I am talking about flexing/extending the wrist. If i flex my wrist as much as I can, it is impossible for me to make a really tight fist. If I hyperextend the wrist, it is in turn much more difficult to straighten the fingers. I would be really surprised if you don’t experience that effect at least a little
There are definitely interactions like what you’re describing where positions of some joints will affect available range of motion in other joints, but they mostly kick in at the extremes of a joint’s range of motion. And most of the positions / postures that people use for picking technique are more toward the comfortable midpoint of a joint’s range of motion.
For example, the most “extreme” joint posture I can think of is Gypsy tremolo like what Joscho Stephan does, and even at that level of flex, his fingers are more curled up than pretty much in any picking motion that I do even with straighter wrist:
Again, I don’t think many people play with a super tight fist. Most players we’ve filmed look more like a curl close up. If you want a super tight fist, and you want to get that with Gypsy form, there may be some effect there. But if you’re just a wrist or wrist / forearm player trying to decide whether your fingers should be left out or in, that’s pretty much under your control. And that’s where your choices will be guided more by the type of joint motion you’re trying to produce, and not by forces of tension forcing them to be one way or another.
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@Insanefury, love that mod. Glad to hear you and others find the volume knob troublesome and not just me. Soon as I learn to solder, I plan to ‘cancel’ my volume knob, too.
[BTW, bit off topic, but… that second Andy Wood clip. It’s really something to watch the knuckles. There’s a big collision happening just below (string vs pick), and yet watching the top of his hand, he could just as well be waving it in the air away from a guitar. Gets me to thinking about what it takes to pick with a consistent attack.]
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The question here is, how far his very first index finger joint is curled here. I cannot make that out from this picture. But the rounder “O” between index and thumb suggests to me, that it is a bit straightened, and the index isn’t fully curled. If you fully curled your index finger, like in a trigger grip, the index fingertip can actually touch the base segment of the index finger.
Joschos hand definitely looks more open to me than yours does in all the examples where you use full trigger grip:
Your index finger seems to be almost completely curled here, with the fingertip practically touching back on the base segment of the index finger. And almost no visible gap between thumb and index.
You are right about the knuckle joints, yours are more straight and joschos more bent inwards, but I am talking about how much the fingers are closed or open in total.
Personally, I could not comfortably use a hand that was as closed as yours in the wrist picking video in a joscho setup. I just tried and it feels really tense.
EDIT:
To avoid further confusion:
I realized, I am talking about the index finger mostly. To me, this is the most important one, because in connection with the thumb it produces the pick grip (exceptions of course, morse, evh)
Troys other fingers are more extended, while joschos are more curled. You can actually see joschos middle finger through the gap between index and thumb. Which is why joschos hand resembles a closed fist more than troys does. But the index finger is actually more curled in troys example and less curled in joschos
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Hi
First, I’d like to put in the disclaimer that I don’t follow the forum enough to know whether my input may be well known already. So please bear with me if my point is old hat…
For me, a somewhat curled fist has always felt most comfortable, and something like an Yngwie-style DWPS with some degree of wrist flexion feels very natural to me. Perhaps this is why even with many hours of practice, I was still struggling playing many Gilbert-style licks even remotely fast. However, one day while watching Intense Rock clips for the millionth time, it occurred to me that Paul seems to raise and lower his middle, ring and pinky fingers repeatedly while playing. This effectively opens and closes his fist somewhat, but I’ve also found that raising these fingers helps avoid strain (for me) when using wrist extension. Although coordinating the finger and wrist movements is still tricky for me, I am better able to shift between up- and downstroke escape motions when being mindful of the position if these fingers, and that is of course a prerequisite for playing most of his licks.
This has got me thinking: Even though many players make it work using more or less the same degree of openness/curl all the time, perhaps thinking of the position of these fingers as more or less fixed can be limiting?
Here’s the intro from Intense Rock - the movements I’m talking about are minute, but I think they’re especially visible around 1:40-1:45
Best regards,
Christian
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My grip looks that way because I’m intentionally using a trigger style grip, and yes I can also do that with a flexed form as well. If you remove the pick from that photo you will find my index finger curled with an air gap between the palm. In trigger grip I simply place the thumb over the air gap. It’s not super comfortable for me to force the finger to lay flat against the palm in any style of grip. My sausage fingers don’t want to do that! Very few players we film actually look like they make a tight fist like you’re asking about.
More on topic, you asked are there anatomical constraints that make the choice of what to do with the fingers “sort itself out”. And the answer is still no. For the majority of techniques you want to do, you can have your fingers any way you want, both for index and the others. You really do have to know how the fingers interact with the arm position and type of motion you are trying to make, and you have to deliberately choose combinations that work, and it’s not always obvious how to do that.
Classic case, for years I didn’t understand how the Di Meola / Andy Wood style worked. Every time I tried it I shredded my knuckles against the strings. I couldn’t figure out why anyone would choose to play that way. I finally figured out that the fingers aren’t really a fist, and also the whole arm position is different. It’s not as supinated, and there is a palm pivot point that makes wrist motion possible without forearm interaction. If you didn’t grow up playing that way, I don’t think it’s super obvious to know how to do it, and you might have to figure it out like I did.
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