Guitar Pedagogy

When I started playing guitar, I played only fingerstyle for years. When I got into jazz and started picking, it was a whole new world and took me about a year to really get comfortable with. When I say comfortable, I mean relatively adapted - understand, I have been picking for near ten years now and am still not 100% “comfortable”. As with all elements of technique, picking is something that needs constant practice, and with constant practice will come continual, excruciatingly slow but eventually discernable subconscious improvement.

Any style of attacking the strings is contingent upon training very delicate muscle-motor stimuli in the brain. This takes determination, perseverance, and repetition. Of course, it is important to be repeating the correct thing…which leads to the question: what is the correct thing?

This is where you will get a diverging range of answers that are as wide as the delta of the Nile, each one being accurate in some sense and none being correct for everybody’s needs and desires across the board.

The way to really start answering “how do I learn to pick?” or “how do I practice picking?” or “Should I pick or use my fingers?” is to first answer the question “What type of music am I trying to learn?” Obviously, if you or your student wants to play like fingerstyle guitar like Leo Kottke, then you would use your fingers exclusively.

The problem once you get into picking, is that many different styles use divergent techniques. Once you figure out what sound you are striving for, then the teacher you select who is adept in that style will be able to point you in the correct direction in terms of picking technique. Even within a style, there are differences - jazz, for instance, has several different picking approaches. For example, Joe Pass used a heavier pick with little angle of incidence, his attack coming from the elbow; whereas George Benson uses a lighter pick (when using a pick)at a changing angle depending on the desired tone, and the attack may vary from elbow to wrist.

In such a sea of styles, techniques, and approaches, it is best to focus on one and master it first. Then you can use that as a jumping off point to explore other techniques and ideas. You’ll always have that initial anchor which will help keep you grounded and playing. Then, in time (about 50 or 60 years) people will marvel at your picking “technique” and try to find out the “secrets” of it. You will become a revered picking icon, and future websites dedicated to picking will laud your name in resplendent regalia.

Until that happens, however, you’d better pick up that axe and start grinding away at those strings…one carefully thought out pick at a time.

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” - Confucius (Little-known guitar shredding master)

Trackback URI | Comments RSS