Kiko just posted this on Youtube and I figured you guys might like it and get something out of it:
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Gonna like that really old bump. Here’s Kiko explaning why he holds the pick the way he does: unlike Paul Gilbert who loves it, he does not like the sound of edge picking at all. I wouldn’t say he has zero edge picking, but he attempts to use as little of it as he can get away with.
On paper it seems possible to use little edge picking and escape the strings the way he does, but I still find it pretty remarkable.
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Maaaann, I would love Kiko to do some Jason Becker covers.
As for the pick holding. We all got different hands, even if our hands look similar to others there are bound to be muscle and tendon differences.
I recently been trying to pick like Joshua Jones and its a real intresting feel and it just seems new and cool to me. But I’ve been down this road many times. Picking Technique is like a thorn in my side that just keeps bugging me. And for what! No one cares how I pick besides me lol! Yet it grabs my attention so strongly… I wish I never got into it, I “might” be able to play much better just ignoring everyone else and doing whatever my picking hand wanted first time round.
His grip reminds me of Marty Friedman. Marty had expressed in the CtC interview that even on old tapes from when he was a teenager, he already was holding the pick like that and he doesn’t know when it began.
The difference with Kiko is that Kiko is deliberately holding the pick that way to achieve a certain sound, but it doesn’t seem to prevent him from escaping the string in any direction. He’s quite conscious of the holding technique he uses and why.
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Kiko is so good. I’ve been a fan since Angra’s early recordings. Even then, you could tell he was something special. He’s the number one guy I would like to see Troy interview.
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The difference with Josh vs Marty is Josh has his pick in an upward Edge picking angle, like Shawn Lane, and he is able to mute the full bridge area while also having that Jypsy jazz downward pick slant.
He has quite a different thumb range than me, or marty I believe, so thats whats allowing the competence with such extreme angles. Just like how Evh’s thumb gave him a real solid grip with midde finger.
Kikos grip is quite intresting too. As his index is right on the edge of the pick, it gives a different feel and a lot of snappyness cus he’s right on the edge. But I’m surprised he don’t keep dropping it.
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I just wanted to point out that in the last livestream clinic Marty did a pretty detailed explanation of the origins of his picking hand position.
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