Why is pickslanting easier on some guitars?

Gear
#1

Hi - I’m curious what other people think about this question - why is pickslanting/pick escape (not sure what it’s called right now) easier on some guitars and harder on others? There are some obvious reasons that are possible like string action, string gauge, and general play ability, etc.

Beyond those reasons, I’m noticing I can pick slant better on certain guitars and I’m not sure why. I’m guessing some guitars are just a better match for your technique in terms of size of the body, or where you can plant your fingers/hand.

Maybe there are no generalities one can infer from this but I’m curious what others think - thanks!

1 Like
#3

When you say “pickslanting”, what are you referring to, the picking motion itself? Because there are lots of those. For example, both Mike Stern and Joscho Stephan use downward pickslanting, but their motions are very different. Mike is a wrist player. Joscho is a wrist/forearm player with a totally different forearm position and set of anchors. “Pickslanting” always boils down to some kind of picking motion. And most players fall into a few big top-level categories of elbow, forearm, wrist, or some combiantion of the above.

In general, when you’re trying to understand the effect of guitar body shape on your technique, ask yourself what kind of arm position and anchor points you use, and what kind of picking motion you use. What the pick looks like, i.e. whether it is “slanted” doesn’t really tell you much by itself.

#4

If you put your hand on the bridge it might matter if it is fixed, a Floyd, etc. But the shape of the body greatly impacts your forearm anchor, likely another huge factor (not to mention considerations like the radius of the edge, etc.). For example, a guitar like a Music Man St. Vincent will have a terrible forearm anchor for somebody like me, and it would likely be unplayable.

I think that I am starting to understand why some people have a “signature guitar” that they always play; I standardized on a 2.0mm Flow pick some months ago and I am starting to understand the benefits of no variation. (I think if I was to make my signature guitar it would just be a scalloped super-Stat with a Floyd.)

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#5

String spacing will impact it a lot. On my steinberger I can shred through a scale with downward pickslanting. On my washburn that has wider string spacing, the whole feeling is more floppy, less tight and locked in. Tho I play my steinberger a lot, so my hands have adapted to that.

#6

If your wrist is pressed against the guitar either the heal(supinated) or behind the thumb(pronated), I found there is a big difference on my yamaha classica/electric and my charvel in terms of how far I can flatten my palm so that my arm becomes pronated on a downstroke with the heal anchor on the way to an upstroke(escape on the upstroke). I not prone to anchor in the other position for now but imagine the considerations are similar.

Anyway the depth of the body is a factor in some way(on the yamaha I anchor on the heel of the hand(not palm) behind the bridge to slant towards the higher strings to compensate for this-(I couldn’t understand why until yesterday) I believe that is idea of the question. Of course if you don’t anchor on the body that’s all together different but many of us do for leverage.

BTW that two minute word silent video is the best thing you’ve done really shows the nuts and bolts of good picking if one pays close attention and made it possible to understand the compound curve video completely(which at first was way to much).