Fastest Picking EVER...?

Jim Phelps · Post by **Jim Phelps** » 4 Feb 2006 11:51 am

I've always liked fast picking, on any instrument, but for steel I don't like fast picking as much on E9 as I do C6. I did like the stuff like "Panama Red" back in the day. What I don't like is the so-called "speed picking" that everyone's doing that all sounds like the same patterns and licks, all A and B pedal just moved around the neck. I'm not impressed at all by learning fast patterns, or at least not impressed for very long. On the other hand, some fast jazz notes do grab me. I much prefer soul in the playing than speed, but still like to hear some fast notes, if it's not common patterns and licks.[This message was edited by Jim Phelps on 04 February 2006 at 11:52 AM.]

Bobby Lee · Post by **Bobby Lee** » 4 Feb 2006 12:14 pm

I don't like that banjo style of fast steel picking. Mindless patterns - that's what it sounds like to me.

Herby Wallace's fast jazz phrasing really grabs me. He can be very melodic at any speed. Ditto with Jernigan and Emmons.

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<img align=right src="http://b0b.com/b0b2005.gif" width="78 height="78">Bobby Lee (a.k.a. b0b) - email: quasar@b0b.com - gigs - CDs, Open Hearts
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Gary Steele · Post by **Gary Steele** » 4 Feb 2006 2:29 pm

I heard Wayne Hobbs 2 weeks ago he is not very slow.

Steve Dodson · Post by **Steve Dodson** » 4 Feb 2006 3:05 pm

Well guys we have a lot of great players in all the above post. But lets not forget about Weldon Myrick. I've watched him play his tune Hot Foot and he was a smoking that thing. It would be nice to have all of them lined up side by side. But then again, I don't think my heart could take. There would be strings a smoking all over the place and I would have the big one.

Dan E. Hoff · Post by **Dan E. Hoff** » 4 Feb 2006 4:33 pm

Many of the great ones have been mentioned..
One more I would like to throw into the mix, would be "ZANE KING". He can flat dab, bring it on..

Larry Wallace · Post by **Larry Wallace** » 4 Feb 2006 5:06 pm

What’s really neat about recording is that you can slow a track down and play supper fast than speed it up and it makes it sound like a blazing speed.
Unless you hear it live you really can’t see and appreciate one’s speed.
Larry

Terry Sneed · Post by **Terry Sneed** » 4 Feb 2006 5:15 pm

I love to hear good smooth speed pickin on steel guitar. PF was melting the strings on "nervous breakdown".
I agree with the above post that Bruce Bouton can burn em up to. And I think he's a thumb and middle finger only picker.
It's amazing to me how they ever learn to play that fast so clean.

Terry

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Mullen D10 /8x5 / session 500rd/ American Strat Highway 1 model
steelin for my Lord

Stephen Gregory · Post by **Stephen Gregory** » 4 Feb 2006 5:27 pm

b0b has nailed it! It is one thing to play a series of scale notes or banjo rolls at blazing speed, and a completely different thing to play something melodic and intellectual at high speeds. Most of the cliched scale/banjo licks are repetitous and very rehearsed. True speed exempified, is when it is incorporated into a "heady" solo "at will"! Very few players fall into this category. I compare it to rock players that play "fast" hammering type licks over a droning chord, v.s. one of the great jazz players creating a blazing jazz solo over a challenging chord progression.

chas smith · Post by **chas smith** » 4 Feb 2006 5:35 pm

The last I heard was that, the human speed limit is 11 cycles per second. However, back in the "white powder" days, I'm sure we were going faster than that.....

Jerry Hayes · Post by **Jerry Hayes** » 4 Feb 2006 5:54 pm

The last Doug Jernigan CD I bought started with a blazing up tempo version of the old Beatles tune "Eight Days a Week" which is my current favorite for "fast tunes".....It changes from time to time but it seems like it's always Doug Jernigan for me....JH in Va.

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Don't matter who's in Austin (or anywhere else) Ralph Mooney is still the king!!!

Bill Simmons · Post by **Bill Simmons** » 4 Feb 2006 6:45 pm

One of the fastest players ever is Steve Palusek (with tone to die for)...just finished listening to his Jazz & Country that is just incredible! Love to see Steve P. with Paul Franklin -- Doug Jernigan -- Tommy White!!

Dan Burnham · Post by **Dan Burnham** » 4 Feb 2006 6:49 pm

I'll put Zane King up against anybody today! You can get his albums off of the forum here.

Duane Reese · Post by **Duane Reese** » 4 Feb 2006 7:35 pm

Remember now, it's not meant to be a competetive thing between pickERS, but it's a question of the fastest pickING you've ever heard; no one picker is king of the mountain, but I'm trying to find out what unprecidented picking demonstration itself is king, in people's view.

Perhaps I should have made the qualification of speed based on IMPRESSIVE OR EXCITING, speed-wise.

That Paul Franklin clip is a good example of what we are going for here: stuff that wows you... Pretty fun! Paul Franklin, Weldon Myrick, Bruce Bouton and Buddy Emmons have some of the fastest I've heard under their belt, but I feel it due to mention Bobby Black too - I've heard him do some fast picking.

Thanks Larry for posting that!

Tony Dingus · Post by **Tony Dingus** » 4 Feb 2006 8:32 pm

Add Buck Reid to the list. Get his new cd while you're at it, you won't be disappointed!!!

Tony[This message was edited by Tony Dingus on 04 February 2006 at 08:32 PM.]

Jody Sanders · Post by **Jody Sanders** » 4 Feb 2006 9:17 pm

Add Robbie Springfield (Frenchy Burke Albums). Jody.

James Cann · Post by **James Cann** » 4 Feb 2006 10:00 pm

I don't like that banjo style of fast steel picking. Mindless patterns - that's what it sounds like to me.

I have to agree, and notwithstanding an individual's desire to know his or her limits, what's the point, really, Guinness Book issue, ego trip, contest, or what?

Such 'mindless patterns' are unlearnable unless you slow them down severely, and then what do you do? It's hardly the 'classic sound of steel guitar' that we all love, and when was the last time you heard this stuff on country music old or new?

There is no putdown here; Franklin's ability and dedication are inspiring and admirable, but beyond that, what else?

John Poston · Post by **John Poston** » 4 Feb 2006 11:06 pm

Well, I guess I'll pipe in just to be contrary. I love to hear that fast pickin', especially in truckdrivin songs. May just be mindless scales, but it sounds hot to me. Even if I can't ever get halfway there myself. Of course, everything is best in moderation.

Chubby Howard · Post by **Chubby Howard** » 4 Feb 2006 11:10 pm

Wayne Hobbs

Bobby Boggs · Post by **Bobby Boggs** » 4 Feb 2006 11:25 pm

Such 'mindless patterns' are unlearnable unless you slow them down severely, and then what do you do?

They're mindless,yet you have to slow them down?? I don't think I would have told that.

There is no putdown here; Franklin's ability and dedication are inspiring and admirable, but beyond that, what else

This one

Franklins speed is not mindless speed.Even though he can do that.I'm thinking there is tab here on the Forum for the tune Larry Bell posted.Paul did this cut almost 30 years ago.It's one of his easier really fast tunes to play. Someone has already picked it out for you.Play it as slow as you like.Then tell us how mindless it is.

This is why I hate these kinds of threads.[This message was edited by Bobby Boggs on 04 February 2006 at 11:34 PM.][This message was edited by Bobby Boggs on 04 February 2006 at 11:37 PM.]

Bill Bailey · Post by **Bill Bailey** » 4 Feb 2006 11:40 pm

What about Mike Smith? How many know of Wayne Gailey? Ever hear Tom Brumley play Pedal Patter?
Bill Bailey

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David Mason · Post by **David Mason** » 5 Feb 2006 1:37 am

As seems clear from a few posts above, there are different types of speed, but notes per second is an objective, measurable criterion. (Let's leave out chord "sweeps" for a second). "Mindless patterns"* - banjo rolls - it seems like a lot of people can do these, Tommy White, Paul Franklin, Doug Jernigan are at the top of their game right now, actually that old guy Bobbe Seymour can still rip off some rolls too. This seems to be a phallus thing among a certain generation of Nashville player, as well it should be. The only pickers who talk about "soul" all the time are the slow ones?

In flat-out number of notes per second and bar movement technique, the Indian lap slide guitarists are so far beyond there's no comparison. Debashish Bhattacharya is 3-4 times faster than Emmons or Jernigan, as measured strictly by counting the number of notes picked per second. Though, this is a limited technique, developed by and for his own note choices - you couldn't use it to play "Wabash Cannonball" or, solely, the 24th violin Caprice by Paganini.

Another type of speed is the sweep picking technique Dave Easley does that he calls "penciling." Since he's the only one doing it, and it's fast as lightning, he wins here. Though again, I'm not sure it can be used to play anything but itself, because I can't play that way (yet?). He got the idea from Coltrane's "tone clusters", but I sure can't count it or duplicate it and I've never heard any other steel guitarist play remotely like it.

To me the players who can pull it all together and improvise at speed, using the bar, the rolls, arpeggios, and string skips to make something new, would be Dave Easley and Doug Jernigan. I don't have much chance to see live music these days (or Nashville jam sessions - yow!), so I don't know how much of Jernigan's stuff really is improvised. I also haven't heard a whole lot of Paul Franklin's playing, because I don't listen to commercial country - I bought the McBride "Timeless" album, but he seemed to be (admirably) restraining himself for textural reasons. Is that "Players" DVD a worthy pop?

*P.S. (I'm not certain it's at all fair to call anything you can't do yourself "mindless." Fast, repetitive licks have been building blocks of music for centuries - "ostinato" - and the only way to know for sure that they're mindless is if you can do them right now without thinking, or, if after learning how to do them, it hasn't improved your other playing a bit, and you're still just as slow and ignorant as before -that's mindlessness. I personally would love to be able to add those families of licks to my playing and see where it would lead, but my practice time is strictly limited to 3-4 hours a day and I have to pick my battles, unfortunately.)[This message was edited by David Mason on 05 February 2006 at 03:00 AM.]

Mike Bagwell · Post by **Mike Bagwell** » 5 Feb 2006 3:24 am

I'll never understand the "I just done like all that fast stuff" position or the missuse of the Jimmy Day quote.
What do these guys play when the band plays a fast tune? How does a player convey all their emotions without having some kind of fast technique? There are many fast tastefull licks and ideas, played in burst that are needed in medium tempo tunes.
All the great players on all instruments seem to have this ability.
IMO any player that does't spend time working to improve their speed and technique is making a mistake.It pays back big time in every thing you play.

Bobby,
When I hear one steelplayer that can play great fast stuff tell me he doesn't find it interesting, I'll listen

Mike

David L. Donald · Post by **David L. Donald** » 5 Feb 2006 3:29 am

Well my cd collection is NOT definitive, but I gotta say,

Paul Franklin has played what my ears and theory tell me is
the fastest, most complicated licks I have heard.

Doug Jernigan is deadly fast on his bop stuff,
And fiddle tunes too,
but I think Paul's is faster for the complexity, and mean speed combined.

Joe Wright is super clean and very, VERY fast, but not as harmonically complex IMHO,
he doesn't need to be either...
Still that doesn't mean I don't love what he DOES do...

Buddy Emmons sounds more focused on harmonic balance and structure,
than speed, he is fasty of course,
but I am sure he can go much faster than I have seen.

I saw Tommy White at the GOO,
but it wasn't a speed pickin night, wrong tunes.
I am SURE he is much faster than then.

Still PF fits the toughest criteria...
in my personal listening expirence.

But what ties all these masters together is their melodic senses, all different,
but even at speed ; melodicists all.[This message was edited by David L. Donald on 05 February 2006 at 03:32 AM.]

Stephen Gambrell · Post by **Stephen Gambrell** » 5 Feb 2006 5:25 am

The tempo is already there. What a musician chooses to do within that tempo is up to him. Listen to Sam Bush play his fast stuff. Mostly pentatonic-based, and somewhat repetitive--NOT THAT I'M NOT A SAM BUSH FAN!!! Then listen to Chris Thile---lighting speed, and he never seems to run out of ideas, scales, modes---whatever you want to call it.
Bottom line---Technique MUST be practiced, and playing at speed is as technical as it gets.
And, uh, Mike---You might want to borrow Bobby's Spell Check

.

Bobby Boggs · Post by **Bobby Boggs** » 5 Feb 2006 5:37 am

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>What do these guys play when the band plays a fast tune? How does a player convey all their emotions without having some kind of fast technique? There are many fast tastefull licks and ideas, played in burst that are needed in medium tempo tunes.
All the great players on all instruments seem to have this ability<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Wish I had wrote that.

David L. Donald you get were I'm coming from. You do however way under estimate the speed of Emmons and Tommy White

However, I think it's because you haven't been exposed to nearly as much of their playing as I.I have some jam session tapes of Buddy from the mid to late 70's that will blow your mind.[This message was edited by Bobby Boggs on 05 February 2006 at 06:09 AM.]