Right Hand Question

Rob MacKillop

back by RobMacKillop, on Flickr

Rob MacKillop

Neck by RobMacKillop, on Flickr

Scoredog

here is something to consider, say you work out a line or phrase that becomes comfortable starting on beat one of the bar and you use DUDU ect, but you wish to now use the same phrase but start on the upbeat and lose the initial downbeat note. Personally I'd generally then start with an up stroke in those circumstances unless I really need to accent the upbeat differently.

Rob MacKillop

Yes, scored, this is kind of what I'm thinking. I guess there is room to do what you want, within an overall aesthetic of the style...so to speak.

Buco

From the pictures it looks much better than the price and your overall description suggests.

Rob MacKillop

I think its worth five or six times what I paid for it. I've just had a student here (I teach guitar) and he said, "That's so LOUD". The volume is a mixture of the guitar and this Gypsy Jazz rest-stroke technique I've been annoying the neighbours with this last week :-) It's beginning to work...

Rob MacKillop

Actually, it looks better than it is. That figuring on the back is painted on! Harmony were known to have developed that technique. It would fool most people in a picture, and still many people close up.

Buco

You know in this genre I think there's no better right hand than Stochelo R.
If you look at his wrist in this video, and there's plenty more previews like this on youtube from his online academy, it has this incredible recovery speed between consecutive downstrokes.
His wrist just bounces back as if his hand is tied to a bungee cord that's being stretched and released every time he needs to reposition his hand for another downstroke.
It's so much fun to watch for me (can't believe I just wrote that, what a nerd whew) and hopefully soak some of it into my own playing as I've been trying to practice this wrist bounce very slowly in front of the mirror playing some line and observe my wrist and adjust as needed.
And the video:

Rob MacKillop

Damn. I was just beginning to think I was getting somewhere :-(

That is amazing, effortless playing. I see what you mean about the bounce. Back to the drawing board...

Bones

I think that Stochelo calls those double down strokes 'normal' strokes or something like that (rather than rest strokes). They are a little shorter and quicker. Maybe someone who is more familiar with his style can chime in.