I started with guitar over 40 years ago, and intuitively developed a style that leaned on hammer ons and pull offs, implicitly accepting the fact that I don’t have any refined picking technique. This worked great on electric guitar in jazz, fusion, and rock settings (though my approach to rock was definitely more jazzy than rocky).

Fast forward to a little over 12 years ago when I started playing Brazilian Choro on the Cavaquinho, which is an acoustic, plucked, high pitched, 4 string instrument (somewhere between a uke and a one-string-per-course mandolin), and it became clear that I had little in the way of chops necessary to play the more technically challenging tunes at tempos the pros play, picking every note.

The information here has definitely helped me to understand why some things have been very comfortable for me over the years and others less so, and begin to develop some consistency and find ways to address the less comfortable things.