When people only refer to "finger style" or" strumming"....

thomasross20 · October 2017

May I ask.. how does this tie in with the Troy Grady course? I think it's all quite similar? Or maybe I'm wrong.
I WILL check those out, believe me.. even if it's in 6 months time or whenever..

Lewy · October 2017

thomasross20 said:

May I ask.. how does this tie in with the Troy Grady course? I think it's all quite similar? Or maybe I'm wrong.
I WILL check those out, believe me.. even if it's in 6 months time or whenever..

Cracking the Code? One can definitely apply pick slanting to flatpicking to an extent, but how most flatpickers play is what Troy calls crosspicking (which gets confusing because that term actually means something else to flatpickers).

The thing to remember is that whilst flatpicking is alternate picking, the pick direction is tied to the beat, not to economy of motion. That’s how it gets it’s drive. So a lot of the Troy Grady stuff doesn’t apply. I also don’t think I’ve ever heard Troy talk about tone, and getting good acoustic tone is a huge obsession for flatpickers, to the point where if something is easier to execute one way than another, but the easier way gives a lesser tone, they’ll choose the harder way.

He’s had David Grier on Masters of Mechanics but I haven’t watched it as I don’t subscribe.

thomasross20 · October 2017

Thanks for the reply, @Lewy

BigLicks67 · October 2017

TheOtherDennis said:

On the subject of courses and stuff, is there anywhere I could learn some flatpicking stuff that isn't quite as pyrotechnic as some of the vids? That's not a criticism of the players or their music, just that I'm not capable of playing that level of speed (and god knows I've tried), so it would be good if I could get something a bit more Gardeners' World soundtracky, if you know what I mean.

If you can read music then there is a website called thesession.org which has a compendium of fiddle reels & jigs that can be transposed to guitar. They are mostly the melodies and would be a good introduction.

There's also a Tony Rice Homespun book/cd and an old Richard Thompson homespun book which features a flat picked Poppy Leaf Hornpipe and The Rakish Paddy.
Simon Mayor's book on Celtic Mandolin is very good too and is where I learned to play St Anne's Reel (There are several versions in the book to choose from).

brojangles · October 2017

I sort of play that way - not at the same level of skill, obviously, but playing chords or bits of chords while picking out bass notes and melody lines with the same constant hand motion - and I've always assumed it's because I'm a bit crap and need a pick to get the sound I want instead of using my right hand's fingers like proper players do. So I'm glad there are actual musicians who do it too.

TheOtherDennis · October 2017

Lewy said:

You can do any kind of music with this style but nearly all the tutorial material is bluegrass and old time country orientated, which may well be why more people don’t play this way.....

Can't speak for anyone else, obviously, but it's not the music or the style that puts me off, it's the speed and complexity, I'm just not up to it. And yes, I have tried very hard to speed up, but I only get so far and so fast and then it simply doesn't happen properly any more. We all have our limits, mine are just slightly lower than some other players', so I'd rather play something that's meant to be less pyrotechnic.

And thanks for the tutorial tips.

olafgarten · October 2017

I have a friend who broke his ring finger and so glued a pick to the bandage and played with 2 picks at the same time.

AliGorie · October 2017

TheOtherDennis said:

I disagree. I think he's just harsh. Just because you don't know a particular tune - no matter how easy it is - doesn't mean you'll never be able to do anything. And the answer to the first question is "You need to find a way to get more time. Get up half an hour earlier every day and practice then as well as the 20 minutes you already have, it'll make a big difference." Encourage them to think about it, don't just tell him to, effectively, fuck off.

TheOtherDennis said:

Can't speak for anyone else, obviously, but it's not the music or the style that puts me off, it's the speed and complexity, I'm just not up to it. And yes, I have tried very hard to speed up, but I only get so far and so fast and then it simply doesn't happen properly any more. We all have our limits, mine are just slightly lower than some other players', so I'd rather play something that's meant to be less pyrotechnic.

And thanks for the tutorial tips.

1; I think I'd rather know where I stand - ability wise that is rather than deluding myself, that way I can go away and try and do something about it. I know many deluded musicians - one, a relation had music lessons when he was at school, and so thinks hes a musician. He can read music and knows theory to a fairly good degree - thats the academic side of things - but he's got a BASIC sense of rhythm AND pitch which would be ok if he played a fretted instrument - NO he plays the violin - badly - you've gotta 'make' the note on a violin - it really is woeful listening to him, painful even. He plays with other similarly talented people - and they actually perform - do gigs 'n stuff. He cant sit and jam with 'conventional' players playing ANY of the normal styles so, guess what, he says it's 'Improv' and he actually says it's 'jazz improv'!. Lots of simple quirky arrangements of scales which sound like it's looking for a film to be the incidental music too, he's simply - deluded.

2: the vid's above ao of players at the top of their game, but you'll notice that none of them are playing 'fast' - if you do a bpm you'll find theyre playing at approx dance rhythm - what makes it sound 'fast' it all the 'fills' and ornamentation their throwing in there - it's what you do to put u'r stamp on a piece. Go get 'the dots' of the basic tuned find ou tthe correct dance rhythm in bpm's and play the 'bare' tunes - in a while once u've got that down - add u'r own fills / runs.

Oh the fingerstyle humor thing - playing (all the bits ) of a pop or quirkier tune is clever (and technically involved ) - that's what is being displayed - but not funny.
David Grier is making little (musical) innuendos and nods to other tunes / styles within what on the surface appears to be a straight forward bluegrass tune - at dance tempo - intelligent and funny.

Lewy · October 2017

AliGorie said:

TheOtherDennis said:

I disagree. I think he's just harsh. Just because you don't know a particular tune - no matter how easy it is - doesn't mean you'll never be able to do anything. And the answer to the first question is "You need to find a way to get more time. Get up half an hour earlier every day and practice then as well as the 20 minutes you already have, it'll make a big difference." Encourage them to think about it, don't just tell him to, effectively, fuck off.

TheOtherDennis said:

Can't speak for anyone else, obviously, but it's not the music or the style that puts me off, it's the speed and complexity, I'm just not up to it. And yes, I have tried very hard to speed up, but I only get so far and so fast and then it simply doesn't happen properly any more. We all have our limits, mine are just slightly lower than some other players', so I'd rather play something that's meant to be less pyrotechnic.

And thanks for the tutorial tips.

1; I think I'd rather know where I stand - ability wise that is rather than deluding myself, that way I can go away and try and do something about it. I know many deluded musicians - one, a relation had music lessons when he was at school, and so thinks hes a musician. He can read music and knows theory to a fairly good degree - thats the academic side of things - but he's got a BASIC sense of rhythm AND pitch which would be ok if he played a fretted instrument - NO he plays the violin - badly - you've gotta 'make' the note on a violin - it really is woeful listening to him, painful even. He plays with other similarly talented people - and they actually perform - do gigs 'n stuff. He cant sit and jam with 'conventional' players playing ANY of the normal styles so, guess what, he says it's 'Improv' and he actually says it's 'jazz improv'!. Lots of simple quirky arrangements of scales which sound like it's looking for a film to be the incidental music too, he's simply - deluded.

2: the vid's above ao of players at the top of their game, but you'll notice that none of them are playing 'fast' - if you do a bpm you'll find theyre playing at approx dance rhythm - what makes it sound 'fast' it all the 'fills' and ornamentation their throwing in there - it's what you do to put u'r stamp on a piece. Go get 'the dots' of the basic tuned find ou tthe correct dance rhythm in bpm's and play the 'bare' tunes - in a while once u've got that down - add u'r own fills / runs.

Oh the fingerstyle humor thing - playing (all the bits ) of a pop or quirkier tune is clever (and technically involved ) - that's what is being displayed - but not funny.
David Grier is making little (musical) innuendos and nods to other tunes / styles within what on the surface appears to be a straight forward bluegrass tune - at dance tempo - intelligent and funny.

Yeah, the full anecdote as it was related to me was that Grier was explaining that they were going to work on some fiddle tunes and someone said they were less interested in that and that they wanted to learn how to improvise. So he did the "ok, play happy birthday" thing to show that you can't effectively compose on the spot and at pace if you haven't got the facility to find notes of a very simple tune you already know on the instrument, and the way to build that facility is to learn a lot of tunes and understand what's going on inside them.

As for tempo - AG is bang on, they're not actually that fast. Bluegrass can be very fast but not all flatpicking is bluegrass. What is the culture shock when looking at the style for the first time is the constant churn of notes - that feels like speed but actually it's stamina and you develop it in different ways - with the added benefit that speed becomes a by-product. For what it's worth @TheOtherDennis I can't play any other kind of "fast" music. There's something about the division of labour between left and right hands, and the extensive use of open positions that makes this more accessible for me. Still been a good few years getting to the point where I'd do it on a gig though.

BigLicks67 · October 2017

A friend of mine (drummer) who was studying at music college many moons ago was sitting in the rehearsal space listening to some guitarist shredding some EVH type noodling, when the course tutor came in pointed at him and said play Happy Birthday to which the EVH wannabe couldn't respond. So it seems it is a tactic employed by music pros across the globe : >

Lewy · October 2017

BigLicks67 said:

A friend of mine (drummer) who was studying at music college many moons ago was sitting in the rehearsal space listening to some guitarist shredding some EVH type noodling, when the course tutor came in pointed at him and said play Happy Birthday to which the EVH wannabe couldn't respond. So it seems it is a tactic employed by music pros across the globe : >

I love it - I kind of see it working on two levels. There's the fact that when you spend just a few minutes actually studying it, you'll learn so much about how the melody is working with the underlying harmony, and secondly there's a bit of a lesson there about what it is to be a musician. For all your artistic aspirations, there will come a time when you just need to play Happy Birthday or something equally rudimentary for someone and you're gong to look a right plum if you can't.

TheOtherDennis · October 2017

@AliGorie and @Lewy - Points about speed well made and understood. I should have spotted that myself - it's always been one of my bugbears about pub bands that they think rock'n'roll has to be played fast. It doesn't, it has to sound fast, which isn't the same thing at all. Check out the Stones or AC/DC, they rarely play fast at all, but it definitely sounds fast. (There's a story about Rob Gretton, the legendary and legendarily awkward producer at Factory, who once told Joy Division to "Play it slower, but make it sound like you're playing faster." It's always told as if he was saying something stupid, but he wasn't, not at all.)

I also take the points about learning music, as in learning where the notes are on the fretboard, how they relate to each other and what they mean. Now that I see the full Happy Birthday story I completely get it and withdraw what I said before about that one, because it's the perfect example of wanting to run before you can walk, which I should have realised.

Just for some context, I'm not trying to be a writer or creator, I'm happy to find some tunes that I want to learn and leave it at that, I don't really have enough time to put into practicing for that level of knowledge and stuff. Maybe in time I'll get to be at a stage where I can put in enough work to get to improvising level, but I have no great aspirations for that, Where I've posted in other threads about not being able to do stuff, I'm just getting frustrated at my lack of ability to play something without making a mistake, no matter how many times I go through it. I always fluff something, and usually it's a different bit of the tune each time, which is why I get so frustrated with myself and wind up going long periods without touching the guitar at all.

Anyway, I'll move on now, because it feels like I'm starting to hijack the thread, which isn't my intention at all, and apologies if that's how it comes across.

Lewy · October 2017

TheOtherDennis said:

@AliGorie and @Lewy - Points about speed well made and understood. I should have spotted that myself - it's always been one of my bugbears about pub bands that they think rock'n'roll has to be played fast. It doesn't, it has to sound fast, which isn't the same thing at all. Check out the Stones or AC/DC, they rarely play fast at all, but it definitely sounds fast. (There's a story about Rob Gretton, the legendary and legendarily awkward producer at Factory, who once told Joy Division to "Play it slower, but make it sound like you're playing faster." It's always told as if he was saying something stupid, but he wasn't, not at all.)

I also take the points about learning music, as in learning where the notes are on the fretboard, how they relate to each other and what they mean. Now that I see the full Happy Birthday story I completely get it and withdraw what I said before about that one, because it's the perfect example of wanting to run before you can walk, which I should have realised.

Just for some context, I'm not trying to be a writer or creator, I'm happy to find some tunes that I want to learn and leave it at that, I don't really have enough time to put into practicing for that level of knowledge and stuff. Maybe in time I'll get to be at a stage where I can put in enough work to get to improvising level, but I have no great aspirations for that, Where I've posted in other threads about not being able to do stuff, I'm just getting frustrated at my lack of ability to play something without making a mistake, no matter how many times I go through it. I always fluff something, and usually it's a different bit of the tune each time, which is why I get so frustrated with myself and wind up going long periods without touching the guitar at all.

Anyway, I'll move on now, because it feels like I'm starting to hijack the thread, which isn't my intention at all, and apologies if that's how it comes across.

Don't worry about it @TheOtherDennis, digression is good!

I identify a lot with what you are saying about not having enough time to practice versus aspirations. I think in the internet age musicians are under a lot of pressure to be polymaths when in truth some of the greatest contributors to the musical world have just had a few distinct things that they did, and in many cases they are things that just came quite naturally to them. They usually then worked very hard to develop and refine but basically the foundation was something that came from them rather than this process of chop acquisition and style hoarding that we all seem to try and do nowadays.

Regarding frustration, I've made the most progress in recent years by deciding to just go around roadblocks rather than spend a lot of precious practice time trying to break through them. If I'm struggling with something, I see if I can find a different way to do it - a different position on the neck, a tweak to the melody that makes it fall better under the fingers, a different picking approach, whatever - and if that doesn't work I move on to something else and make a mental note to come back to that thing in the future. I'd say 7 times out of 10 when I do come back to it, something else has developed in my playing that either gives me a new perspective on the original problem or has just made me more capable of tackling it. Occasionally I even find myself thinking "hmm...why on earth was I so desperate to learn this in the first place?"

Personally I believe that we can't always prescribe everything about the musician we're capable of becoming. Sometimes we have to just get out of the way and let our inner musician emerge. That sounds beyond wanky but I can trace most of the things I like about my playing these days to adopting that philosophy....

Oh, and I couldn't agree more about the way people play rock 'n roll. Same with soul and (proper) r 'n b. Even Mustang Sally is bearable when played with the right groove at the right tempo.

BRISTOL86 · October 2017

@Lewy ;;

Would you recommend the Artistworks course with Bryan Sutton for beginners? I mean I’ve been playing on and off for around 18 months but I’d still put myself in that beginner camp especially as a lot of that time I’ve not been playing acoustic.

You can get a year for about 210 USD - do you think you could advance enough in a year from beginner level to make it worth the outlay or is it really aimed at those with a much higher level of fundamental ability?

Lewy · October 2017

BRISTOL86 said:

@Lewy ;;;;

Would you recommend the Artistworks course with Bryan Sutton for beginners? I mean I’ve been playing on and off for around 18 months but I’d still put myself in that beginner camp especially as a lot of that time I’ve not been playing acoustic.

You can get a year for about 210 USD - do you think you could advance enough in a year from beginner level to make it worth the outlay or is it really aimed at those with a much higher level of fundamental ability?

I'd definitely recommend it for beginners assuming it's the style you want to get into. There is a lot of excellent fundamental content in the syllabus, from posture to left and right hand positions etc. There are some students who are at a very early stage - e.g. can't change between open chords in time - and he seems very good at working with players at that level. His focus is on quality from the outset, so even if your level is just stringing three notes together, are you doing it in the best way possible...clear tone, musicality etc. Everything builds from there.I think that's the right stuff for any beginner to be focussed on. The real return on investment is the Video Exchanges (VEs)because you can submit videos of yourself playing and have him send a personalised response back. He really watches the submitted videos carefully and you'd be amazed at what he can pick up. You really have to get into the VEs to get the most out of it, including watching other people's and Bryan's responses to them. It's an online school,. not an online course if that makes sense. But in that light, it's exceptional value I think.

One caveat - it's not a general acoustic guitar school. It's flatpicking and bluegrass. You can apply the style to any genre, and Bryan is pretty open about people submitting tunes in VEs that are outside of bluegrass/old time, but it is all about flatpicking (so no fingerpicking tuition) and the repertoire used for the syllabuses (basic, intermediate and advanced) is all bluegrass. So you if you want to learn a more broad repertoire as a beginner, you won't get that from this.

BRISTOL86 · October 2017

Lewy said:

BRISTOL86 said:

@Lewy ;;;;

Would you recommend the Artistworks course with Bryan Sutton for beginners? I mean I’ve been playing on and off for around 18 months but I’d still put myself in that beginner camp especially as a lot of that time I’ve not been playing acoustic.

You can get a year for about 210 USD - do you think you could advance enough in a year from beginner level to make it worth the outlay or is it really aimed at those with a much higher level of fundamental ability?

I'd definitely recommend it for beginners assuming it's the style you want to get into. There is a lot of excellent fundamental content in the syllabus, from posture to left and right hand positions etc. There are some students who are at a very early stage - e.g. can't change between open chords in time - and he seems very good at working with players at that level. His focus is on quality from the outset, so even if your level is just stringing three notes together, are you doing it in the best way possible...clear tone, musicality etc. Everything builds from there.I think that's the right stuff for any beginner to be focussed on. The real return on investment is the Video Exchanges (VEs)because you can submit videos of yourself playing and have him send a personalised response back. He really watches the submitted videos carefully and you'd be amazed at what he can pick up. You really have to get into the VEs to get the most out of it, including watching other people's and Bryan's responses to them. It's an online school,. not an online course if that makes sense. But in that light, it's exceptional value I think.

One caveat - it's not a general acoustic guitar school. It's flatpicking and bluegrass. You can apply the style to any genre, and Bryan is pretty open about people submitting tunes in VEs that are outside of bluegrass/old time, but it is all about flatpicking (so no fingerpicking tuition) and the repertoire used for the syllabuses (basic, intermediate and advanced) is all bluegrass. So you if you want to learn a more broad repertoire as a beginner, you won't get that from this.

That’s great thanks. It’s a style I really want to get into and if the teaching is that good - and personalised as you say through the VEs - I think it’ll translate well for me into other genres, especially as when I first started I exclusively used my fingers, so I’ve never been comfortable with a pick.

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