Why Pick Hard?

[chris ivey]

hard is always better than soft.

[Barry Blackwood]

Clete Ritta wrote:

You can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose,

...but you can't rub your friends on the couch.

[Eric West]

Mr Detamore.

That "still being able to hear his voice" goes on and on.

You've made much more of yourself than I have in so many ways, but you brought me back thirty years just now.

I can still see that "kindly worried look" when he'd put his bar down, and cock his head to the side as if he couldn't understand why I'd do something "wrong"...

More than once he'd break into a smile, and grab a drag off one of his "More"s and say, "Ok lets try that again".

To me he'll always be looking at me with that cocked headed "kindly worried look."

I just moved my Marrs SB into the basement for an off season for construction and a bunch of steady gigs to spend more time than usual practicing.

His image and those memories have stuck with me longer than nearly any of the thousands of gigs I fed myself with since his attempt to "teach me something"...

Quite a man.



EJL

[Bob Hoffnar]

I spent quite a bit of time with Charleton going over my picking. Along with picking hard he showed me how to get as much pick on the string as possible to get a full sound. I'm going to see him again in a couple months. Here is a picture from a couple years ago.

[Michael Douchette]

I'll say this one last thing, for me... this has been a terrific thread, with lots of info... but I caught myself all day yesterday actually thinking about things that have been automatic for 30 years... and it really loused me up while I was playing. Methinks we think too much. I'm putting this one behind me, folks...

[Barry Hyman]

It has been a terrific thread, and yesterday I practiced for hours, thinking the whole time about picking harder. Turns out I already do snap them pretty lustfully most of the time. And yesterday I had a guitar students who needed to be told to pick her 6-string harder!

Teenage boys who play electric guitar with flatpicks do often pick too hard, as I said when I started this thread, and the result is the hideous detuned attack of garage band infamy. But the strings on a pedal steel are more taut, less prone to detuned attack, and the volume pedal can be used for dynamics, so I guess that I have learned something. Thanks guys!

[Alan Miller]

I find it extremely difficult, when subjective matters like this come up, to be absolute in any way. There is a time for every "arrow in your quiver." Whether it's a picking technique, or a bar technique, or a volume pedal technique, and on and on, it is strictly a matter of personal taste what you as an individual decide to use in a given situation. If we all used exactly the same device available to us at all times, it would be a very boring world. The only thing I will add to this discussion is to always experiment, and learn. Listen, and keep your heart open to the things that move you, and the things that don't. Then, you will find an open path before you that can take you anywhere, and everywhere.

Michael Douchette must be correct here, Playing any musical instrument is not an exact science its like art... it comes from the emotions of the human being, how you feel , how it moves you. Some people are not as sensitive to emotion and so will not play with the same feeling....but I would take a guess that most people playing John Hugheys " Look at us " would not try to tear the strings off the guitar.

[Mark Durante]

Interesting thread, as far as picking angle goes, is it best to pick straight on from the side of the string, angle the pick somewhat, or pick from under the string slightly upward or downward onto the string?

[Jana Lockaby]

Interesting thread, as far as picking angle goes, is it best to pick straight on from the side of the string, angle the pick somewhat, or pick from under the string slightly upward or downward onto the string?

Maybe I'm asking the same thing, but for clarification: pick, pulling back towards your body, and not up towards the ceiling, say?

[Barry Hyman]

When you get your pick underneath a string and pull it upwards (towards the ceiling, away from the neck of the psg) before you release it off the end of the pick, it changes both the tone and the volume of the note. The plane the string is vibrating in relative to the position of the pickup matters a lot.

When you pull a string up before releasing it, the vibration pattern moves closer to the pickup and then further away from it, and will get a little more volume and bass response.

When you push the strings away from you, or pull them towards you, and make them vibrate parallel to the top of the guitar without them moving closer to the pickup, you get slightly less bass and less volume.

[Michael Douchette]

Found this video, and had to add it; perfect example of what I meant by "soft." Watch Hal's hand:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIvP8Lq8iTY

(Teddy, Doyle, and Loretta are a hoot...)

[Alan Harrison]

Jeff Newman once told me to practice sometimes without being amplified. He said it would improve your right hand technique and therefore your tone.

It allows you hear if your are blocking properly and is a great opportunity to work on the angle of attack with the picks across the strings.