Stochelo teaches "Dinette"

Passacaglia · March 2013

Wow, talking about "drowning in a sea of words." Physician, heal thyself and all that. I've no business opining here when my life is rhythm (as well as a growing love for old-timey stuff, musette, etc.).

Standing down!

Jazzaferri · March 2013

Why would I pay money to have someone pass on some knowledge and then ignore what they say, particularly when it makes my life easier

.

I rather suspect that Stochelo uses upstrokes at times for musical not technical reasons. They sound a bit different and in some cases add a lovely touch to the phrasing. I don't know how conscious he is of this, it may be just the musician coming out.

Rules are meant for the guidance of wise men and the obeissance of fools....is a quote from the distant past that comes to mind.

Jazzaferri · March 2013

Fwiw ..I also note that if I am playing up the strings (stroking down) that if I am jumping a string, instead of a rest stroke I play a free stroke...no matter what anyone says that aint gonna change

I spend time on exercise where I practice a picking pattern and I spend a bit of time most days playing consecutive downstrokes as fast as I can. I will never get to SR's speed on guitar....in some keys on some runs on sax it is much easier to play really fast.

I also note that a free stroke doesn't look like an alternate picking stroke at all...it looks like a rest sroke that instead of hitting the lower (physically) string just misses it and is circling around for another go.

dennis · March 2013

if i may add my 2 cents:

when analyzing something, it's very important not to get into the trap of over-analyzing. It's definitely easier said than done... As I have said in the past, the most important thing is tone; do everything for the tone and don't try to be too dogmatic. As I've explained, Mozes uses gypsy picking ( a term coined by our own Michael H) more liberally than his brother Stochelo; both have fantastic tone... Mozes has a much lighter and brighter tone (he picks closer to the whole), wheras stochelo s tone is a bit more explosive and heavier.

As far as rest strokes are concerned; whether Stochelo actually does this at high speed is not important in my opinion.. The important thing is to strive for it even if you don't actually do it. This is important because it will psychologically affect how you attack the strings. As bluesbop mentioned, the way his wrist is angled and the way the pick attacks into the body, the natural thing is to strive for a rest stroke. In my opinion, when practicing this technique that's what your mind should be aiming to do even if it doesn't ... does that make any sense?

If for example, you aimed for free strokes, you 're basically programming your hand to stop its natural motion which can lead to unnecessary tension and problems later on...

that's just my opinion....

Bones · March 2013

Ok, here is what this sounds like to me.

The downstroke (as opposed to a rest stroke) is really just a rest stroke where the motion is shortened up to the point where the pick does not 'rest' (or maybe even not touch) the adjacent string.

This makes sense to me since at faster tempos (assuming that you can only move your hand so fast) that you have to shorten up the amount of motion to keep up with the tempo.

Is that kind of what we are talking about?

Hemert · March 2013

dennis wrote:

if i may add my 2 cents:

when analyzing something, it's very important not to get into the trap of over-analyzing. It's definitely easier said than done... As I have said in the past, the most important thing is tone; do everything for the tone and don't try to be too dogmatic. As I've explained, Mozes uses gypsy picking ( a term coined by our own Michael H) more liberally than his brother Stochelo; both have fantastic tone... Mozes has a much lighter and brighter tone (he picks closer to the whole), wheras stochelo s tone is a bit more explosive and heavier.

As far as rest strokes are concerned; whether Stochelo actually does this at high speed is not important in my opinion.. The important thing is to strive for it even if you don't actually do it. This is important because it will psychologically affect how you attack the strings. As bluesbop mentioned, the way his wrist is angled and the way the pick attacks into the body, the natural thing is to strive for a rest stroke. In my opinion, when practicing this technique that's what your mind should be aiming to do even if it doesn't ... does that make any sense?

If for example, you aimed for free strokes, you 're basically programming your hand to stop its natural motion which can lead to unnecessary tension and problems later on...

that's just my opinion....

Hi Dennis,

Great that you chime in on this!

After transcribing many solos of Stochelo with pick directions for every note I have actually found his picking to be very dogmatic, that is: he will always pick certain licks the same way (he does vary with embellishments but that's it). The problem with always striving for rest strokes and not practicing free strokes is that many people will never be able to play arpeggios with only down strokes using rest strokes and they switch to using down-up patterns when playing two notes per string. Stochelo almost never plays down-up in such circumstances but down-down which ends up in eight downstrokes in a row when playing dim arpeggios for example.

If you have trouble doing this at high speeds you need to practice the free stroke on the first note on a string consciously in a slow tempo so you can speed up those exact motions.

Of course if you are able to just play those arpeggios at 280 BPM without problems (by playing those free strokes unconsciously) there's no need to practice it slowly. But for most people the slow approach works best.

About Mozes: I have played many concerts with him and we've discussed his approach to picking at occasion. He told me that he purposely switched from copying Stochelo exactly because he found that it would limit his ability to play as fast as he wanted (his words). Mozes copied many licks of Bireli and that indeed requires a somewhat different approach.

Unrelated: will you be at Samois this year? I had fun jamming with you last year!

Passacaglia · March 2013

Hi Christiaan -

If I've seen it, I spaced it...I presume you're talking a dim run en escallier, right? Would you mind pointing to a clip, to see this, where Stochelo is doing all downstrokes? I just think it's eluded me, and maybe others would benefit as well.

Thanks,

Paul

Hemert · March 2013

Well, they're basically in every solo Stochelo plays because he plays dim arpeggios a million times per solo, in very creative and surprising ways I must add.

Check Dinette the lick just before the bridge in the melody (at 0:19 and another one at 0:24). He plays an E-dim arpeggio ending on a C on the high E string, all down strokes there ( except for the high Db).

Inside RA there are many, many examples of this and you can see everything slowed down. Also exercise 3 of the technique course will help you develop this. I have also created an exercise myself to develop this technique to high speeds which is not in the course. It's pretty hard to put into words on paper. I'd record a video of it but I basically made an agreement with Stochelo that I cannot put up technique videos outside of the Rosenberg Academy. If we'd meet I'd be more than happy to show you though!

Passacaglia · March 2013

Hemert wrote:

Well, they're basically in every solo Stochelo plays because he plays dim arpeggios a million times per solo, in very creative and surprising ways I must add.

Check Dinette the lick just before the bridge in the melody (at 0:19 and another one at 0:24). He plays an E-dim arpeggio ending on a C on the high E string, all down strokes there ( except for the high Db).

Inside RA there are many, many examples of this and you can see everything slowed down. Also exercise 3 of the technique course will help you develop this. I have also created an exercise myself to develop this technique to high speeds which is not in the course. It's pretty hard to put into words on paper. I'd record a video of it but I basically made an agreement with Stochelo that I cannot put up technique videos outside of the Rosenberg Academy. If we'd meet I'd be more than happy to show you though!

OK, thank you, Christiaan, will check it out.

His cousin gets 99.9% of my airtime.

Edit: Just looked - isn't he just doing hammer ons and swept strokes on that first dim run? Maybe my eyes need to be quicker?

Hemert · March 2013

No hammer-ons anywhere. He seldomly uses hammer-ons in normal playing. Some pull-offs here and there. If you start hammering on you will sound like a bluegrass guitarist. I know it's hard to believe but when yo see the slowdowns inside RA you will realize that all the sources were well... wrong. I can't say it any other way. I've always known (since I started playing with Stochelo that is) but it took the RA for people to finally see it.