J D Sauser
From:
Wellington, Florida
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Posted 22 Aug 2024 10:59 am |
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| Andrew Frost wrote: |
| Quote: |
| I suppose it can hamper certain types of blocking and pulling off harmonics. |
You could have a point here Dave. But as a 3 finger player, I don't feel that using the curled pinky for chimes is any different than how most players use their ring finger. Same for blocking.. Its just a slightly different feel. Even with 3 fingerpicks, there is still one fleshy digit between the picks and the strings.
Winnie Winston describes seeing a player "with picks on all fingers" in the pedal steel book. I've often wondered who that was, and thought that must have been a lot of metal to deal with on one hand... 
Thanks for kind words Joey Burke. Its always a work in progress..  |
Whatever one adds, may have some drawbacks or simply need adaptation.
The more possibilities one adds, the more complications and more concentration it may require to do things. Jets are faster but they are not simple to operate and while most who fly jets will say that it's the greatest of feelings, you wonders if somebody flying a sailplane may not have time to enjoy the landscape and the shape of clouds.
Some guitar players pick with all 5 fingers, others just with a pick and 2 fingers and others with only a pick and Django Reinhardt played up a storm with really only 2 fingers on his left hand a a very thick tortoise flat pick.
BE, DJernigan, PF and so many more play amazing things out of these contraptions we call a musical instrument on either neck with just 2+T.
So, I totally get why most would stick fo 2+T. It works!
I think that 3+T is primarily a choice of musical styles and while one having acquired the capability to play with 3+T, may also enjoy some expressional edge on E9th, it's in my opinion primarily interesting to somebody playing in certain more "arranged" styles beyond Dance-Swing on a "Jazz"-tuning like pedaled 6th and 13th tunings with the appropriate changes well are.
Drawbacks:
Now that I use a heavier set of finger-picks, I've found that I was developing a tendency to "drag along" some higher string "chatter" while single note playing with my ring finger curled it... and the fact was, I was getting sloppy or didn't control the added weight of the new pick and didn't curl it up well enough like a Flamingo sleeping on one foot (I've often WHY they'd do that, btw. Why not pull up both legs and just... aw, who cares!  )... and the front of the pick's "arms" was slightly touching the stings strings, creating a singing buzz or buzzy sing...sing.... 
Which ever it was, one has to become conscious of a bad habit or lack of discipline and put some attention to it and I had to concentrate for a while to have it curled up properly.
As for blocking and chimes, yes, as Andrew correctly questions... the ring finges is decommissioned for those tasks with 3+T and one is left with blocking with the picks, the edge of the hand and the little finger (which I am one not to curl under the strings (I couldn't on a 12 string anyways and still reach all 12 strings), the edge of he Thumb (something I got off PF online course) and "THE"-finger of the left hand sticking out beyond the tip of the bar, which also required me to change a little the way I used to hold to bar.
Chimes: small finger curled in or palm edge, "et voilà" as the French say!
If I were Franz Liszt, heck I might even use my nose for chimes (he is said to sometimes have hit a key with his nose of that elusive extra 11th note in between his two hands. I don't know if that's true, but why not and it suggest to proves a point: what ever WORKS!)
At the end of the day, for just as most we look up, idolize and seek to learn from if not copy and imitate, did VERY well, and as a matter of fact better than most of us will ever do, with 2+T, most who play or played with 3+T did very well too, and can/could block and pay chimes, and again most often better than we ever will.
... J-D.
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Was it JFK who said: Ask Not What TAB Can Do For You - Rather Ask Yourself "What Would B.B. King Do?"
A Little Mental Health Warning:
Tablature KILLS SKILLS.
The uses of Tablature is addictive and has been linked to reduced musical fertility.
Those who produce Tablature did never use it.
I say it humorously, but I mean it. |
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