A closer look at Stochelo's picking

Simonius

I've been trying to copy Stochelo's picking style a bit, just because I love the relaxed, dynamic sound it produces, and I thought I'd share. It's important too point out that his picking style changed quite a bit over the years (just like his choice of picks, strings, etc.). It used to be more aggressive, but I'm looking at the relaxed style of recent years. My English may be a little awkward, but bare with me.

First of all, I've noticed that his hand is only slightly curved. Not straight with the arm, but it's curved a bit less then with most players. As with everything Stochelo does while playing, it's 'just relaxed'.

When hitting the string on a downstroke, there's only a slight flick, achieved not so much by pressing down, but by letting the hand "fall" down in a natural motion. Interesting is that, when playing less speedy, he doesn't just use his wrist, but moves his arm down too.

Also important is the way he holds the pick and the shape of his hand while playing. The hand appear to be not tensed at all, except for the slightest power applied to keep the pick in position. The remaining three fingers appear to be just hanging there. Compare this to, for example, Bireli's and Jimmy Rosenberg's picking style, where the whole hand is farely tense and the pick is held very firmly. With Stochelo, the hand is more in a line with the whole arm, and movements of the arm, as I mentioned before, are often used, instead of most player's preference to play single notes with only wrist movement.

I've tried to kind of copy this by sitting in front of a mirror because it does require some discipline. Especially keeping the hand so relaxed is pretty weird at first. But I have to say, fairly quickly, it felt comfortable, and now I actually prefer this relaxed style. Your arm/hand gets tired less quickly, and oddly enough, it gives quick runs a very mellow tone (not muffling [is that a word?] the sound though).

That being said, there's ofcourse the more obvious things, for example his extremely dynamic playing alternating really soft, gentle notes with piercing, loud notes. Useful for playing a lot of notes but still having just a few pop out as the melody.

Well, this may be a little obsessive, and some say copying is wrong, but I found watching pictures and videos of Stochelo and trying to imitate what I saw, helped with my right hand technique. And it improved my overall tone. Stochelo's mellow tone is my ideal and this gets you a long way..

Opinions, please.

Simon.

BluesBop Harry

One thing to consider when looking at Stochelo's picking is that, according to an interview, when he first started playing he only did downstrokes until the speed barrier got too big and only then he started incorporating upstrokes into his technique.
That may be part of the explanation for those little "flicks" he does, he must have reduced the movement to be able to play fast many downstrokes in a row.
Anyway he's incredible!

djangology

and so the "real" gypsy picking is now not so simple...

Stackabones

Great thread!

I saw a recent vid and wondered about this, too ... but this tread does a wonderful job of articulating what's going on.

One question, do you think it has any effect on his volume?

a

1 loose, from the arm, putting out a match
2 change strings - down stroke
3 upbeat - upstroke

let gravity do the work

Simonius

Yeah, exactly, like putting out a match. And no, I don't think it has any effect on the volume. When you hear Stochelo playing up close it's really weird: there's a huge sound coming from that little and relaxed movement.

DrSnyder

You articulated the way Stochelo plays very well! I like his loose tension playing a lot too. And makes the acoustic guitar sound with more weight.