Jack Of All Trades Or Master Of Some?

Playing Technique
#1

Troy has introduced us to a lot of different techniques including picking techniques that don’t even require a pick for all notes such as chicken picking or hybrid picking. Then we have alternate picking with DWPS, or UWPS, or two way pick slanting. We also have cross picking… Then there are techniques that Troy hasn’t covered such as 8 finger tapping like Jeff Watson of Night Ranger used to do.

That wasn’t even a list of every technique there is to play notes in lead guitar playing!

So,my question to all of you is, what would you prefer of the following two scenarios:

  1. You try to become a jack of all trades by learning every single technique Troy has covered as well as some he hasn’t covered. Knowing as many techniques as possible for playing lead guitar gives you a tremendous amount of freedom as to what way you decide to play certain guitar solos, or even a certain guitar lick. It’s very nice to have that kind of freedom because it all but ensures you that you’ll never come across something you don’t have the ability to play, although you may not be able to play it up to the speed it was intended be played or the speed at which you would like to play it.

  2. You decide to choose just your very favorite techniques to learn, forsaking spending the practice time to learn other techniques you either like less or just don’t have as much use for based upon your particular taste in music. By not spending the time to learn as many techniques as you would had you chosen option #1, you have more time to refine the techniques you do choose to learn. The end result should be that while you won’t have as many different techniques in your repertoire, the ones you do have will be more highly developed.

So, who prefers option #1 and who prefers option #2? Personally I favor option #2.

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#2

In some cases it seems like learning a second technique helps cross train so to speak. For example cross picking practice is seeming to help my 2WPS.

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#3

The perfectionist in me says option 1, but honestly option 2 seems like the real way to go. Having limitations actually allows one to be super creative and really explore all the possibilities of what they can do. Some of these awesome licks would have never been thought of if for example EJ played like Batio.

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#4

I agree with you about option 2 being the way to go. it’s funny that in my case it is the perfectionist in me driving me to choose option 2. The best way I can explain it right now is I’d rather be close to perfect at a few techniques than far from perfect at more techniques. Besides, although the freedom to be able to play almost anything is great, if you are creative with the way you apply just a few techniques you still will have the freedom to play an awful lot of good stuff!

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#5

Excellent question and in fact I had to think of it a day until I could answer it for myself.

So one thing is pretty clear, at least for me, you need a technical toolbox that works unconsciously. I’m not sure if that means perfect in technical sense, for sure in the sense of how it feels to use it.

So option #2 is kindof a must. If you have that down, I’m not sure if it makes sense to put in more effort in than maintaining your abilties, the ‘greats’ mostly don’t even know what they’re doing tecnicalwise. So my guess is, looking for perfection is more bound to the pieces or patterns you play, less to the technique.

Option #1 is kindof difficult.
I cannot speak for everyone, but i know for me, that things that I’m not able to play, over time, simply disapear from existance.
So, targeting creativity option #1 is also a must.
And this is a point where it gets a little tricky and probably there’s no way to handle that in general.

My approach is now this:

  • reach a technical comfortzone and keep it
  • force yourself to spend some time with the uncomfortable techiques to memorize their existence

What I’m targetting for the ‘uncomfortable’ techniques is to teach my body to know what’s needed, we already have pretty good descriptions what has to happen technicalwise (and basically the answer is always: get the pick above the strings in a specific scenario), but still there’s a missing link, what needs to be done to let your body execute it.
When I reach a point that I know how it should feel to play something, I can estimate how much effort is needed to get it in the toolbox and then it feels like removing a limitation and generating a decision if the musical benefit is bigger than the effort.

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#6

It’s gonna be 2 for me as well :slight_smile:

The main techniques I want to be good at with the right hand are DWPS and TWPS (UWPS is already working ok), with bits of hybrid here and there where they make things easier. For now fast crosspicking will have to wait, I may experiment with it occasionally but I’m not counting on it to happen anytime soon.

I’m talking about regular speed picking by the way (say typical shred licks at <= 200bpm with 16th notes). I’m not interested in hyper-picking for now.

For the left hand, I’d be happy to just improve my hammer ons and pull-offs. For now I am not so interested in all-hammers or complicated two-handed tapping.

(Maybe I’m still too ambitious)

So the answer is: Jack of some :wink:

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#7

One interesting realization I’ve made lately is this. I spend way more time practicing things I can’t do well then I do practicing things I am naturally good at. I suspect I would be perceived as a much better player if that were not the case.

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#8

Artistically, I think people would resonate a bit more with #2, just my opinion. It’s like - that dude does his thing and is awesome at it, I put on ____'s record because I want to hear this style. Even if someone’s a clinician or making instructional material I think #2 can be more attractive because someone can develop an expertise in something specific and really dig into it.

I think #1 is fun, interesting, and gratifying, but not sure of the practical uses.

Personally I like to have familiarity with the principles for a lot of different techniques, but don’t see a need to really master a lot of melodic vocabulary using the different techniques. I feel like if I “get” the main ideas then any particular passage just becomes an issue of spending the time with it and applying the right problem solving principles. But the idea of being able to get on stage and bust out a huge variety of shred techniques all at an elite or somewhat elite level, not that appealing to me.

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#9

Yeah I came into this thing being a DWPS and thought I was missing out on key playing components because I could not play 2wps licks. Then I learned 2way sweeping and crosspicking and once I did I realized that it still requires one to prepare licks in advance and at that point I pretty much kept what I had and just tried to see how far I could go with just dwps. Needless to say the possibilities are endless and I don’t miss 2wps or crosspicking. However, it took me learning how to do it to realize the grass was not necessarily greener if that makes any sense.

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