Crosspicking with the arm (no anchor)

Playing Technique
#1

Hey @Troy @Brendan @Adam and everyone else on the forum

So i have watched most of the crosspicking with the wrist and i think its awesome. I love the clock face analogy and it has helped me teach students all kinds of techniques easier this week (not just cross picking).

I wondered what you all thought of these videos tho? Here is bryan sutton explaining his cross picking with the arm technique. Its really interesting.

check him out tearing it up!!! its enough to make you want to burn your guitars!

Bryan doesn’t seem to anchor but he does use the little finger on the right hand hand against the body.

I have noticed the carl miner doesn’t anchor down either but he does again use the little finger on the right hand on the guitar body below the high e string

neither does Billy strings (my new favourite player)

so i have been giving it a try this last few days and so far i have found that there is a definite improvement in my tone. I have been working on carl miner’s ‘spicy drive noodles’ for a while and this technique of ‘non anchoring’ has really helped me articulate the notes a lot cleaner.

So what gives? Andy and Molly both anchor during the runs and they sound incredible but bryan makes some valid points in the first video too??

be good to hear everyones input

Tom

p.s if you could get billy strings on for an interview it would be like christmas came early!!! (unless it was actually around christmas time)

1 Like
#2

I’m from the 70s and learned, or tried to learn many techniques depending on what I was interested to play, rock, hard rock, blues rock and then blues.
I remember a tutorial which was telling to use the arm movement for more speed. And down strokes were suggested for the same reason.
But it was always based on a style of music or a specific player.
Ideally, it is best to be able to play many styles., and find what works best for you.

1 Like
#3

My quick and sloppy comments…

Bryan Sutton talks about his own supinated arm set-up with elbow and forearm rotation. This is what works for him. What he said here really speaks to me in that with a supinated set-up I really can’t do wrist deviation correctly (as Troy does in his crosspicking clip). So it might be a very personal thing. It works for some people, doesn’t work for others (and that would include Bryan Sutton).

But some people manage to do it (supinated + wrist deviation). And on the other hand, you can also work with a parallel set-up + forearm rotation (like, I think, Andy Wood does), or a pronated set-up with wrist deviation (like Molly Tuttle does) etc… But obviously these are different set-up to start with compared to what Bryan Sutton demonstrates here.

So, in a nutshell what Sutton does here is to describe what works for him. It doesn’t mean other set-up / motions are invalid. I mean : if it works for Andy Wood and Molly Tuttle, sure they are valid!

One notable thing to me in the Sutton clip is when he talks about full sound (or something like that). I believe what he specifically talks about here is that typical Bluegrass open sound you can get in the tempo range of fiddle tunes, that is somewhere the 200-300 bpm range (I’m talking 8ths note here, not 16th). At these tempo the double-escape large arc (aka “crosspicking”) is usable by most good bluegrass players and is key to achieve that sound, as opposed to a stiffer or narrower sound. It’s what Andy Wood demonstrates in the ‘Pendulum’ clip. Because the width of arc/pick motion allows you a more shallow pick stroke whilst sounding full (you don’t want to dig into the strings). But you can do that with various set-up … Now faster stuffs (regardless of genre) require more of a pickslanting technique, either 1-way or 2-way, with a reduced curve, but a deeper or more aggressive attack.

3 Likes
#4

What gives is that there are lots of ways to do everything because picking technique is complicated and has a ton of variables. It’s the reason Cracking the Code exists!

I wouldn’t worry too much about what all these players are doing - they are all great players, their techniques all work, and they all sound great. Any of these approaches will work just fine. The trick is learning to do them.

If you’re looking for a simple entry point into crosspicking type lines specifically, I recommend the wrist approaches we covered recently because they are mechanically simple, have relatively few variables, and everyone with a functioning wrist can make them work. And most importantly, we now have the clearest instructions we have ever had for establishing the movement and determining whether or not you’re doing it correctly.

1 Like
#5

@Troy @blueberrypie Hey guys ive been away camping for the last few days so only just getting time to reply now.
I have been working on my cross picking today and the points covered in the seminar are really helping me clean things up. My own personal problem seemed to be that because I’m a natural dwps that my down strokes now have to learn the escaping 902 motion! After spending so long leaning the pick downward and rest stroking on the next string its been a tough habit to sort until now! I guess nothing is really a problem until it hinders your next move?
The Ej DWPS system relies heavily on the downward angle of the pick in order to do the sweeps across strings but for cross picking its almost the exact opposite :smile:
I just love this stuff! Its the only thing i have ever been nerdy about in my life! Im driving my wife mad talking about this stuff!

@blueberrypie i agree with what you said here and easing up on the amount of weight I’m putting into the strings has helped get things sped up! thanks dude

1 Like