angle of pick to guitar top

harrye · May 2011

Hi all,

I've been reviewing my technique and have noticed that a lot of players seem to lightly brush the fingers of their right hand against the body of the guitar when playing. I've also just noticed that the angle of my pick seems to be about 70 degrees to the top of my guitar.

Upon adjusting the angle to more 50-45 degrees, my fingers begin to touch the guitar. Is this a more efficient way of playing the rest strokes?

Cheers

jimvence · May 2011

IMO, the 45-50 degree angle sounds about right.

Though I've never really measured it, I did notice a change in my picking angle as I acclimated to
proper rest stroke on downward movement, maybe less so on upward movement.

The reason I post is that often you will hear "picking hand off the guitar" when playing GJ.
But, you can see some accomplished players with good technique slightly brushing the top with
their pinky. So touching the top is not a problem, it is anchoring your pick hand on the guitar
that is the thing to avoid.

stubla · May 2011

jimvence wrote:

Though I've never really measured it, I did notice a change in my picking angle as I acclimated to
proper rest stroke on downward movement, maybe less so on upward movement.

The reason I post is that often you will hear "picking hand off the guitar" when playing GJ.
But, you can see some accomplished players with good technique slightly brushing the top with
their pinky. So touching the top is not a problem, it is anchoring your pick hand on the guitar
that is the thing to avoid.

I couldn't agree more--you can clearly see in many photos Djangos right hand fingers,particularly the pinkie, naturally hovering over the soundboard--Stochelo too.
Two of the biggest mistakes people make when changing or learning gypsy picking is exaggerating the arching of the wrist too much--look at the majority of photos of Django and you just don't see him doing that--the wrist is relatively flat--the other big mistake is people thinking the hand has to be clenched in a fist like grip--as far as i can tell only Raphael Fays and Yourgui Loeffler do this--in my own personal experience this closed hand limits the freedom of the right hand to move freely across the strings and can also cause tension in the hand that results in timing issues when executing your impro.
As you say the biggest thing to avoid is anchoring the hand on the guitar--everything else should feel natural--its just common sense really.
Stu

Steveareno · May 2011

I have found the whole European broken wrist pick angle thing very helpful for rythym playing and getting the la pompe vibe going. Paul Mehling explains it really well on his DVD. For single note stuff people end up doing what comes naturally (which is probably as it should be), although I do try to incorporate the downard angle technique a little and don't anchor my hand as much as I used to. Anchoring occasionally does seem give me a sense of stablility and fall back into it as needed...although I kind of curl my little finger under the high E string and lightly touch it to the soundboard. I notice Jimmy Rosenberg always has his right hand sort of splayed out on the soundboard. Unusual technique, but seems to work well for him.
Swang on,