Cliffs of Dover hybrid nightmare

Playing Technique
#21

When you get used to it, over time you build strength and it’s more subtle, that’s where EJ is at. In the second vid I posted if you forward to the last third where I turn the drive up, you’ll see the same thing happen. But to stay with the EJ clip, if you see his hand on the downstroke it’s def moving down, but you don’t see it rise, but it is returning for the downstroke, that return is the single motion of the upstroke and the pluck.

The thumb pick was very short lived for me, didn’t take it all the way, I didn’t like the tone, almost exclusively, most of the country I played was with a regular pick.

#22

This won’t happen over night, but give it a few days, a week even. You’ll get it right once by mistake, then just try to do it all the time :joy:

#23

Thanks for everyone’s input so far - more than I expected/deserve! Its given me a lot to play around with

#24

@Twangsta and @joebegly , it would be great to compare both mechanics, if you have the footage of said diabolical lick, that would be super inreresting! :wink:

#25

Here you go, I haven’t tried this lick in almost 10 years, I’m sure if I sit with it it’ll be solid.
I think I was struggling with noise damping :slight_smile:

#26

Here ya go

I wouldn’t enter this into a competition but it represents the “way” I play it, right or wrong :slight_smile:

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#27

I think we’re doing the same thing :joy:

#28

You devil, this was the rabbit hole I was alluding to earlier, now you’ve sent me on a side quest to brush up my EJ pains. :roll_eyes:

#29

Indeed. Posted at just about the same instant too. Guess I’m a little slower clicking that ‘reply’ button. The funny thing is, it’s a different angle than the EJ clip. Maybe that’s what is making me think he’s using more finger pluck/extension/flexation than he really is. Or maybe I just want to see that and my brain won’t allow otherwise haha

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#30

I guess there’s the hook of the pluck, can see it both ways I guess.

#31

That just means I hate you both in equal measure! :rofl::rofl::rofl:

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#32

At the end of the day, Brad Paisley is really all that matters. I always say “Eric Johnson was my favorite virtuoso electric guitarist…until I heard Brad Paisley!!!” And that’s saying a lot too because in general I don’t even enjoy most country music. Paisley though, damn. He’s got such great tone and amazing chops and everything is always melodic. He rarely picks “everything” and he rarely slurs “everything”. It’s almost like each phrase the articulation he uses is just what the phrase requires. Anything more or less than the way he does it would be wrong lol!

Sorry for drooling all over Paisely. I just love him and I never hear anyone on here talk about him. To keep it sort of on topic, here is HIS EJ tribute to the very topic at hand. Err…well the “tune” of the very topic at hand.

He has such a great backing band too. The fiddle play and pedal steel guy are just ridiculous.

4 Likes
#33

I can’t tell you how much of a fan I still am of his. He’s scary good, great voice too. Departure was impossible, damn G bender and of course it’s BP! The cigar song, these are just perfect, your absolutely right, if there ever was a perfect track, Departure would be high up there on that list. My apologies for my crappy bends etc there :joy:

Those open string runs, he’s a genius. Just about the perfect amount of nonsense to throw you off, he makes an art of passing dissonance!

#34

Yeah I should start my own Paisley thread so I can spread the word. I think plenty of rock guys who aren’t familiar with him would dig his playing.

I got to see him live once and he was awesome, as expected. Everything strikes me as improvised, since all his solos sounded nothing like the recordings I’m familiar with, but each one was completely ridiculous. He’s just…yeah. Too good.

And, it’s the total opposite of “hybrid” but I made a little study out of Nervous Breakdown, removed all the finger plucking and turned it into a USX exercise.

#35

He’s def a lesson in many things, tone for one :love_you_gesture:
Another high action setup player, can’t ever emphasise that enough, it’s where it’s at.

He has some pedigree, those Nashville cats are something else, no fakery there. I wish I could see him live, I don’t know if there’s a DVD he’s put out live!?

I’ll give it a shot tomorrow, I used to play the riff, I think I learned most of his classics, mostly the heads through. Play was my goto for a long time.

Great meeting another BP fan! Didn’t think I’d meet one here :slight_smile:

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#36

Tried this out again today, now knowing the basic technique better, it does seem much more attainable now. I think just a matter of practice to strengthen and speed up that third finger plucking.

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#37

I think we were all talking about this lick a while ago in a different thread - here’s how I play it; to me if you slow it down it looks like a little bit of wrist extension navigating the string changes but not a whole lot of motion going on otherwise, really taking advantage of not having to do any upstrokes.

For this kind of lick, you don’t need to get underneath the string with the middle finger so much as just grazing it with the very tip of the digit with a little bit of nail to get a clear tone and keep things moving fast. Yanking up on the string with the whole tip of the middle finger as you might do for some spank in a country lick is probably not the way to go since it wouldn’t have quite the right dynamics and it would slow you down a bit. Especially since I’m playing an acoustic here, I’m really not grabbing much string at all with my middle finger.

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#38

Nails? What are those? :joy:

Cheers for your post- I’m taking it all on board.

#39

Love the way you play bro, very inspiring :love_letter:

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#40

:joy: you want that middle finger nice and curled up so you can get that lil bit of nail with the flesh of the finger - i have short nails and it still works lol

@Twangsta thanks dude! That’s a hefty compliment :pleading_face:

1 Like