Proper technique questions

[LochJessMonster]

Hey everyone,
I have some very greenhorn sounding questions, which is fine on my end because I'm not trying to pretend I'm anything but.

I've watched through a many of the free tutorials offered on the internet, and I can play the songs and jigs I've learned relatively fast and with decent accuracy (these are also pretty simple tunes like washerwoman, glasgow, st anne's reel etc.) However I have some bad habits.

I tend to down stroke every note, I have terrible posture, and I only recently actually started forcing myself to use a pick. Some of you are probably face palming right now and I don't blame you.

The lack of a pick and using only a downward picking motion (terminology please? Sorry) mainly came from my transition from guitar, which I was also self taught. I used thumbpicks when I did use a pick on guitar, however I mostly just did a finger picking style on a 12-string.

So what I'm wondering, is this way of picking a bad habit? Should I try to correct this or should I do what works? I've also ordered a strap to help with posture.
Any suggestions, comments, or criticism would greatly help!
Thanks!

[HonketyHank]

I am going to defer on answering to let former and current guitar pickers have a go at this. I wouldn't call any style of picking a bad habit if it produces the results you want. On the other hand ...

But I do want to welcome you to the Cafe. We have lots of recovering guitar pickers here. Even a few recovering banjo pickers.

[MediumMando5722]

Fingerpicking a 12 string? Seems like that would be tough to get both strings to sound.

[LochJessMonster]

Haha, I know it's not ideal, but a 1968 Gibson 12-string was what I had to learn on. I really enjoy the fingerpicking sound, so when I taught myself I watched videos and read about that style. The neck was incredibly bowed which made the action on the frets terrible, but I feel that the calluses made my transition to mandolin a little smoother
Also It's good to know that I'm not the only one haha! Btw HonketyHank, is that a mandolin banjo hybrid in your picture!?

[JeffD]

So what I'm wondering, is this way of picking a bad habit? Should I try to correct this or should I do what works? I've also ordered a strap to help with posture.
Any suggestions, comments, or criticism would greatly help!
Thanks!

I don't like to use correct or incorrect. I think of it as mandolin standard.

Thing is you can do whatever you want. Of course you can. Yes there are standards, and there are ways that are easier, and there are techniques that are more mandolinny than guitarish. But the reality is you can do what ever you want.

The very fact that you are asking indicates to me that you are likely bumping into some walls. I found that every time I have seemingly reached plateau, where I can do what I can do, but don't seem to be able to move forward and get better, it has been because of some non-standard thing I had adopted or not paid close attention too. So I go back to the basics and what I find is that as soon as I adopt the standard and change some non-standard habits, my playing improves, new techniques become do-able, and things take off. Until the next plateau, where some other non-standard habit is getting in the way.

My opinion:

Ask yourself if you want to play the mandolin, or do you want to play the guitar on the mandolin.

Look at Mike Marshall, Peter Martin, and other teachers. At least know in your head what the standard is. In other words, playing non-standard as an artistic decision with full knowledge of the options is one thing, adopting non-standard habits because its easier, well....

Then go forward and have fun. Its a journey, with lots of starting points, no ending points, and a metric ton of fun to be had. And pretty much nobody cares but you how you play.

[Charlieshafer]

Hey, fingerpicking 12 string was good enough for Leo Kottke... Anyway, if you have chance, check out Mike Marshall's primer on holding the pick, that's my favorite explanation. And yeah, you need to develop an upstroke as well, as that tremolo gives the mandolin it's distinct voice. Also, for any sort of speed, you'll need to use both up and downstrokes. The upstroke is pretty critical in developing a fluid melody line, otherwise it can get sort of thud...thud.. thud like. You get much more dynamics with both up and downstrokes.

But, take your time, no rushing necessary, in the meantime, welcome to the cafe...

[JeffD]

Also, for any sort of speed, you'll need to use both up and downstrokes. ...

Its an efficiency thing. You are below the strings. Why not pluck a string on the way up? You have to go that way anyway.

[Jim Parriott]

I too come from guitar and fingerpicking, and am also new to the mandolin. I find that simply running scales helped me a lot in learning to upstroke. After awhile it becomes automatic.

[AndyPanda]

Its an efficiency thing. You are below the strings. Why not pluck a string on the way up? You have to go that way anyway.

I'm new to mandolin and I started out thinking efficiency of motion so if I was on the way up to the next string, I would upstroke and on my way down I would downstroke. But then all the tutorials I watched said you should choose your up/down strokes by the beat rather than by the direction of the next string - and so I've been learning to pick that way and it absolutely helps keep my timing and flow going as I try to build up speed. It feels really awkward at first to have to reach the pick over to the other side of a string so I can upstroke it - but by keeping the up/down strokes tied to the rhythm, I can keep track of complex rhythms and it puts me back on the right stroke when I come back around to the top of the pattern again.

[HonketyHank]

... Btw HonketyHank, is that a mandolin banjo hybrid in your picture!?

Yup. Occupational Safety and Health Administration requires the operator to wear ear plugs when in use. Not a bad idea for the audience, too.

[Mark Wilson]

Fingerpicking a 12 string? Seems like that would be tough to get both strings to sound.

Nah - that's easy enough. Finger picking a mandolin that's hard. I tried it for a day when I first started learning to use a pick.

[fifths]

Nah - that's easy enough. Finger picking a mandolin that's hard. I tried it for a day when I first started learning to use a pick.

Using a pick has been by far the hardest part of picking up mandolin for me.
I am proficient at ukulele and sucky on guitar, but neither with a pick.
The last time I used a pick was decades ago playing bad stoner rock power chords in someone's garage.
It has taken a couple of years of light practice to get my right hand to begin behaving. Stick with it! And welcome.

[DavidKOS]

So what I'm wondering, is this way of picking a bad habit? Should I try to correct this or should I do what works? I've also ordered a strap to help with posture.

First a strap alone may or may not help with posture - make sure you sit or stand properly and keep you neck and back straight.

Next, apart from the late Kenny Hall, who played mandolin with his fingernail in a very specific idiosyncratic folk style - which I didn't personally care for a whole lot - mandolin players use a pick.

Period.

Next, you need to learn to play with both up and downstrokes. Also your left hand fingering may need some help too, if you are self-taught.

I suggest correcting all these things before they become permanent bad habits and get in the way of really being able to advance on the mandolin.

[Pete Martin]

You can see my ergonomics videos here:

http://www.petimarpress.com/mandolin...%20videos.html

[Mark Gunter]

I'm new to mandolin and I started out thinking efficiency of motion so if I was on the way up to the next string, I would upstroke and on my way down I would downstroke. But then all the tutorials I watched said you should choose your up/down strokes by the beat rather than by the direction of the next string - and so I've been learning to pick that way and it absolutely helps keep my timing and flow going as I try to build up speed. It feels really awkward at first to have to reach the pick over to the other side of a string so I can upstroke it - but by keeping the up/down strokes tied to the rhythm, I can keep track of complex rhythms and it puts me back on the right stroke when I come back around to the top of the pattern again.

I think you'll find that this is going to revolutionize your guitar playing as well. Have you ever noticed how Ray Charles or Stevie Wonder would rock from side to side while playing piano? That was their groove. As a mandolin (or guitar) player, your groove is in your right hand! Getting that up and down groove going in the underlying rhythm of the tune is probably the most important thing you can do to advance your playing.

So what I'm wondering, is this way of picking a bad habit? Should I try to correct this or should I do what works?

You should definitely do what works - because it all works if you work it. Remember to work it, don't let it work you. If there are multiple modes of play (guitar example, fingerpicking + flatpicking) why would you choose to limit yoursdelf to only one way of doing things? This is just my thought process. So don't focus just on what seems to be working for you right now, but rather invest the time, frustration, whatever, into working the other techniques available to you.

I've spent years playing guitar with flat picks, bare fingers and finger picks. Never once have I regretting having several ways of accomplishing what I want to do. So while it's good to be different, I think the best advice is to at least try to master more than one technique. By the way, in my signature below is a link to a brief article with advice for mandolin beginners, including beginners coming from a guitar background. It was written by a mandolin newbie for mandolin newbies, and recommends Pete Martin's videos linked to above, as well as a few others.

Have fun!

[JeffD]

Next, apart from the late Kenny Hall, who played mandolin with his fingernail in a very specific idiosyncratic folk style - ...- mandolin players use a pick..

For reference.

[Mandoplumb]

LJM. I don't know what music you are interested in, I play bluegrass, my father before me played bluegrass, and while I listen to a bit of other music I play bluegrass. I said all that so you know where I'm coming from. This constant down up picking that so many BG players use now is fairly recent. Bill Monroe didn't use that, neither did McReynolds,Duffy, Wakefirld, Rector etc. They all held their timing pretty good. Now having said that. I agree that you should learn it. For one thing if you are a total greenhorn you don't know yet how you are going to play as your skill develops, that's not a put down we were all greenhorns at one time. In a couple of years you may not use the straight up down picking at all, you may, or you may do something no ones done before, but if I'll bet nothing you learn now that others have proved to be "standard" will ever hurt your playing. Some of the stuff you do just because it seems easy now will have to be unlearned. It takes a certain knowledge and or skill to even know what a "bad" habit is and a newbie doesn't have it. For now learn the standards but never think that is the only way.

[derbex]

You don't have to get rid of your thumb pick, one good local player uses one, he still alternate plucks (up and down) though. Even though I have started using a thumb pick on the tenor guitar I don't think I will be carrying across to the mandolin soon as I like to vary how and where I hold the pick.

[Bertram Henze]

Let me use an analogy: you've successfully painted the floor of your room, except for the one corner you're comfortably sitting in. But the door is on the far end and there is no easy way out. If you want to leave the room one day, be prepared for sticky stalking. You'll feel it in your head, of course, not your feet, when all of your ingrained motion patterns get shuffled and reorganized. Learn to hold a pick, play with the whole hand instead of fingers and up/down motion will come naturally. Posture is even more important - you don't want to end up with a humpback later like Steve Hackett.

[zedmando]

Fingerpicking a 12 string? Seems like that would be tough to get both strings to sound.

I fingerpick & use a pick (& hybrid) on a 6string guitar--but very rarely on a 12 string--then its mostly strumming with a pick.
But some people can do it--and do it very well.
Same with a mandolin.