Holy crap that is hard to do in a consistent manner! I can see how that makes sense though when you get it right.
fyi, I worked a bit on the broken down components Iād mentioned above, and it was ok, but think itās more useful to practice this hybrid lick like this, with variations:
------10-----------10--- ... and repeat
---14-----------14------
That is, pick 14, and then very closely afterwards play the 10 (super fast 16ths), and let the 10 ring out as long as you want. Then repeat. Then do it the other way:
---10-----------10----- ... and repeat
------14-----------14--
Then move the lower note to a lower string, and repeat the above. Then make groups of 3 (10-14-10, etc), always keeping them super fast.
Then Iāve found alternating the rhythm fast and slow to be useful, e.g.
--------10---------------10---------10--10--10--10--10--10- ... etc
-14--------------14---------------14--14--14--14--14--14--
play the first 4 beats as quarter notes (4 notes) and next 4 beats as 16ths. The quarter notes let you relax and prepare for the next bunch of 16ths, and ensure youāre staying on rhythm. Accuracy and evenness of rhythm is more important than speed.
(Does anyone find my practice thoughts useful? Honestly interested - jz)
Thanks for the post. In the last hour I have been doing something similar to the above and I have seen some intermitent improvement. I have also turned the lick on its head with the pedal tone done with the pick and the plucks over 3 higher strings in pitch. It means that my middle finger is moving/extending rather than the thumb and index moving. For some reason, when I do that and then switch to the cliffs version, its a tad better.
Iāve got maybe 1/2mm of nail at most, if that. Canāt really have more in my line of work. I can really only get the string with the pad of my third finger, but still okay enough I suppose.
Okay I took a couple minutes to make a quick little video to kinda iron the technique that Iām talking about out.
In Tik Tok form cuz I am cool and with it like the kids 
had to stick the neck of my guitar under the coffee table to get close to the CtC approved angle and you can hear me hitting the headstock on the bottom of it at the end lol
This is the most common error I see in hybrid technique that will really slow you down - the ācome hitherā finger motion is very slow and not particularly accurate. Especially since the middle finger is only plucking the high E string, you can get a lot of mileage out of minimizing the finger movement. This is also the only way I feel like you can get a combination of nail and flesh on the string if you have short nails like most of us do.
4 Likes
This is wicked, thanks mate!
Thanks, Iāll give this a whirl!
Thanks for that; I need to check what Iām doing too. Wish I had a decent acoustic.
Tried a few times today and I simply cannot fathom how you repeatedly pluck that fast! Lol. Iāll try and get a video up so you can laugh at it. If I where to offer up a potentially inappropriate/offensive analogy, its like asking Django Reinhardt to do a vulcan āLive long and Prosperā hand greeting with his damaged hand!
Edit: Doesnāt mean Iām giving up, but jeez this is gonna be a long road!!! I have a blister already so might as well go full callus!
1 Like
That sounds about right; keep going.
edit: but it may also mean your plucking harder than you should. But you still need to break that finger in 
For a new motion like this, I think youāll need to practice it hard for about 20 mins or so, and then take a break ā a few hours or the next day. Your mind and nerves will need time to sort it out. I was trying this yesterday and it was rough, today is quite a bit better. If I had kept hammering at it for hours, it probably wouldnāt have improved.
Thanks again to @Philausopher for such a great clip! Z
1 Like
On second glance of the video I posted it looks like the hybrid plucking motion is a combination of the very slight finger extension with the bent knuckle and wrist extension; the wrist extension helps get the snap on the string while minimizing the finger movement AND helps the escape the string so that I can hop between the B and G strings for the picked notes.
This is really interesting to me cuz I really never took the time to understand how I was actually doing it until now and thereās a bit more to it than I initally thought at first glance.
If you try to rely solely on the finger motion I think you can definitely start getting tired faster. So dividing the work between those two motions has numerous benefits as mentined above.
I definitely feel like I have to use wrist extension. Interestingly, if I put my finger straight I can raise my finger up and down quite fast, but if there is a curl in the finger (as I would need to for plucking), the speed is diminished considerably. I assume that the curl in the finger puts tension in the muscles/tendons up the arm. Anyone else experience this?
Here it is in action lol. I canāt believe Iām actually posting thisā¦
It looks like when your finger is bent, your knuckle is already bent as well, ie your muscles are already engaged. This would mean that the oscillations are happening near the end of your range of motion, rather than in the middle as with the flat finger, so it will be slower. Also with the long finger you will get the same fingertip motion with a smaller angle change, so you get get more for less. My guesses! Z
My hybrid picking motion during the EJ pedal tone lick feels basically like the door knocking table test, so a lot of extension happening. It feels pretty bouncy and Ericās looks that way as well but thereās not much tension in the wrist.
Ironically, my door knocking was my fastest motion! How does your pickstrokes/grip/pick orientation feel when doing this? Is the plucking just an āadd onā to your existing setup or is it its own special thing that you switch into?
I think mostly play with a floating wrist but for hybrid picking stuff Iāll instinctively plant my palm on the strings and curl my fingers in; kinda looks like more of very slight āupward pickslantā position if thatās still a thing? You can see at the end of the video where I switch from the hybrid line to a descending USX picked phrase and the wrist comes off the strings again into more of a gypsy position.
Itās not so much a conscious choice as itās just developed out of following the path of least resistance, just finding the most comfortable postures for whatever Iām playing!
Super cool! Is that your arrangement? I wanna learn it!
Yeah it is! The first part is just improvised around the Austin City Limits version.
Revisting this thread that I started. I wpuld have hoped that I would have improved a little by now, but no. Absolute shitshow. I have been practicing regularly, but not obsessively overdoing itā¦ I went to document my progressā¦ lol Iām so embarrased!
I still struggle to pluck fast enough and my best efforts result in a movement that seems incompatible with my pickingā¦
Edit: Apologies for the profanity, I attached the wrong vid (which edited it out!). Oh wellā¦ at least you can sense the frustration!!
3 Likes