Pebber Brown approach to picking – your opinion?

Playing Technique
#1

I recently came across some Pebber Brown videos on youtube. To me, his picking movement seems to be a mixture of fingers, forearm rotation and wrist, and looks pretty compact and economical – I like the way his hand moves and looks when he plays (I never tried finger movement until I saw those videos, now I can do it somehow, but it’s unclear to me how to switch strings while playing this way; as for forearm rotation, I just can’t do that at any useful speed and I wonder if it’s possible to learn if you can’t do that in the first place).

But on the other hand, I haven’t found a single video by PB with really impressive playing (while there are his instructional videos where he clearly fails to synchronize hands). So I’m curious what do you guys think about Pebber Brown.

#2

Pulling the thumb back and rotating up, or pushing out and rotating down gives the distance for string switching. With correct tracking of course. He calls it scalpel picking. You’re right his examples of exercises aren’t perfect, but not bad, only really misses some notes from what I’ve seen. I think he’s a decent player he does have some shredding up I believe.

#3

My opinion is he’s good. He knows how to teach.

#4

He’s a phenomenal teacher and player. No BS attitude is refreshing for YouTube guitar.

#5

I’m sorry to disagree, I usually avoid being negative about the work of others but from the little I’ve seen he is not a good teacher. I have seen a couple of videos where he spends most of the time ranting about how bad/unprofessional his students are for sending him videos of bad playing. He shouts “you suck!” or similar.
As a professional teacher myself (not of guitar, but still), I cannot condone this attitude, even if he may have 200 other videos that are good. Also, the time wasted ranting could have been spent delivering useful information.

I actually watched the video because the title was “picking practice routine” or similar. Needless to say, my time was wasted.

Paul Gilbert, Batio, Petrucci, Vinnie Moore and a certain Troy Grady are examples of excellent teaching practice (and they play circles around him). I’m sure I’m leaving out zillions more. With this amount of excellent choices that we have, there is no reason to waste time being generically insulted by a youtube video.

2 Likes
#6

lol don’t be offended by him, he’s non pc, thank god, he speaks truth. I’ve got good info from him.
I appreciate reality. I’m far more likely to listen to a foul mouthed truthsayer than a eggshell dancing twofacer.

I personally have gained from his videos.

1 Like
#7

A good teacher of the thumb/finger scalpel picking is this guy here:

He has one of the cleanest picking methods I’ve seen at the 220 bpm mark.

1 Like