Versatile picking approach for an improv player

Playing Technique
#1

Ok, so by way of the quick backstory here, I’m kind of a ho-hum alternate picker who’s mostly gotten by on legato in the past, seems to be mostly an upwards pickslanter when left to my own devices, and am about a week removed from a pickinghand shoulder labrum repair, so I’m looking to rebuild my picking technique from thhe ground up, just as soon as I can wield a pick without pain.

I also mostly improvise while playing, and have never had much interest in working out solos in advance and playing them note for note - I think my touch on the guitar is better when I’m just winging it, rather than playing rehearsed parts, things like pick attack, vibrato, etc. I play a lot of shred type stuff but got my start playing blues, so I’m still sort of spiritually rooted in that tradition.

So, with that in mind, and if my goal here isn’t necessarily inhuman speed, but rather a stronger, cleaner, and more authoratative pick attack (as well as being somewhat faster - I’m not chasing Rusty Cooley, exactly, but a bit more speed wouldn’t hurt), is there one particular picking approach that really lends itself to playing imrovised lines where there’s no real guarantee that the notes are going to be chunked together in such a sequence where all my string changes lend themselves to a downward slant, etc? I realize this is probably the “one ring to rule them all” thing for the CTC material, one approach that can do anything, and therefore likely doesn’t exist… and, if so, then it’d sound like the righht answer here would be building an arsenal of little segments or chunks of scales or whatnot that can be assembled on the fly in manners that lend themselvesd to my preferred ppicking approach (I kind of do this already anyway, though driven by the fretting hand and not picking hand - I rarely think in terms of scale shapes while soloing, but instead sort of “see” scales in terms of six note groups, three notes per string across two strings, and sort of chain them together based on how they interlock to move around the neck, so it’d just be a matter of reworking this way of seeing the fretboard to favor my picking hand). But, I thought I’d try to get the conversation going, while I heal. For now I’m stocking up on Gruv Gear fretwraps and practicing soloing with only my fretting hand. :slight_smile:

Thanks!

-Drew

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#2

Personally I think hybrid is the most versatile (or just fingerstyle for that matter) but may be hard to get the tone you personally want. For those who like that aesthetic, it works great. I mean, any string change is pretty simple.

This guy seems to be getting the hang of it: https://www.soundslice.com/scores/114536/

Aside from that, cross picking will cover everything, but the tempo ceiling is lower and honestly it’s probably more work to get it together - just imo!

I hear you though, I have a similar goal. When tempo gets faster for me I do have to resort to things I have worked out fingerings for. (er “For which I have worked out fingerings?”)

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#3

At some point I want to do a live broadcast showing what steps you need to take with any picking system to play the same phrase improvisationally. I think this will help everyone realize that the choice of picking system doesn’t really change the amount of work involved or the variety of things you can play. It just changes which specific things you can play, and even then, only slightly.

So the most practical answer here is, whichever system you can do right now is the best system, as it will be the fastest path to making music and doing all the other work that is necessary: hand sync, fretboard mapping, etc.

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#4

Drew, my approaches to playing have always centered on being able to not get overwhelmed about fingering choices on the fly when playing bop. The rules of economy/hybrid/DWPS with lift offs or all-hammers, SWYBRD, whatever you call it… It’s taken me relatively little time to adapt to where the I never pick myself into a corner. Coming from a strict alternate picking (cross pick?) background, I may eventually end up back in TWPS or crosspicking, but for now, the benefits of the focused study on each approach is paying off. Hope that helps (or at least contributes to the conversation). And +1 on the fretting hand only practice. Cheers, Daniel

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#5

So Troy, I guess the extension of that would be if one doesn’t currently have a system, put a camera on what one is doing before switching religions?

The benefits of DWPS allowed me to double my speed on the Schon lines I wanted to play, but a word of caution… Switching systems and practicing too much (on top of programming and lindy hop) led to injury. I’m mostly better now, but pretty scary there for awhile!

Commenting too much today, but I’all add that when CTC first season was my only awareness of different possibilities out there, thus it was harder to adapt existing technique except in perhaps, overly dramatic ways. Much easier for someone to go a la carte these days.

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#6

If there’s anything worth saving, sure. But if a person is mostly untrained and doesn’t really have any particular chops to speak of currently, then it might not really matter what setup they are currently using. There is nothing magical about what everyone does just because they do it currently.

I always think of the Gypsy system as the ultimate teaching example. Doesn’t matter what you walk in playing like, you’re going to walk out looking and sounding line a Gypsy player. The technique is standardized, and even teachers who aren’t mechanics nerds know how to teach it. Put your arm here, bend your wrist like this, play a downstroke like this, etc. And now play these lines, like this.

Yes it’s formulaic, but that’s not a bad thing if it takes someone who wouldn’t have made music at all and turns them into a functional improviser.

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#7

Oh yeah, I agree. Was thinking of my own development that paralleled yours roughly in time frame, sans key epiphanies (down to Peavey Backstage and Ibanez with stickers). I once asked you what you would use for banjo roll type stuff things and you surprised me at the time by suggesting cross picking, which was roughly where I was coming from, but without the awareness of the subtleties of pick travel. If I came at it now I would film first, then decide where to go. In my case, putting aside alternate picking to learn DWPS resulted in loss of tone in picked lines until I worked it up to where the two ways of playing came closer together. Much respect for proven standardized formulas for sure!

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#8

Great discussion, guys, and thanks for everyone’s input - bunch of good perspectives here. I don’t know at what point I’ll really begin to be able to start using my picking hand again, and if it’s relatively soon then I may have enough worth salvaging in my current approach to make it make sense to stick to it (though it’s definitely pretty roughly hewn at this point and hasn’t been a consciously put together approach, so there’s definitely room for improvement), but if it’s a month or two before I can really do anything significant with a pick, I’ll basically be starting from scratch, and I don’t mind working on something different than what I’m doing today.

Actually I’d love to see that - I could see that being very thought-provoking.

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