Is "louder = faster," or is "louder = deeper?"

Playing Technique
#1

“It’s not what we don’t know that hurts us, it’s what we know for sure that just ain’t so.” --Mark Twain

Consider an unplugged electric guitar. In high school I likely concluded that the louder one plays, the faster their hand has to move. Now, I am starting to think that this is incorrect, that that louder that one plays the more the pick bites and displayes the string, e.g., quiet is more of a “grazing strike,” and loud is more of “traumatic strike,” if that makes any sense.

So, this makes me think that how loud the unplugged guitar sounds is really a statement of technique and pick control; this also makes me wonder if “musical volume” is somewhat different from “technique volume,” and that perhaps one is better off controlling “musical volume” with the volume potentiometer, or a foot pedal, except in the case where the notes do not have many technical demands and one can “dig deeper” to be louder. This makes me wonder if somebody has to practice unplugged just to make sure that they’re not too loud (too much string bite). There was a product, the “Stylus pick,” that could be thought of as a pick with two notches cut on each pick edge to capture the string (and annoy the player) if one hit exposing “too much” tip, but perhaps one has to just make sure that they’re not too loud.

So, my question: Is it really true that louder is from deeper, and not faster? Does my question even make sense? :thinking:

#2

According to Rick Graham it depends on how far you displace the string before releasing it, which makes sense to me (in hindsight hehe). Will try to find the video where he mentions it.

#3

I think guitar is one of those things where its inherently hard to discuss the actual mechanics involved. (see also—> the golf swing) Why? Because there are so many moving parts that all affect each other

So do we need to pick “harder” to play a louder note? or do we pick “deeper” to displace the string more to make the note louder?

yes.

It gets into a “chicken or egg” thing. If you pick deeper then in a way you HAVE to pick a bit “harder” to compensate…but that depends on how “hard” you were picking to start with lol.

But it also has a lot to do with the angle(s) of the pick. We can actually press up against the string at a certain angle where we never actually release the string and we can bend the string an inch lol. Or, we can have such an angle to where the pick barely grazes the string and then slides off of it producing a very quiet note

and again, like the golf swing, in general we arent ACTUALLY doing what we THINK we are doing lol

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#4

I think the general consensus on here based on what I’ve read from Troy is that the player can control 1. Speed and 2. Force. Force seems to be exerting more pressure from the muscles into the pick, consequently squeezing the pick harder, and displacing more of the string by driving the pick deeper into the plane of the string. Playing softer at high speeds is very difficult and that’s why dynamic control is a hallmark of a true virtuoso, because it requires a core mastery of the speed itself, as well as the ability to control dynamics by either manually decreasing or increasing the amount of pick in the plane of the string. In other words you have to have the gross motor mechanics down before you have the ability to manipulate their intensity. I also suspect this is why many players plateau at lower speeds by trying to “use” small motions to get faster instead of allowing the motions to develop as a consequence of the speed at which they are playing. Economy of motion is a result of the requisite time which the pick needs to “turn around” to travel back and hit the string again, and it’s not something you have to worry much about. In fact, it’s a natural consequence of simply starting with the sound you want and letting the chips fall where they may.

That’s my understanding and I’m open to the possibility that I am off base. This is getting really into the weeds here, though.

Good example from the legend Greg Howe at around 2:45 with dynamics:

He hits harder on the piano chords to drive home his phrasing which is incredible. Al Di Meola is another great example, Paul Gilbert, etc.

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#5

yes, but just as many players are stuck bashing away for years with those big heroic movements lol. “Play fast and clean it up later” has as many failed students as “start slow and accurate”. Once one establishes a pattern of being sloppy, its haaaard to break it. (personal experience talking there)

In looking at Yngwie, Rick Graham, MAB, Claus Levin, Chris Brooks…hundreds of others,we see itsy bitsy movements and they tend advise players to “work on accuracy first, then speed” or the classic “start slow and work it up to speed”

With most of these guys (Chris Brooks, a teacher, being the exception) we dont really hear them mentioning what we call pick slanting.

I have even seen people saying Rick Graham is wrong because “Troy Grady says…” lol. If Rick Graham is wrong, please let me find out how to be as “wrong” as him hehe.

Claus even has a few vids where he mentions that slanting is not really needed, or is a type of a shortcut as a replacement for “accuracy.” (not trying to put words in Claus’ mouth, but im too lazy to go find the vids…so I am paraphrasing)

So is there an inherent contradiction in Troys aggressive slanting ideas and sort of “wail away then worry about cleaning it up later” and others who dont mention slanting and say “start slow and work it up” etc??

I dont think there is a contradiction. I think it is more of how you choose to learn and thus what direction are you coming from.

The “accuracy first” guys most likely ARE “slanting” but we are talking about TINY slanting angles. So they probably arent aware of these tiny angles any more than any of us are aware of tiny thumb movements or a million other things.

So they didnt START with slanting. They started with accuracy, economy of motion etc. Now, if a player STARTS with slanting, he can do stuff like one way licks with huge movements and not worry about being too accurate etc.

of course the “slanting aware” guy will eventually develop some pretty small movements too, if he wants to reach top speeds. Have we not seen guys on this forum trying to do inefficient 2way licks and it just isnt working out?

So I personally do not see a massive inherent contradiction in the “start slow”/“accuracy first” guys and some of Troys ideas. Some start with accuracy while others start with certain mechanical insights. Once its to the Vinnie Moore, MAB, Rick Graham level, its pretty much totally optimized whether the player is hyper aware or not.

#6

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, ‘accurate but slow’ and ‘fast but sloppy’ are both tools to employ on the route to ‘fast and accurate’.

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#7

yep, I think Bruce Lee would agree. Why limit yourself to one rigid way of thinking? Im not a boy scout so I dont need to join a camp lol

#8

Huh. I wasn’t even talking about building speed as a main point, it was just tangential to the discussion lol. The thread is about dynamics and what aspect of technique results in louder or softer playing. I think we’ve beaten the speed thing to death and it’s more or less extensively covered on this forum, probably in the top five most discussed topics.

#9

we will all be dead and gone and it will still be discussed lol. Just as there will be 100 threads started online today saying “how can I lose bodyfat”? it is what it is

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