Guitar picking

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This video clip demonstrates hybrid picking.

Guitar picking is a group of hand and finger techniques a guitarist uses to set guitar strings in motion to produce audible notes. These techniques involve plucking, strumming, brushing, etc. Picking can be done with:

Contents

Using a single thumb pick with the bare fingers is similar to hybrid picking. Another mixed technique is to play different passages with a plectrum or fingerstyle, "palming" the plectrum when not in use. This however requires the use of one or more picking hand fingers, and/or can reduce dexterity in the picking hand.

Comparison of plectrum and finger picking techniques

The pros of each guitar picking style are indirectly correlated to the cons of the other.

Fingerpicking advantages

Fingerpicking guitar Al Di Meola guitar in Utrecht, Netherlands.jpg
Fingerpicking guitar

Fingerpicking players use up to four (sometimes five) surfaces, usually nails, to strike string independently. However, that does not equate to four plectrums, since plectrums can more easily strike strings on both up and downstrokes—which is much more difficult for fingers. Also, each finger can be over a different string, which greatly reduces or eliminates the need for traditional string skipping. [1]

Advantages of plectrum picking

Various guitar picks. Guitar picks-KayEss-1.jpeg
Various guitar picks.

Fingerstyle techniques

Plucking patterns

To achieve tremolo effects, varied arpeggios, and rapid, fluent scale passages, the player must practice alternation, that is, plucking strings with a different finger each time. Using p to indicate the thumb, i the index finger, m the middle finger and a the ring finger, common alternation patterns include:

In some genres, such as folk or country, the player can "lock in" to a picking pattern for the whole song, or even the whole performance, since these forms of music are based on maintaining a steady rhythm. [2] However, in other genres—such as classical, flamenco or fingerstyle jazz—it becomes necessary to switch fluently between patterns.

Tone production

Tone production is important in any style. Classical guitar, for example, stresses many diverse techniques that are applicable to other styles. Tonal techniques include, (but in no way are limited to a set number of variations) imagination & personal skills + how much practice put in to learning, then adding more adaptive personality into your guitar playing making it really limitless when it comes to musical expression, in styles like Djent, Jazz-Fusion and Hybrid-Metal forms allowing greater precision in controlling your personal tone creations.

Playing parameters include

Strums

Some of the many possible fingerstyle strums include

Varieties of fingerstyle

Plectrum techniques

Guitarists resolve the problem of playing notes on non adjacent string by practicing string skipping. To achieve speed, plectrum pickers methods of mixing up and down strokes.

Lead

Flatpicking

Playing guitar with pick.jpg

Flatpicking is a technique for playing a guitar using a guitar pick (plectrum) held between two or three fingers to strike the strings. The term flatpicking occurs with other instruments, but is probably best known in the context of playing an acoustic guitar with steel strings—particularly in bluegrass music and old-time country music. Probably starting around 1930, flatpicking developed when guitarists began arranging old-time American fiddle tunes on the guitar, expanding the instrument's traditional role of rhythm guitar accompaniment with an occasional single-note melodic run.

The melodic style in bluegrass is often fast and dynamic, with slides, hammer-ons, pull-offs, powerful strumming and rapid crosspicking. Bluegrass flatpickers usually prefer guitars with a flat top rather than an arch top, and steel strings rather than nylon. The archetypal flatpicking guitar is the 'Dreadnought' series made by C.F. Martin & Company.

Alternate picking

Alternate picking is a guitar playing technique that employs strictly alternating downward and upward picking strokes in a continuous run, and is the most common method of plectrum playing. Picking in this way balances the distribution of your movement and energy, minimizing any unnecessary motion while optimizing your control. It also enhances both speed and precision when playing melodies, solos, or intricate patterns on any stringed instrument, regardless of whether it's an electric guitar, an acoustic guitar, or another type. Moreover, it contributes to improved clarity and articulation by aiding in the separation of notes, preventing a muddled or blended sound. [4] If this technique is performed on a single note at a high speed, then it may also be referred to as tremolo picking.

Sweep picking

Sweep picking involves a continuous "sweep" with the pick across two or more strings (using down-strokes when moving down, and up-strokes when moving up), and is commonly associated with playing arpeggios. To produce a series of distinct notes requires that each note be fretted individually with the fretting hand, rather than held together as a chord.

Economy picking

Frank Gambale is noted for economy picking Frank Gambale in Montreal.jpg
Frank Gambale is noted for economy picking

A combination of sweep picking and alternate picking, economy picking involves using alternate picking except when changing strings. In this case the guitarist changes to sweep picking, picking in the direction of travel: an upstroke if changing to a lower (pitch) string, a downstroke if changing to a higher (pitch) string.

Gypsy picking

The picking technique of gypsy jazz has been described as similar to economy picking when changing from lower to higher strings, but performed with rest strokes. When changing from higher to lower strings, a down stroke is used instead of a sweep or economy stroke. For instance, on switching from the G to the B string, the plectrum moves in the same direction and comes to rest on the E string—though while switching from the B to G strings both strokes would be downward reststrokes. All down strokes are rest strokes, while all up strokes are free strokes. In general while playing consecutive notes on the same string if the tempo is slow enough all down strokes may be employed. If the tempo is faster alternate picking is generally used, though often consecutive downstrokes are used to emphasize certain notes, particularly in the end of phrases, or to prepared the pick for an easier string change. This technique has become associated with Django Reinhardt in the 1930s, but was also employed by plectrum banjo players, mandolinists and many pre-electric jazz guitarists seeking a strong, projecting acoustic sound on their instruments.

Rhythm

La Pompe

La Pompe is the rhythmic pattern used in gypsy jazz. This form of percussive rhythm is similar to the "boom-chick" in stride piano. The first beat is a staccato chord, emphasizing the lower strings with a more "bassy" sound, produced by a down stroke; the fretting hand immediately afterward releases the strings slightly to deaden them. The next beat is a percussive strum, produced by a down stroke, that emphasizes a more "trebly" sound by engaging a fuller range of the strings. Various artists prefer different levels of staccato on beats 1 and 3, and beats 2 and 4, but in general both beats are short, but still voiced to some degree. The pattern then repeats, but before every first and third beat, an upstroke is performed very quickly (typically with the strings still deadened), giving the music its heavy swing feel.

Other techniques

Anchoring

Anchoring is a practice in both fingerstyle and plectrum where part of the picking hand, usually the little finger, or "pinky," touches the guitar body. Although anchoring is common, many guitar teachers advise against it as it limits flexible hand movement. The contrary approach is known as "floating."

Hybrid picking

Hybrid picking is mixture of plectrum picking and finger picking. Normally the player holds the pick with thumb and index finger, picking the string, and utilizing the middle and ring finger to finger pick adjacent strings. In the context of styles of music from the American South, such as country music, bluegrass, and rockabilly, it is often called "chicken pickin'."

Hammer-on and pull-off

Hammer-on is a stringed instrument playing technique performed (especially on fretted string instruments such as guitar) by sharply bringing a fretting-hand finger down on the fingerboard behind a fret, causing a note to sound. This technique is the opposite of the pull-off. Traditionally, this technique is supplemental to conventional picking, being used to achieve legato and ornamentation effects. This is connected to the fact that hammering imparts less energy to a string, so that hammered notes are less audible. With electric instruments, it becomes possible to use these techniques much more extensively.

Guitar played with a mallet Pumarosa at Rough Trade East (34079119603).jpg
Guitar played with a mallet

Tapping

Tapping is a guitar playing technique, where a string is fretted and set into vibration as part of a single motion of being pushed onto the fretboard, as opposed to the standard technique being fretted with one hand and picked with the other. It is similar to the technique of hammer-ons and pull-offs, but used in an extended way compared to them: hammer-ons would be performed by only the fretting hand, and in conjunction with conventionally picked notes; whereas tapping passages involve both hands and consist of only tapped, hammered and pulled notes. Tapping is used exclusively by some players (such as Stanley Jordan) and on some instruments, such as the Chapman Stick.

Techniques with other objects

Strings can also be played with bows, mallets, drum sticks, funk fingers or electric devices such as an Ebow or a Gizmotron.

Related Research Articles

The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, in modern forms usually made of plastic, originally of animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashioned by African Americans and had African antecedents. In the 19th century, interest in the instrument was spread across the United States and United Kingdom by traveling shows of the 19th-century minstrel show fad, followed by mass-production and mail-order sales, including instruction method books. The inexpensive or home-made banjo remained part of rural folk culture, but 5-string and 4-string banjos also became popular for home parlor music entertainment, college music clubs, and early 20th century jazz bands. By the early 21st century, the banjo was most frequently associated with folk, bluegrass and country music, but was also used in some rock, pop and even hip-hop music. Among rock bands, the Eagles, Led Zeppelin, and the Grateful Dead have used the five-string banjo in some of their songs. Some famous pickers of the banjo are Ralph Stanley and Earl Scruggs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Classical guitar</span> Member of the guitar family used in classical music

The classical guitar, also known as Spanish guitar, is a member of the guitar family used in classical music and other styles. An acoustic wooden string instrument with strings made of gut or nylon, it is a precursor of the modern steel-string acoustic and electric guitars, both of which use metal strings. Classical guitars derive from instruments such as the lute, the vihuela, the gittern, which evolved into the Renaissance guitar and into the 17th and 18th-century baroque guitar. Today's modern classical guitar was established by the late designs of the 19th-century Spanish luthier, Antonio Torres Jurado.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Guitar</span> Fretted string instrument

The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted and typically has six or twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strings against frets with the fingers of the opposite hand. A guitar pick may also be used to strike the strings. The sound of the guitar is projected either acoustically, by means of a resonant hollow chamber on the guitar, or amplified by an electronic pickup and an amplifier.

In music, tremolo, or tremolando, is a trembling effect. There are multiple types of tremolo: a rapid repetition of a note, an alternation between two different notes, or a variation in volume.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Plectrum</span> Tool used to play stringed instruments

A plectrum is a small flat tool used for plucking or strumming of a stringed instrument. For hand-held instruments such as guitars and mandolins, the plectrum is often called a pick and is held as a separate tool in the player's hand. In harpsichords, the plectra are attached to the jack mechanism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Slapping (music)</span> Musical technique

Slapping and popping are ways to produce percussive sounds on a stringed instrument. They are primarily used on the double bass or bass guitar. Slapping on bass guitar involves using the edge of one's knuckle, where it is particularly bony, to quickly strike the string against the fretboard. On bass guitars, this is commonly done with the thumb, while on double bass, the edge of the hand or index finger may be used. Popping refers to pulling the string away from the fretboard and quickly releasing it so it snaps back against the fretboard. On bass guitar, the two techniques are commonly used together in alternation, though either may be used separately.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clawhammer</span> Banjo playing style

Clawhammer, sometimes called down-picking, overhand, or most commonly known as frailing, is a distinctive banjo playing style and a common component of American old-time music.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Guitar pick</span> Small device used in playing guitar

A guitar pick is a plectrum used for guitars. Picks are generally made of one uniform material, such as some kind of plastic, rubber, felt, tortoiseshell, wood, metal, glass, tagua, thermosetting plastic or stone. They are often shaped in an acute isosceles triangle with the two equal corners rounded and the third corner less rounded. They are used to strum chords or to sound individual notes on a guitar.

Lead guitar is a musical part for a guitar in which the guitarist plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs and chords within a song structure. The lead is the featured guitar, which usually plays single-note-based lines or double-stops. In rock, heavy metal, blues, jazz, punk, fusion, some pop, and other music styles, lead guitar lines are often supported by a second guitarist who plays rhythm guitar, which consists of accompaniment chords and riffs.

Rasgueado is a guitar finger strumming technique commonly associated with flamenco guitar music. It is also used in classical and other fingerstyle guitar picking techniques. The rasgueado is executed using the fingers of the strumming hand in rhythmically precise, and often rapid, strumming patterns. The important characteristic of this strumming style is the fingernail (outer) side of the finger tips is also used, and in such case, in reverse of the way it is done when the fleshy side of the finger tips is used, namely downward and upward (thumb).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fingerstyle guitar</span> Playing technique

Fingerstyle guitar is the technique of playing the guitar or bass guitar by plucking the strings directly with the fingertips, fingernails, or picks attached to fingers, as opposed to flatpicking. The term "fingerstyle" is something of a misnomer, since it is present in several different genres and styles of music—but mostly, because it involves a completely different technique, not just a "style" of playing, especially for the guitarist's picking/plucking hand. The term is often used synonymously with fingerpicking except in classical guitar circles, although fingerpicking can also refer to a specific tradition of folk, blues and country guitar playing in the US. The terms "fingerstyle" and "fingerpicking" are also applied to similar string instruments such as the banjo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mezrab (plectrum)</span> Plectrum or wooden hammer for various Iranian or Indian string instruments

A mezrāb or mizrab, also known as a zakhmeh or is a plectrum which is used for several Iranian and Indian string instruments.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Strum</span>

In music, strumming is a way of playing a stringed instrument such as a guitar, ukulele, or mandolin. A strum or stroke is a sweeping action where a finger or plectrum brushes over several strings to generate sound. On most stringed instruments, strums are typically executed by a musician's designated strum hand, while the remaining hand often supports the strum hand by altering the tones and pitches of any given strum.

Downpicking, sometimes referred to as down-stroke picking, is a technique used by musicians on plucked string instruments in which the player moves the plectrum, or pick in a downward motion, relative to the position of the instrument, against one or more of the strings to make them vibrate. If down-strokes are played without the addition of upstrokes, the tip of the pick never comes in contact with the strings as the hand moves back up to repeat the down-stroke.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Outline of guitars</span> Overview of and topical guide to guitars

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to guitars:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hybrid picking</span> Guitar-playing technique

Hybrid picking is a guitar-playing technique that involves picking with a pick (plectrum) and one or more fingers alternately or simultaneously. Hybrid picking allows guitar players who use a pick to perform music which would normally require fingerstyle playing. It also facilitates wide string leaps which might otherwise be quite difficult. The technique is not widespread in most genres of guitar playing, but is most often employed in "chicken pickin'"; rockabilly, country, honky-tonk, and bluegrass flatpicking styles who play music which occasionally demands fingerstyle passages.

Hybrid picking involves playing with the pick and the right hand m and/or a fingers...at the same time. The pick is held in the usual way...and the fingers execute free strokes in the typical fingerstyle manner...Hybrid picking allows fingerstyle-like passages to be freely interspersed with flatpicked passages...without any delay.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Flatpicking</span> Playing technique on the guitar

Flatpicking is the technique of striking the strings of a guitar with a pick held between the thumb and one or two fingers. It can be contrasted to fingerstyle guitar, which is playing with individual fingers, with or without wearing fingerpicks. While the use of a plectrum is common in many musical traditions, the exact term "flatpicking" is most commonly associated with Appalachian music of the American southeastern highlands, especially bluegrass music, where string bands often feature musicians playing a variety of styles, both fingerpicking and flatpicking. Musicians who use a flat pick in other genres such as rock and jazz are not commonly described as flatpickers or even plectrum guitarists. As the use of a pick in those traditions is commonplace, generally only guitarists who play without a pick are noted by the term "fingerpicking" or "fingerstyle".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Classical guitar technique</span>

In classical guitar, the right hand is developed in such a way that it can sustain two, three, and four voice harmonies while also paying special attention to tone production. The index (i), middle (m), and ring (a) fingers are generally used to play the melody, while the thumb (p) accompanies in the bass register adding harmony and produces a comparable texture and effect to that of the piano. The classical guitar is a solo polyphonic instrument.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Flamenco guitar</span> Acoustic guitar used in Flamenco music

A flamenco guitar is a guitar similar to a classical guitar, but with lower action, thinner tops and less internal bracing. It usually has nylon strings, like the classical guitar, but it generally possesses a livelier, more gritty sound compared to the classical guitar. It is used in toque, the guitar-playing part of the art of flamenco.

An acoustic guitar is a musical instrument in the string family. When a string is plucked, its vibration is transmitted from the bridge, resonating throughout the top of the guitar. It is also transmitted to the side and back of the instrument, resonating through the air in the body, and producing sound from the sound hole. While the original, general term for this stringed instrument is guitar, the retronym 'acoustic guitar' – often used to indicate the steel stringed model – distinguishes it from an electric guitar, which relies on electronic amplification. Typically, a guitar's body is a sound box, of which the top side serves as a sound board that enhances the vibration sounds of the strings. In standard tuning the guitar's six strings are tuned (low to high) E2 A2 D3 G3 B3 E4.

References

  1. Daniel E. Smith, Dansm's Fingerpicking Songs, 5-24-99, https://web.archive.org/web/20091025040249/http://geocities.com/mike_mccracker/picking/song6.htm
  2. Traum, Happy (1974). Fingerpicking Styles For Guitar. Oak Publications. ISBN   0-8256-0005-7.
  3. Tennant, Scott (1996). Pumping Nylon. Alfred pub. co. ISBN   978-0-88284-721-4.
  4. "Guitar Picking Techniques". Deviant Noise. 2022-10-08. Retrieved 2023-06-19.