The Definition Of Stringhopping

Playing Technique
#1

Unless I’ve missed it, I haven’t found the exact definition of string hopping yet on this forum. I see the term string hopping used in different, contradictory ways on this forum which cannot all be describing the same thing, so apparently there is some confusion about what exactly string hopping is.

From watching your videos, I believe it is the use of wrist extension to move the pick vertically above the string so that then a string change can be made. It’s an undesirable motion because it’s slow and stressful. The desired motion is not a vertical motion upwards but a diagonal motion that moves the pick both upwards and towards the next string to be picked.

I don’t know if any of that is correct as I said, I still haven’t come across a clear, concise definition of string hopping. Could we have the correct definition of it?

1 Like
#2

I believe it’s when you don’t use different muscles to generate upstrokes and downstrokes (e.g. if your wrist does something like knocking on a door for each note).

2 Likes
#3

Yes I think that’s a good definition. But it can be really hard to spot that that’s really what’s happening. I remember watching my picking hand during practice in high school. I could see that my hand had a lot of movement and fast vibrations although my speed wasn’t high at all. At that time I couldn’t understand why my hand did that, when other peoples hands looked perfectly smooth and relaxed playing the same thing. I couldn’t see the hopping movement at all, only that i did correct side to side movements with a lot of extra hand vibration.

#5

Here’s a video we’ve made to address this question!

FYI this is the same video Troy linked to in this topic, where we have some other good replies re: defining stringhopping—

Basically, as tommo indicates here, it’s about inefficient motion: the “hop” comes into play when the muscle chain across consecutive notes does not alternate. The “door knocking” motion is a great example and one we use in the above video; in picking terms this motion would require wrist flexion/extension to be repeated for each consecutive note played.

Not specifically about vertical vs. diagonal, though that’s one useful way of thinking about it. An efficient curved crosspicking movement for example would also be not stringhopping because consecutive notes use different combinations of muscle movements.

2 Likes