Johnny smith on picking

Playing Technique
#1

Hi. I came across a Johnny Smith interview in which he focuses on picking technique. Thought you might be interested.

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#2

Great interview, I’ve watched this a few different times when I run across it in search results. His fastest stuff seems to mostly have been upstroke escape and required even numbers of notes per string, but from this video he had lots of other techniques too.

He passed before our time but would have clearly made for an interesting talk with us since he seems to enjoy these topics.

Fyi when posting YT links, no need to use the link function - just paste them on a line by themselves, blank line before and blank line after. The forum will auto-embed. No worries here.

#3

Thank you for sharing this! I’ve never delved too deeply into his playing but always liked what I heard (most notably his beautiful chord melody playing).

My takeaways on pretty interesting points:

  • Amazing articulation of inner voices and overall counterpoint with only a pick – no fingerstyle…WOW
  • His attention to tone is remarkable - even dictates where on the instrument he’d play things due to his perception of certain notes not sounding good when voiced on the lower strings. For most of us, just playing the ‘right’ note is enough lol
  • On improvising, he mentioned the concept often discussed here where there is a repository of melodic phrases in one’s vocabulary that can be used on command
  • I didn’t pick apart his right hand but he says he plays down strokes on the down beats and up strokes on the upbeats exclusively (we all know what amazing players say they do and what they actually do don’t always line up). If he really does this, I’m curious what category he fits into (USX/DSX/DBX etc). We all know the implications!
    • He of course sounds great but I don’t know his top speeds are blazing enough that some moderate string hops would even really matter, IF they happen to exist in his playing.
    • He indicates he doesn’t like economy picking (in scalar/melodic playing, not in arpeggios) due it throwing off the “continuity” of his picking
  • Though he obviously doesn’t know CtC terminology, he mentions string tracking and he does it with the elbow. It’s cool he is aware of this
  • He seems like a truly wonderful human being :slight_smile: I read his bio and understand he lost a wife and daughter during his wife’s childbirth. People that face tragedies like this and still seem joyful give me faith there is hope for humanity.
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