Picking every single note

[Telewanger]

After years of playing, I am picking every single note now. I am only half as fast, or maybe less, than I used to be. Like a lot of guys, I did a lot of hammer-ons and pull-offs for a long time. I have been picking every note for two or three weeks now, to a metronome. It is amazing how much more fun it is, how clear the attack is, and the tone sounds so much better when every note is picked. It is just like starting the guitar all over, but I am not going back to my cheating ways. This time I am going to stick with it. I can already tell an improvement in my picking speed and tone. I should have done this years ago. It just seems like it will take me a very long time to get up to my previous, hammer-on pull-off, speed, maybe months or years. Maybe Never?

[sunvalleylaw]

I have been doing this with the bluegrass fiddle tunes that are a part of our acoustic jams I have been included in lately. Great right hand work, great for the timing of my left hand, and great for my timing as I force myself to play to metronome or tapping foot etc. I still love my hammer ons and pull offs, because I like the sound. But I am just a semi-beginner hack discovering different ways to make noise with these guitar things. But anyway, I sure enjoy the skills being developed when I pick every note.

[Telewanger]

After watching guys like Eric Johnson, Brent Mason, Steve Morse, Johnny Hiland, etc., I feel like I am a fake. They are picking most of the notes and I am blowing through it with way too many hammer-ons and pull-offs, because I have depending on the Legato too much. I can play some of their solos, but not picking most of the notes like they do it. This is why I feel like I am cheating. I think it is a bad habit that I need to quit.

I might stick firm to straight picking for 1 year using a metronome every day. Then I can mix my chicken picking, straight picking, hammer-ons and pull-offs together. I will record some videos on how I pick now, and in about a year from now, I will check them out to see and hear the difference in technique and tone.

[Algonquin]

I think picking every note is a great exercise in develpoping speed and accuracy, but I'm not sure I would call hammering and pull offs as cheating. If speed is the only consideration... maybe, but I like the tonal differences these techniques add. It does sound like a great plan for improving your playing. I think I kow what you mean though, as I rely far too much on flat picking, and haven't developed any finger picking skills. That's something I know I need to work on, and that could take years as well.

Good luck on your improvement plans! :applause

[Commodore 64]

I wouldn't consider it cheating. Think of it as developing your legato. You've got that developed pretty well, so now you are looking to add clean picking to your repertoire.

By the way. What is "chicken picking"? I see the term used all the time.

[hubberjub]

There is nothing wrong with mixing picking and legato. That mix lends itself to more interesting phrasing. That, not speed, makes a great guitarist.

[Algonquin]

As I read this over again, I think I understand better what you're going after TeleW. It's a certain vibe and feel, and the hammer on, pull off techique isn't delivering the results you want. I don't think you can ever go wrong experimenting and trying new things to improve your playing, and your enjoyment factor!

Go man go!... twang that thang! :AOK

[Robert]

Funny, I find it's the complete opposite. The less I pick notes, the better it sounds, and the more fluid my playing is.

Whichever technique chosen might be depending on the music being played too, as a side note.

[Telewanger]

I wouldn't consider it cheating. Think of it as developing your legato. You've got that developed pretty well, so now you are looking to add clean picking to your repertoire.

By the way. What is "chicken picking"? I see the term used all the time.

Here is some of my Chicken Picking. It sort of clucks like a chicken, I guess.

Check out Wang Dang Twang or Moodswing on my soundclick page below.

I recorded all of this stuff in my bedroom by myself, so it's not the greatest, but not bad.

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandid=874486

[Retro Hound]

That's so funny, I can't seem to hammer or pull and make it work, so I pick everything.

[sunvalleylaw]

I was thinking about this. For me, it depends on what the song requires. I lot of songs I play (covers) sound better with hammer ons, pull offs, and sliding into notes, and that is how the original artist played them. (Neil Young, Mayer, Santana, etc.) So those, I try to nail it so I can sound like the artist. (the old piano player in me likes to play it like it was written too.)

I know I want to develop my own sound, but nailing it like the original recording helps me develop technique. Learn to do it the original way, then choose to vary once I can. Same with the picking though. The band I was in with other guitar students a year or so ago covered "Sultans of Swing". I, and another guitarist, took turns on solos and fills. I could not do anything but try to get the feel, and did rely a lot on hammer ons and pull offs. That is not at all what Knopfler does, as he picks it all (and with his fingers). It would be fun to learn to do it like Knopfler.

Also, the fiddle tunes are meant to be picked only in their purest form, with downstrokes on downbeats and upstrokes on up beats. It has been a great discipline for me to learn to do that, and slowly increase my speed. Now I can play with the others in my jam and actually keep up most of the time. Some of the others go ahead and vary from pure picking for expression, and I will try some of that. But for now, I am enjoying what the picking is doing for my technique in those songs.

So, I guess, doing whatever works is good for me!

[Unknown Fan]

I dig that Wang Dang Twang...

[Telewanger]

Thanks Guys for your great suggestions and comments.

Here is a little video that I recorded today.

It is a mixture of straight picking and Hammer-ons and pull-offs. I really need to work on my alternate picking. My right hand just can't keep up with the left.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_98MS9IpDZc

[street music]

I have been doing this with the bluegrass fiddle tunes that are a part of our acoustic jams I have been included in lately. Great right hand work, great for the timing of my left hand, and great for my timing as I force myself to play to metronome or tapping foot etc. I still love my hammer ons and pull offs, because I like the sound. But I am just a semi-beginner hack discovering different ways to make noise with these guitar things. But anyway, I sure enjoy the skills being developed when I pick every note.

This is just what I'm doing for our Front Porch Pickin practice but it is still very much a learning process for me.

[@nthony]

Thanks Guys for your great suggestions and comments.

Here is a little video that I recorded today.

It is a mixture of straight picking and Hammer-ons and pull-offs. I really need to work on my alternate picking. My right hand just can't keep up with the left.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_98MS9IpDZc


I hear most guitarist have a right hand difficiency.

I am working on my picking at the moment too. Strictly, alternative picking from the wrist, not the thumb and finger.

1) I start by going up and down the C Major scale starting a the 8th fret position. Straight, then in triplets 2 notes up the scale 1 note back down
2) then in quadruplets (is that how you say it?) 3 notes up 1 note down.
3) Then I go down the scales in the same manner.
4) Then finally I try to work out a mode of the major scale from the forumlae and do the same in triplets and quadruplets(no scale books)

In just a week my speed has increased no end. And I'm a much better flat-picker now.

[kiteman]

I've thought I'd pick too much. I've used HOs & POs but I felt I was using them wrong. After playing so long I've found that picking is akin to singing and the HOs & POs are vibratoes. Same with bending. It all comes from you.

You can't be taught it, you have to feel it. :dude

[deeaa]

After years of playing, I am picking every single note now. I am only half as fast, or maybe less, than I used to be. Like a lot of guys, I did a lot of hammer-ons and pull-offs for a long time. I have been picking every note for two or three weeks now, to a metronome. It is amazing how much more fun it is, how clear the attack is, and the tone sounds so much better when every note is picked. It is just like starting the guitar all over, but I am not going back to my cheating ways. This time I am going to stick with it. I can already tell an improvement in my picking speed and tone. I should have done this years ago. It just seems like it will take me a very long time to get up to my previous, hammer-on pull-off, speed, maybe months or years. Maybe Never?

Thats interesting, im the opposite. A while back I started pondering about why are some leads of some of my fave players so fluid andeffortless sounding and I realized I should pick notes a lot less...like the song Chemical I posted a while back, I pick 3 notes first and then the next dozen are almost all sounded just by pull-offs, slides and hammer-ons only for a good stretch. itz pretty hard to play like that but i sure like the way its so fluid and natural sounding. My aim is to play a solo without a single pick now :-)

[hubberjub]

Listen to horn players. When they solo they are using a mixtures of accentuated notes and slurs. That makes for interesting solos.

[Plank_Spanker]

Funny, I find it's the complete opposite. The less I pick notes, the better it sounds, and the more fluid my playing is.

Whichever technique chosen might be depending on the music being played too, as a side note.

Agreed....................my instructor is working with me to wean me off of playing every single note.....................it's more fluid. :dude

[sumitomo]

I am so glad to hear that others thinks less is more,I feel like I always trying to over fill the cup.Sumi:D

[wingsdad]

Listen to horn players. When they solo they are using a mixtures of accentuated notes and slurs. That makes for interesting solos.


There is nothing wrong with mixing picking and legato. That mix lends itself to more interesting phrasing. That, not speed, makes a great guitarist.

Picking every note has it's place & purpose as just one of the facets of picking hand technique, but by itself, as the sole technique, excluding other forms of attack, it's a fine technique for rendering lifeless, cold, mechanical expression and, in spewing a barrage of knee-buckiling, mind-numbing impressive shred speed, for displaying how well-developed one's right wrist has gotten from years of tactical self gratification.

It takes two hands, and this is how I heard it from one mentor, a phrase I remind those I may share stuff with or teach, assuming they're a righty player; lefties need only reverse it:

"The left hand is the crafstman; the right hand is the artist."