New Cracking the Code/Picking Biomechanics revisited

Picking part 2

Episode 1 of series 2 of Cracking the Code has appeared - well worth the wait because the info is I think right on the money, quite new, and throws a light on the last blog entry I made.

http://troygrady.com/code-s2/

I think I can guess what the next few episodes will talk about - I look forward to seeing whether I am right!

In his own inimitable style I think Troy is pushing the pedagogy of right hand plectrum technique into a mature state. By this, I mean the level we see in classical tuition. Plectrum guitarists have been left largely out in the cold due to the absence of classical plectrum guitar tradition (gypsy jazz technique has only really become mainstream among guitarists fairly recently.)

In any case - as soon as I saw the close up of Tory playing the Yngwie stuff I though - ah yes that is the Gypsy Jazz right hand, minus the rest strokes. That's not the only thing Yngwie has in common technically with Django - check out the videos for more info. There's also a short burst of Troy playing some very tasty Django style picking on a nylon string using - yes, rest strokes.

In any case there's much more to come....

Rest Stroke picking

I've started looking at some Bluegrass and country basics for a dep that I do for a friend's band. This isn't a sort of music I have much experience with but I have fallen in love with it. One of my favourite players is the wonderful Tony Rice - flat-picking wizard:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gE992CZQJmM

Just gorgeous music IMO, and deceptively hard guitar playing. I'd be interested to see what Troy would say about the way he seems to adjusting the pick angle into the string.

While bluegrass players don't really shred in the way that gypsy jazzers or hair metal dudes do, the flatpicking targets more or less continuously what is a big weak area for most players - cross string picking. Skilled flatpickers are able to play the sort of stuff easiest executed fingerstyle with a pick, often for more projection in ensembles.

I was pleased to discover that I could basically adapt my existing technique for this style, Tony Rice and many other players use a variant of rest stroke picking - bluegrass players seem split between rest stroke pickers and alternate pickers (happy to corrected if this is wrong info.)

My belief is that mastering the basics of rest stroke picking is an excellent way to naturally cultivate the the pick angle Troy talks about in the episode.

So we can add Bluegrass guitar and mandolin to Oud technique and Gypsy jazz guitar playing as style which uses essentially the same technique. I believe Sarod players use a similar technique - need to find out more. Watch this space...