How to attack the string?

Playing Technique
#1

on intense rock 2 I heard Paul Gilbert say he uses more of the pick to to attack the string as apposed to just hitting it hard … now a days he preaches in using your whole arm haha…anyways i was wondering if anyone else caught that …just wondering how you guys go about it / even think about it and using 2 way pick slant and adding accents be a lot to trip over using more of the pick to hit the string yada yada… just talking shop if it i didn’t put it in the right categorize my bad

#2

pretty sure he was talking about picking DEPTH

if you pick shallow with a certain force, then pick deeper with the same force, the deeper pick is going to be louder etc

so he was saying dont just try to hit it harder, instead pick a bit deeper

#3

Always found that strange because by using more of the pick/more pick depth to hit the string you will automatically need more force to get through.
And indeed, how would you be able in a phrase to change your pick depth multiple times to get louder accents.

I use it to get a different sound, but to get louder or play accents just hit harder.

#4

yeah the 2 have to sort of go together IMO…like a chicken and egg thing.

  1. if u go to hit it harder but u pick the same exact depth then the pick goes thru faster or travels farther or whatever and the timing is thrown off

  2. if u go to pick deeper but use the same picking strength, then it will slow down or even stop the pick

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#5

Exactely my opinion.

#6

its also related to how firm or soft u hold the pic…which in itself can be the same thing as saying “how hard” u hit it.

I think if we look at newbs with little technique and we tell them to hit it harder…what do they do? they gonna make a lot longer stroke and really try to kill it. Well we know thats gonna cause timing issues and so its not a way to really accent while playing fast

So as we get better we (hopefully) find ways to accent WHILE playing faster lines. So, keeping our fast motion going we can simply pick a bit deeper and hold it slightly firmer on every 4th or 6th note or whatever. Helps the brain with chunking and grouping things logically of course. Claus Levin makes accenting a huge part of his teaching…same as Troys chunking, just stated in different terms

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