. Now, I understand that bluegrass playing in particular is almost always Free strokes because of the string jumping required for the right hand to play all of the open string-based licks…BUT, there is an entirely separate group of muscles in the right arm and right hand that never get developed when people never learn downward slanted rest stroke picking angles. Now, I’m not saying this is necessarily wrong. A perfect example like you mentioned is Molly Tuttle, who always plays with an upward slant and seems to do just fine and I almost never hear her play a rest stroke. Her arm seems to have the anatomy to wear her wrist and elbow can stand this. But for a lot of people like myself, the muscles that connect to the back of the elbow just get too tight, no matter what if I continuously play with an upward slant. That’s why I personally always recommend people learn as many, picking styles as possible, and get all of those muscles developed, that way they can switch between them for different kinds of playing in different kinds of flicks. Most people I meet are completely stuck in one type of picking. But if you learn multiple angles and multiple styles and come fast at all of them, all of the surrounding muscles and tissue in the different areas become strong and it access sort of a buffer for when you have to do one for a longer period of time you don’t get tight as quickly and this allows you to stay loose and play fast. I guess I just have a little bit of a bone to pick with the general consensus that is preached, which is that oh just fine what works for you and your body, but that usually makes people get stuck with what they think feels is natural when in reality they’re just not getting outside the box and really trying other things and that’s why they still can’t play fast after years and years of playing. Tony Rice is a great example of a bluegrass player who had those same muscle groups developed and would change the angle of his hand and use them when needed, even though he still wasn’t slamming rapid rest strokes and 16th note triplet blasts like a gypsy jazz player…he still had all of the different picking angle muscles all developed and this is how he didn’t just play fast but also could play loud while playing fast. Most people get way softer the faster they play, because they’re getting tight and stiff.
I'm biased as a gypsy jazz player but it really is a wonderfully effective technique. I feel like learning it has improved my sound and versatility when I'm playing in other styles too.
Thanks for your interesting comments. I began playing with a Doc Watson type technique - forearm free to move, ring and pinky fingers resting on the pickguard, but free to glide over the pickguard. The idea of what might be good or not-so-good technique never crossed my mind. Then, after about four years, I came across the view that a more wrist-type action was better, rather like Dan Crary. I tried for this about five frustrating years - heel of he hand resting lightly on the bridge pins, fingers curled into the palm of the hand and not extended. It simply didn't work for me. I found it physically hard work, and it created a lot of tension in my arm muscles. I went back to my original method over a period of a year or two. I think that there are risks in trying to change once a particular method of picking is embedded. I certainly wish that I hadn't tried to do so. I agree that the Django Reinhardt way of picking is amazing - but that's a whole different approach. I accept that at age 75 I'll never be a gypsy jazzer - but I'll certainly enjoy listening to the music!
@@gam1471 Doc Watson's sounds a bit like a Renaissance lute technique almost, with the pinky touching the top. Perfectly usable! Anchoring heel to bridge pins sounds like you'd be asking for unnecessary tension. Gypsy jazz the wrist is floating - Angelo Debarre being a great example
It's pretty much not worth the effort to learn such advanced technique considering the guitar's role in bluegrass is a backup instrument
@@oldtimetinfoilhatwearer I've often found myself wondering if the lead guitar in bluegrass fits the sound of the original style - I've been a bluegrass fan since the mid-1960s.
I can't imagine Monroe's 'Bluegrass Instrumentals' LP with lead guitar, for example - but having said that, those tunes sound good when played well on guitar.
Not much attention seems to get paid to the importance of backup - but it's got to be done right and is I'd say an art in itself.
One things for sure - I think you've stirred up a hornet's nest here!
That might just be the coolest and smoothest rendition of East Tennessee Blues I’ve ever heard. I’m intimidated but must get into it. You make everything look easy. My approach is making easy tunes look hard.
You are an excellent teacher.
This is awesome. I have lots of trouble with pick-pressure and will strike one string differently than I did before, this causes me to be late to the next note and it's really aggravating. I plan to work on this and thank you for your help! (PS: I've got some 65 yr old, beat up hands from time in industry but still love to play)
Hello from St. John's Newfoundland, Canada. Great playing (and teaching), Andy. I'm an intermediate player. I've been trying to learn and incorporate some bluegrass techniques to improve my overall playing but I'm not a bluegrass player (if that makes sense). Thanks for the clip.
@@jeffreywinsor350Cheers! bluegrass is great for developing technique for anything.
That left hand sounds pretty damn good also. Great playing. Lotta work you have put in.
I saw a Jake Workman clinic on picking a few weeks ago. He mentioned moving the pick back a little so part of it rests on the bone of the thumb after the joint. That's been helpful. Also, the left hand thing is so true. I take lessons with AWood, and he's grilled me on that!
and this is why I don't listen to THEM, I listen to Andy... Now I know I want to work on my left-hand right-hand coordination learning East Tennessee Blues...
@@DavidFlorez 😂
I'm going to practice that and see what happens I will let you know if it works for me
That was brilliant.
God Bless you Brother!
Really enjoyed that Andy!
Love this. Thanks
"I don't know who the floating wrist works for".......calling Django Reinhardt..
Sure, the gypsy jazz guitarists do play like that. My normal audience is bluegrass musicians, and there are very few flatpickers who adopted that approach historically. There are a few who are now.
I get so many questions about the right-hand, it's crazy. I almost always come back to 'find what works for you' and practice in front of a mirror. Oh, and "I try to do what Doc does." haha. I like the simplistic approach here, Andy. Thank you!
@@mwr I get it....I mean it is important, but mostly in terms of pick strokes, right? People get pretty serious about it, I think at the sake of more important things
I like ETB for to play the 2. Acorns, water em, and watch em grow. Thanks Andy.
If you just hear the audio and don't see the visual, it comes off completely different.
Why not use your wrist ? This does not look right .
@@davidswanepoel9372 you can use your wrist. I found this technique works best for me.
When picking fast, wrist muscles tire faster than arm muscles.
Don't you mean right arm?
For floating right hand check out Adam Schlenker's playing. (and for top quality melodic improvisation ).
I like the exercise btw, excellent stuff.
But how do I factor in the timing of a 1.5mm vs. a 0.73mm guitar pick!?!? 😮
@@Fishandguitarpuns always more to make up
I think jake eddy floats, i could be wrong though
@@Jack22VV Jake is a terrific guitarist. He might. It's a new thing, though. In the past 60 years, all the floaters are from the past few years.
@@mandohatChris Eldridge also floats.
@@lonestarshawn he's an absolute legend. Unbelievable player
@@lonestarshawn ok, I went and looked. He's touching his pinky in the vids I'm seeing with mighty poplar.
@@mandohatinteresting! I saw a video with Bryan Sutton years ago where he talked about having a passionate debate with Critter about this. Bryan was adamant that you needed to drag a finger as a reference point, and Chris said you should float. But I can see it being situational. Regardless, you are right up there with those guys, in technique but especially in creativity!!