Retooled Joscho Stephan Lick for USX with super efficient fingering and picking pathway

Teacher's Lounge
#1

Joscho Stephan Lick and YouTube instructional video

joscho lick
joscho lick1366×768 77.6 KB

This video popped up on my feed, and of course I saved it for a later time where I could focus on it better. In its original form it is a great way to approach 4s using swiping, and other pull off tactics to allow deviated movement of the wrist time to get to an upstroke on a previous string. The reason I don’t like this approach is that it throws off the main engine of the motion by forcing this deviation during the double upstroke part, even if there is a pull off to allow a wrist break. This forces the brain to have to do an extra unnecessary process, maybe two (the other when the string change switches back to a downstroke), when first initially learning the phrase when baking in the articulation.

However I saw the opportunity to apply the 4s reverse diagonal climb tactic. Which I am going to assume all of us here who have stuck around since the beginning of this website should be able to do, down, up, pull off, with great ease, at a probably insane speed. So you will be burning this phrase in no time!

Now for you USX players, tell me which of these you got to the finish line first? :stuck_out_tongue:

Screenshot 2024-01-07 at 13-22-31 Edit Untitled Soundslice
Screenshot 2024-01-07 at 13-22-31 Edit Untitled Soundslice933×245 21.5 KB

3 Likes
#2

What a coincidence, I was looking at this lick the other day. I like your approach a lot, but I have to admit that I am not very good about the pull-off with fingers 1 and 2 for those two eighth notes at the end of measure two. Myself, I have been trying this (below) but I am not a big fan of how many position shifts it takes.

Capture d’écran, le 2024-01-09 à 18.19.49
Capture d’écran, le 2024-01-09 à 18.19.491990×576 148 KB

1 Like
#3

I almost put the secondary fingering of 3 2 1 on that pull off pattern. What if you just use index, middle, and ring fingers on the entire thing? Does that help you with the coordination? I held off because since I do realize some people don’t have quite as big of hands as mine, and since it is closer to the bigger end of the fretboard I chose not to put it in to discourage anyone. But if you can do it this way, you definitely should, using those 3 fingers is going to be even faster. Try it in another key higher up with just those three fingers, although it does sound pretty nice in that key.

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#4

I took your advice and moved in up a whole step - with your suggested fingering I got to a good tempo pretty fast. This is good, since I need to practice legato with these fingers anyway. Thanks! Always like seeing jazz manouche content here :slight_smile: