- Continuing our discussion about picking arm technique,
we're gonna now move to one of the most essential parts
of the picking arm, obviously, the pick grip
and how the pick actually engages with the string.
So far we've covered allowing the elbow to move
and allowing the elbow to hinge and not hugging the guitar
and creating a sense that the whole arm
is contacted to the guitar.
If we strum, make the strum motion.
We see that break in the wrist.
Now as we think about where the hand is
in relationship to all that.
Again, we talked about the wrist
is where a lot of the arm energy is made manifest,
but it also tells the rest of the hand what to do.
We're allowing for this rotation and allowing for the hinge.
One of the key things about the wrist
as we travel and think about the hand more
is we think about the balance of rotation
and balance of hinge.
The wrist is where you see most of that hinge
and see how it makes the hand move, as well.
If I hinge at the wrist,
how it makes the hand move that way.
The key thing here is that we see
a lot of flatpickers on stages or wherever,
and from straight on, as I'm talking to you,
you see more of that natural hinge at the wrist
when a player is playing rhythm or flatpicking.
(acoustic guitar notes)
You see a lot of that, but one of the key things here,
and this is what I love about
being able to make these videos here on the website here
is that we can look at another perspective.
When you stop and you look at from the side,
(acoustic guitar notes) how the pick actually moves
back towards the string based on that rotation.
(acoustic guitar notes)
That's a big component there that a lot of people
just never have a chance to really realize.
There's a lot of bad habits thinking,
"I've gotta hinge at the wrist and move up and down
"or move like this."
And you can experiment with that and feel all those ways,
if I move even with that space, if I close the wrist down,
it prevents that rotation, and I'm just basically
hinged at the elbow with a lot of tension.
If I release that tension,
look back at that angle of the wrist,
it allows that rotation to happen and therefore
(acoustic guitar note)
drive the pick back to the string.
(acoustic guitar note)
That's a big component there.
So we're allowing the most natural movement.
So we're allowing at the wrist this balance of the hinge
based on the elbow moving and the forearm being engaged,
we're allowing for that hinge
but also allowing for this rotation which helps
(acoustic guitar notes)
navigate that pick back to the string.
Again, as you play rhythm,
if you were to strum a little bit,
(acoustic guitar strumming)
you'll see a lot of that in play,
that natural flip at the wrist, that releasing.
Sometimes, Norman Blake has called it
slinging water from your hands.
And you can see that rotation at my wrist
that really causes that when we overemphasize that.
Those are some of the key and essential elements
of movement at the forearm and at the wrist
that tell the hand what to do.
So now let's think about the hand here.
We got our angle at the wrist, which is optimum here.
How do we hold the pick?
Let's think about that.
When we talk about rotation, let's look at a couple other
or at least one other parallel in life that, I think,
offers a good look at answering some questions
about how we hold the pick.
We see a lot of different habits with pick hold here.
Sometimes people have a tendency to think about maybe
what looks to me like a little over conscious of the pick.
I'm sort of scared of the pick, and so I'm gonna hold it
like I would hold a dead bug or something
if I were going to throw it out.
And I create a lot of tension.
And notice how that pick hold
where it's real conscious of an extended finger
and an extended thumb how that creates tension in the wrist,
and I lose some of that natural floating sense
of that hinge and rotation.
Also notice the tension in the fingers, the other fingers,
when we create a pick hold that's too tight
or not as in line and doesn't allow that natural movement.
Part of moving the hand like this, even off the strings,
that can give us a guideline
of what the pick movement needs to feel like.
And so when we think about how to hold the pick
to also create that movement, we think about that connection
of the pick grip back to the elbow
and thinking about that as one contiguous unit.
We've got all these little moving parts,
and again we'll help dial that in
with these video submissions,
but that's really what we're looking for here,
is an arm movement.
We're building an engine here that is the playing motion.
So the pick grip, the parallel in life,
is how we hold a key, how we turn a key.
Next time you're walking into your house
or getting into your car, look at how you hold the key.
A lot of times we don't think about it,
which that's one of the good lessons
in what we can bring to how we hold the pick.
We don't wanna be too conscious of the pick.
What we wanna be conscious of is that
we're able to move as we need to move.
We don't think about how we hold a key
because we're just trying to get into the door,
but we know we need that rotation to turn the key,
we need a little bit of that arm engaged
to be able to push the key into the door,
those kind of things.
We don't get into the way.
We don't hold the key with our fingers out here.
That's another bad habit that I see a lot of times
with the hand, is a tendency that we're not sure
what to do with these other fingers,
this middle finger, the ring finger, the pinky.
We're not sure what to do with it,
and so you see a lot players hold that out,
and notice if you do that, feel that tension
where that hinge in the wrist is essentially,
it's lost it's natural ability.
I have to make it hinge.
Whereas here, as I move from the elbow,
everything floats and responds naturally.
And notice what the fingers do.
The fingers just, they bend in a little naturally,
and this is another one of those points
where what feels and what looks most natural to you
may be slightly different from me,
but we recognize that that's a lot of tension.
We see that a lot of players try to do that.
They try to think about where the hand is,
and they're making some bad habits just in the interest
of trying to stay out of the way of the strings
and things like that.
Just allow the fingers to go where they wanna go naturally.
Another opportunity here is to make a real tight fist,
and also notice how that effects your ability at the wrist
to feel that nice flow of movement.
If I make too tight of a fist,
that tension carries all through the forearm.
Some of us do that, too.
So the pick grip is gonna be more or less in line
with how we hold a key
based on some of the needs of our arm,
what our arm needs to do.
So let's think a little less
and be a little less conscious about the pick
and more conscious about how that arm moves naturally.
But within that there's, I think, some good components,
some good guidelines to look at.
When I hold the pick, I'm generally looking for,
as I move my hand, I notice that the pick can rest
more or less on the top of the index finger.
Part of that bad habit family here
is sometimes we see the pick being held
a little too much on the pad of the index finger
and the pad of the thumb, again like we might hold
a piece of paper or something that we're not quite sure of,
a dead bug or some kind of negative thing.
We want this to flow with the natural position
and natural movement of the hand.
And so for me and the size of my hand,
that's what my pick grip looks like.
If you looked from above,
you can see that the fingers curve in.
I'm not trying to create too much of a fist.
I'm trying to allow, I'm trying to be aware
of all that movement in my forearm,
aware of any tension in my fingers
effects the movement in my forearm.
So the pick grip is associated directly with
how our hand feels, how our hand moves,
and because we're all one unit here,
it's like how a telescope extends,
where the fingers are connected to the hand,
the hand connected to the wrist,
the wrist in through the forearm, through the elbow,
and back up through the shoulder.
We wanna know that we're allowing
the most natural, consistent movement possible.
Anything in the way of that is tension,
and we're gonna hear it.
For example, if I get the pick onto the string here
with this flatter wrist where I've prevented
some of this natural movement,
(acoustic guitar notes) and I play, you'll see that,
especially from above if you look down,
that I'm kinda pecking into the strings.
If I engage back to this more natural position
of the break in the wrist,
it guides that pick into the string.
(acoustic guitar notes)
I'm not picking any harder from here to here,
but notice you'll feel that whole guitar open up.
That's a key, essential point of tone creation,
is just arm placement
and how we move the pick around the string
based on the angle of that wrist.
If I'm too flat,
(acoustic guitar notes)
I hear more of the pick.
(acoustic guitar notes) I hear that pecking noise.
It's a thinner tone because I'm just using,
basically, the point of the pick
(acoustic guitar notes) as much as I can.
If I'm angled more,
(acoustic guitar notes)
suddenly those of you who have spent
a lot of money on the guitar
are now getting your money's worth.
You're hearing a sound that you hoped you would get.
(acoustic guitar notes)
So again, we've established a good tone
so with this interest of flow, creating flow,
we wanna know that we're moving
our hands and arms consistently
to maintain that sound as we play.
A couple other points about the fingers
as we actually engage into the string with the pick here.
Some people enjoy this feeling of, or feel more natural,
with the hands or the fingers of the hand
a little more tucked in.
And I've got friends and we've all seen
extremely accomplished players
that don't make any contact with the guitar.
(acoustic guitar notes)
That feels a little less natural to me.
What I like to do is to allow these fingers
to fall a little bit, and as I play,
and if I engage now in a little eighth note pattern,
(acoustic guitar notes) one and two and three and,
I notice that my fingers react.
I don't try to force them anywhere.
Another key thing about tension
is if I push on the pick guard of the guitar,
we see that a lot,
it's one of the most common bad habits in flatpicking is,
in this interest to try to keep accuracy around the strings
and reduce this movement, notice also as we've experimented
with tension and release, if I push on the pick guard,
notice what that does to the wrist.
I lose all that hinge in the wrist,
at least most of that natural feeling
because I'm pushing against the guitar.
We call this anchoring.
And for me, I like to know that I'm still connected,
so these fingers act as what we've called a depth gauge,
where I feel like, (acoustic guitar note)
when I bring the pick back into the string,
(acoustic guitar notes)
I feel a sense of coming home
and I feel a sense of this hand coming back together
and I'm mainly connected with the guitar.
And just bottom line, these are guidelines.
I would always encourage folks to experiment
with one the other.
Sometimes you might feel that you've done a certain thing
for a certain number of years,
and maybe releasing the fingers a little bit
makes you feel a little more
steady and confident on the guitar.
And again, through video exchanges,
we can dial this in for you.
(acoustic guitar notes)
But for me, as I play, if I'm strumming, I'm gliding along.
(acoustic guitar notes)
The fingers are connected, but they're not planted.
That's a key thing here.
(acoustic guitar notes)
If I play that eighth note pattern on the low strings
you'll notice that I'm still connected
even I'm not pushing against this high E string,
but I'm definitely engaged
with that high E string. (acoustic guitar notes)
So it's at these points here of actually
bringing the pick to the string and making noise here
(acoustic guitar notes)
that we wanna continue just to be aware of the rotation,
that the wrist and forearm,
the hinge at the elbow and the wrist,
and how that carries through the hand,
and mainly because of that angle at the wrist,
we're ensuring that as we grip the pick
and we're looking for that just right amount of pressure
that allows us to maintain that tone,
we can create a good sound
(acoustic guitar notes) by pushing that pick
back into the string
(acoustic guitar notes) we create a good sound here.
And we create consistency for that sound,
because the movement is consistent,
and I'm more in line, this is the bottom line here,
we're more in line with how our hand
wants to move naturally.
We're made to move this way,
and so that's the good habit that we're developing here is
allowing our arm, allowing our wrist, allowing the forearm,
allowing the hand, allowing the fingers,
and even our concept of how we're holding the pick.
We're all always trying to negotiate,
what is the most natural feeling way to hold the pick,
the way to move the hand, the way to move the arm,
way to allow the wrist to move?
That's gonna be something that we refer to a lot as we play.
All this will be challenged with songs, exercises,
and these different components in the website
designed to challenge that sense of that movement.
But part of that deepening trust of allowing our arm to move
is how we really develop as flatpickers.
The more we can test that and learn to trust
that movement and that feel, the better we get.