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Originally Posted by DonPedro Ok, here it goes:
I have been playing the guitar ... |
A good point. A lot of us get into certain habits and, while they may have made sense at one point, as our playing or goals evolve, they may be holding us back.
I had always used medium picks for my electric work, since that was what I used for steel string acoustic and it felt right in my hands.
Back in the mid-late 90's I decided I wanted to get a Curtis Mayfield style wah wah sound so I really listened to his playing.
I realized he probably used his fingertips in a kind of roscioto (sp? -- I can never even get close enough to successfully look it up) thang, brushing the fingertips over the strings in a tight pattern.
As I was fooling around I started playing some leads, using my fingers instead of a flatpick.
Holy bananas. I felt like I could play so much more precisely -- and so much faster. (It must be said that I'd been working on my fingerpicking on gut string classical for more than a while before that.)
It took a little getting used to, at first, but I pretty much never went back, except for things that don't translate well... downstroke 8ths (yeah, like I use a lot of
those in the 21st C!
) and "pinch" harmonic leads (ditto).
Back on the plectrum front -- several years ago a bass player gave me a big ol' really, really fat pick made out of some odd material (I think it's a graphite-resin compound or something) with a soft, non-slick texture. I've never been great with my fingers on my fretless bass (although I do often pick up a note or two extra with a finger when I slide chords for that Mick Karn effect [see note on 21st Century above].) But this pick (salted away somewhere for safekeeping so I sadly can't tell you the name), which must be the thickness of about 4 medium picks put together, with nice, textured, rounded edges, gives the most "finger-like" sound of any pick I've ever used on a bass. Really something.