Right hand bracing / Barry Mitterhoff

[EdHanrahan]

As a long-time guitarist, I'd gotten into the (supposedly bad) habit of bracing my right pinky and/or ring finger on the pickguard, or at least lightly brushing them there. I recently got the Mike Marshall 2 DVD set and have been working on letting the hand swing freely while still tageting the correct string. Even took the pickguard off my most-used mando, just to make the "crutch" less accessible. But then...

http://www.mandozine.com/resources/CGOW/mitterhoff.php

Yesterday, I saw Barry Mitterhoff play with the Margot Leverett & The Klezmer Mt. Boys in Livingston, NJ. Just mando, guitar, and clarinet, blending the mountian music of the Applachians and the Carpathians. What a great show!

Got to sit in the 1st row, about 10 feet from Barry's '40s F5, with no scoop on the fretboard extension. Did 90% of his picking just over the 15th fret, and with his right ring finger locked straight and solidly glued to the treble side (not the top!), just upstream of the point. Wow, was I surprised! It certainly didn't slow HIM down! Nor could I see any interference between pick and fretboard. Maybe brings those scooped extensions into question?

Unfortunately, we couldn't hang around to try to talk at the end. (Menzel Violins, aka MoFiddles, is a real nice/real small place; full up w/ maybe 60 in the audience). I would have loved to hear his take on the technique.

So folks, what're YOUR thoughts?

[chasray]

I asked a similar question last year and got some insight...

http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/sh...ad.php?t=39558

[John McGann]

FWIW I think of it like this.

[mandolooter]

Funny you would bring this up...just yesterday I was watching a Youtube video someone posted and trying to play along, I noticed the picker planted his pinky so I gave it a try...It didn't work at all for me! I felt all tied down and hampered. Still, lots of great and fast pickers do it both on mando and guitar.

I sure wish I had been at that show with ya..I love those guys!!! Great music!!!

[mandomonkey]

Yeah - there may be an ideal right hand technique from an objective point of view, but the great mandolin players are all over the board in terms of how they do it - in the end you may just have to go for what really works for you - if you want to see a great mandolin player with strange technique check out Drew Emmitt.

[mandozilla]

The rule is there is no rule...do what works for you. I think different genre styles may lend themselves to pinky planting and others don't.

I play bluegrass music exclusively, a lot of it in the style of Bill Monroe. If I planted, I don't know how I could play decent tremolo, triplets and what not...seems like it would slow me way down.

The only pro mandolin picker I've seen who's an avid pinky planter is Kevin Prater (James King Band). The tip of that pinky seems like it's glued to the soundboard and pivots around like it has ball bearings...kindl of painful to watch.

Now he plays some pretty dang good mandolin but he seems, to me anyway, to emphasize more single note picking and a whole lot less more traditional (Monroe) style picking. Not really my taste but to each his own.

Bottom line, if you want to plant, then plant, but I don't advocate it.

[ralph johansson]

first of all, a lot of people seem to almost equate planting and brushing. to plant means to "set firmly", "fix in place". brushing is quite the opposite.
many guitarists play with a half-open hand, lightly brushing against the top, with only a hint of bracing in passages with scant pick movement. i'm pretty sure that's the best support for a strong rest stroke for most players.

but recall that the strings are 10-13 mm away from the soundboard on a guitar, and more than 20 mm away on a mandolin without a pickguard.

if a pickguard supports a brushing habit, by all means leave it on.
it's not sinful. it makes it easier to keep your hand and wrist away from the bridge. but avoid any pressure.

it was said in another thread that mike marshall advocates brushing against the bridge or the strings behind the bridge. i'm sure his message is to minimize that kind of contact. his expression is "ever so slightly".

for a while i had to play without a pickguard. i then found it exedient to allow a certain amount of contact between my wrist and that behind-the-bridge area, simply because that gives me the ideal arching of the wrist. no support from the bridge, no planting, no brushing!

from this i conclude that an armrest might be a more helpful accessory than a finger-rest! it would get my hand away from the bridge completely, and yet provide the most natural arching of my right-hand wrist. i will try it.

[EdHanrahan]

Thanks to all for your thoughtful responses.
- Should have guessed that there were previous threads here!
- John McG: Not the first time I've seen your website. Been enjoying it tremendously.
- Yep, a Doug Edwards' McClung armrest is in the works.

Glad that "there are no rules", but I'll keep with the more prevalent wisdom and work to not lock down any fingers.

Final thought: I can go into Borders on lower Broadway here in Manhattan and find several hundred books on every aspect of guitar playing, learning, construction, history, technique, collecting, yadda, yadda... but not a single book on mandolin. Fortunately, with resources like you folks and this website, we don't really need 'em!

[Flowerpot]

The only pro mandolin picker I've seen who's an avid pinky planter is Kevin Prater (James King Band).

Ummm... how about this guy?



Adam Steffey is the quintessential pinky poster.

[CES]

This topic usually gets pretty hot pretty quickly...glad that hasn't been the case thus far.

I started out playing fingerstyle guitar and banjo, and thus the plant was ingrained at an early point...but, I've tended to be a brusher more than a planter, and I've always had trouble keeping my ring finger planted on banjo. I've been making a conscious effort to let my hand float, but don't always succeed, and there are a lot of tunes I learned early on that I can't yet play without posting at least a little...I'm trying to learn new tunes without posting, though.

In my VERY humble opinion, I think a relaxed hand and wrist in general are more important than whether your pinky touches the top. A lot of folks will say your right hand/arm shouldn't contact the mando at all except through the pick, and in theory that probably allows the top to vibrate most freely. In my case, I can't hit the notes that way yet...Despite my efforts to float, I've really stopped worrying about it at this point and just work on getting the best sound I can with what I've got to work with.