Gypsy Picking...impossible

kevingcox

I feel like there should be some sort of idiomatic expression that fits my reaction to what you describe... Throwing out the baby with the bathwater? Cutting off your nose to spite your face?

As in all things as long as you aren't hurting anyone else (unless, of course, they ask you to) then do whatever you want. Django certainly didn't become a legend by following anyone else's limitations on what a guitar can or should do. Make the best music you hear, always.

Al Watsky

This is an amazing style for right hand technique.
So much knowledge in this group .
Right hand has always been about quality of sound and being heard.
The alternate picking for Jazz is non rest stroke based and as a consequence is a rather weak sound.
If you look at ethnic styles of plectrum use you start to see rest strokes used , its also possible to alternate pick using the rest stroke attack on the down stroke and a free stroke of the up stroke. So at that point your splitting the difference and thats also a viable approach with the plectrum.
When I was studying Classical guitar and later Flamenco we were aware that every accomplished player developed a technique based on their personal ergonomic needs. We were taught to be cautious of copying another players hand position as often their approach was too personal to apply to the average student. We knew as early as the 80's that slavish imitation of postures could potentially lead to difficulties so the best advise was always to know the basics of tone production and let logic and the students own "equipment" ,hands, arms and shoulders, arm length, torso length and etc., lead the way.
There are also ways to have a stronger up stroke when using a plectrum. Essentially by resting the up stroke. Nothing will equal the tone of the resting downstroke but you can try to get closer .

DragonPL

hmmmm I tried to make an intelligent point of observation about guitar timbre...

kevingcox wrote: »

I feel like there should be some sort of idiomatic expression that fits my reaction to what you describe... Throwing out the baby with the bathwater? Cutting off your nose to spite your face?

As in all things as long as you aren't hurting anyone else (unless, of course, they ask you to) then do whatever you want. Django certainly didn't become a legend by following anyone else's limitations on what a guitar can or should do. Make the best music you hear, always.

kevingcox

DragonPL wrote: »

hmmmm I tried to make an intelligent point of observation about guitar timbre...

I think you did. I am sorry that I didn't make that clear.

What I'm trying to say is that after a certain point technical refinements come down to a matter of taste. In my opinion, taste cannot be argued it simply is. We each have our own hands, our own ears, and our own goals.

That is not to say that there is not a wealth of technical information available that should be shared and valued. It just needs to be contextualized. We have to take it all in and ask ourselves as individuals if the juice is worth the squeeze. My own choices might not be yours, and that is super mega ok.

DragonPL

Well I just brought this up because having earned a classical guitar degree there was more -politics- in the field that there are on CNN. If some one was playing and sounding great, but were not going to Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, and their wrist were a millimeter off they were "no good". Even the great Ana Vidovic, that was Peabodys shining star (and a world class player) "can't play" any more according to the head of the guitar department.
That's what I'm seeing a little bit in the GJ guitar community; oh yeah and don't get me started on the jazz guitar department in college. Even worst snobbery to them Django stuff was no good.

Bones

Dragon, that's a big reason why people look for a very 'dry' guitar. Some guitars have a lot of that ringing which is really an issue. Others much less so.

Jon

@DragonPL I think you might be confusing politics with preference (at least in the case of the GJ community, which I think is generally pretty open minded and pleasant). Every technique has timbral and note choice implications, and you simply can't get certain sounds with certain techniques. That's not to say one or the other is bad, but it might not be to my or your taste. I don't get into people who play with flat, anchored wrists and alternate pick because they sound a certain way that doesn't appeal to me. That doesn't mean they can't play guitar (although it does sometimes - sometimes - mean they haven't put in the effort to learn the style), but it does mean I won't spend much time listening to them, because I don't much like that sound. That's preference, not a political statement. If someone sounds great to you, it doesn't necessarily mean someone else's ears are tuned to the same frequency, if you know what I mean. I don't like Keith Jarrett either, who is one of the most amazing musicians on the planet, but I won't buy his albums.

crookedpinky

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BluesBop Harry

Regarding Andreas Oberg's picking... I've taken a few private lessons with him in person and he basically uses straight gypsy picking except he prefers a flatter wrist. It's still floating and definitely not anchored ( At least most of the time), just flatter than usual for this style... I seem to recall him saying it was easier to switch between electric and acoustic. Also he doesn't play with a very wide motion in preparing downstrokes. Killer player!

Now about the gypsy picking technique...

It comes down from Django himself and almost every successful player in this style has adopted it with none to very little variation...

It produces a very particular tone and phrasing that is closely associated with gypsy jazz.

You can try using other techniques but chances are high you won't get the same success when playing on a Selmer style guitar acoustically.
It seems to me like a classical player wanting to play Bach with finger picks or hybrid picking... He might arrive at something interesting but it's very doubtful he will be able to hang in the same league as the people that use the traditional (and time-tested) technique for playing classical guitar

dennis

BluesBop Harry wrote: »

Now about the gypsy picking technique...

It comes down from Django himself and almost every successful player in this style has adopted it with none to very little variation...

It produces a very particular tone and phrasing that is closely associated with gypsy jazz.

actually, if i may, I think our very own Michael Horowitz coined the term Gypsy Picking but this was actually the standard picking technique for guitar in the pre-amplification era. It's been said (perhaps by Michael???) that it comes from old classical mandolin technique. I 'm still researching it but the only mention I can find is an interview with this violinist:

http://www.mandolincafe.com/news/publish/mandolins_001066.shtml

she mentions that in classical mandolin technique, downstrokes are reststrokes, but she does not mention , starting a new string with downstroke, or using as much downstroke as possible.

I'll have to see if i can find old mandolin method books. In some of the early mandolin videos that i was able to find, they were not using that technique



Granted, this is bach's chaconne which is written for the violin, therefore techniques used are likely to be unidiomatic.

We wouldh ave to look at actual classical pieces written for the mandolin, such as vivaldi's mandolin concerto

this modern player does not appear to be using the old technique:



disappointingly, neither is this dude



but then if we watch this video of the lady i mentioned above

she talks about it a little bit,



she seems to do a rest stroke on the downstrokes, dunno about starting new strings though.. i'll try to get in touch with her soon to hear thoughts on this...

At any rate, the so-called Gypsy Picking technique has been in use on instruments such as the Oud for ages



As far as the guitar is concerned, plectrum based guitar only started to become popular it seems sometime in the 1920s, before that it seems that the 6 string banjo was the norm (i welcome any feedback on this statement)

In my research, every plectrum style guitarist born around Django's era, used django's technique. We can hear it Charlie Christian's playing, Barney Kessel hung out with Charlie, and got to observe his technique, he says that it was all downstroke based. You can definitely hear it in his tone.

You can hear it in eddie lang 's tone, in fact it's sometimes quite reminiscent of django's tone, check this clip out



Unfortunately vintage videos of plectrum based players are extremely rare, but look at what my research has yielded:

Nick Lucas , his solo starts at 1:36, but we don't see him until 1:52, and that's classical Gypsy Picking right there:



btw, for those who love horror movies, that's the creepy song from Insidious...

Next guitarist, Lonnie Johnson, a blues guitarist, guitar solo starts at 3:20



gypsy picking again!

There we go, yes i'm an OCD nerd, that's how I roll!

this is unrelated, but FYI, there are lot of myths and misconceptions about the history of guitar technique.. the picking issue is one of them, it's always funny how many modern guitar players think of how gypsy technique is unorthodox (i was like that when i first saw gypsies play), yet it is historically the original standard way to play the instrument.

Another misconception is the use of the 4th finger on the guitar, the extensive use of the pinky is very recent (around 1970s), and the concept was popularized by the new generation of shred guitarists like Al DiMeola , John McLaughlin, etc... Otherwise, until then, the guitar had mainly been a 3 finger instrument, with the pinky coming into play for certain stretches or for convenience in certain situtations. Django, in that sense, had only lost the use of one finger!!!



proof:

joe maphis



To take advantage of this way of playing, it's important to have the base of the index finger attached to the bottom of the neck (like violinists), it helps guide the fingers, and gives you much more control over individual notes. Just watch the videos and you'll see what i mean, doing this can improve your left hand speed for certain kinds of passages.. the only time the index finger gets detached is for certain techniques such as certain kinds of vibrato, or to do certain stretches (in which case, the pinky comes into play)

wes montgomery:



Or check out these 3 (too bad the camera sucks)



Actually, it still as a 3 finger instrument for many styles today, with the exception of supersonic shred guitar styles.

The myth of the pink finger was also perpetuated in certain method books around the 70s/80s that sought to standardize guitar technique and scale/arpeggio positions. Unfortunately, though an important figure in the history of guitar, William "Bill" Leavitt was one of those people, he pioneered guitar education, and he wrote a series of guitar method books as part of the curriculum for the Berklee College Of Music. If I am not mistaken he was the first chair of the guitar department. This in turn perpetuated the myth among various instructors around the world until today even!