A year on

adrian

Spartan wrote:

What about muting, how does that work with the float? if it's floating it can't be muting at the same time.

Muting in this style happens entirely with the left hand, not with the right hand. If you've played a lot of Dave Matthews Band-ish palm-muting stuff, it can take some unlearning, but it becomes natural with practice.

Adrian

bbwood_98

Good Job Guys!
Though I am mostly a rhythm player, I have been attending great bebop classes here in NYC for the last several months, and find that even at the tempos set by my teacher (fast) I can still gypsy pick. This is great, because I spent a long time learning it as part of getting into the style . . . and now find it very hard to switch to alt. picking.
Cheers,
Ben

Spartan

adrian wrote:

Muting in this style happens entirely with the left hand, not with the right hand. If you've played a lot of Dave Matthews Band-ish palm-muting stuff, it can take some unlearning, but it becomes natural with practice.

Adrian

This is what i was meaning, as a rock blues player with a bit of jazz thrown in this is like a whole new thing.

Muting wholly with the left hand seems kind of strange and not as effective, though i suppose i'll have to get used to it.

klaatu

adrian wrote:

Muting in this style happens entirely with the left hand, not with the right hand.

Adrian

Adrian, do you mean while soloing, or are you talking about rhythm playing? I assumed the question had to do with muting the ringing of unwanted open strings while soloing, but perhaps not.

Spartan

klaatu wrote:

adrian wrote:

Muting in this style happens entirely with the left hand, not with the right hand.

Adrian

Adrian, do you mean while soloing, or are you talking about rhythm playing? I assumed the question had to do with muting the ringing of unwanted open strings while soloing, but perhaps not.

You're bang on klaatu, i was meaning during soloing, not rhythm playing. As a total beginner at this hand position i don't see how you stop strings ringing into one another unless you mute them slightly with the right hand, but then again i'm a beginner at GJ so i could be totally wrong! :!:

rottjung

Well i thought that was kind of the point also from raising my hand to the rest stroke position.
the sound totally comes alive. compared to the sound of how i played before, standard with my arm resting on the body and my palm on the bridge, it now sound as if i'm playing in a cathedral
this is due thanks to the harmonic resonating of the string that weren't played. no use in muting that... to be clear i'm talking about soloing.
If you have trouble with strings sounding because of sloppy playing, than muting is no answer but rather practise to only hit the right string, which is hard in the beginning if you're use to free stroke.

dennis

actually sometimes, between phrases while soloing, i do mute with the right hand when there's time and there's too much ringing

Spartan

rottjung wrote:

If you have trouble with strings sounding because of sloppy playing, then muting is no answer but rather practise to only hit the right string, which is hard in the beginning if you're use to free stroke.

This is not the whole issue, no matter how precise you are with the right hand there is a certain amount of noise created by your left hand fingers coming up and off strings, impossible to get rid of all that, IMO, through left hand muting when you're soloing.

Dennis sounds as though he has the the more sensible approach to it, to clean the sound up if you need to, or when you can.

dennis

for guitarsists who are used to playing electric guitar or with their hand anchored to the bridge, it comes as a shocker when you have notes ringing, but it's actually quite desirable in acoustic music... especially from a historic perspective... (do a google search on sympathetic string resonance )

this is especially desirable on melodic passages that breathe... ie when you're not playing a constant barrage of notes.. this gives you time to dampen the eventual buildup of resonance that does eventually get in the way... but in moderate doses it opens up the instrument, especially when you play in keys related to the open strings (Em, Dmaj, A, etc...)

it's a combination of left hand and right hand muting... using the right hand to mute isn't that hard either even when playing fast passages, you just have to collapse the wrist so that it straightens enough to touch the strings.. it doesn't even take a second to do, and u can bounce back up to normal playing position

Spartan

dennis wrote:

for guitarsists who are used to playing electric guitar or with their hand anchored to the bridge, it comes as a shocker when you have notes ringing, but it's actually quite desirable in acoustic music... especially from a historic perspective... (do a google search on sympathetic string resonance )

And that is me down to a T Dennis, LOL! i've played a lot of acoustic music too of course, but my technique has been heel of palm resting either on the bridge or the bass strings and alternate picking, so this is a big shock.

I got GJ delivered the other day and i'm working on the picking patterns, so far so good with the first few, playing patterns and learning them seems do-able alright, but improvising in this style is a whole other ball game! :!: