Another chop question

[Toby]

I have been playing for about a year now and have got the basic chop chord shapes down, somewhat, but when I watch live bluegrass the mando player's all seem to be lifting on and off their pinky during there chop, as I have always left all my fingers on but lifted them to mute the strings. I have played around with what I think they are doing, but I don't get much of a difference out of it. I guess it helps with the muted sound?, but I am not sure exactly how to execute it well. Any advice from accomplished pinky lifters would be great. I am always looking to improve that chop.

And while on the chop subject anyone care to share more obscure chop chord shapes they use.

Thanks!

[earthsave]

I doubt they are lifting completely off the strings but are lifting just enough to release the chord/strings from the frets so they dont ring. You should do this with all of you fingers when chopping. Hold chord, release chord as wrist/pick snaps across/through the strings. For a dry chop, you can just hold your chord shape and mute all the strings.

[MikeB]

Hey, Toby,

I've been meaning to ask that same question. I think this is something different than just lifting the pinky. I've watched Matt Flinner do it and Dan Tyminski...then somebody else on TV I can't remember. They seem to sort of tap the pinky AND ring fingers after the strum. We asked Matt Flinner about it after his show and he said he wasn't even aware he did it.

[elExtranjero]

If it's what I'm thinking, I do that a lot playing the guitar, although I'm not good enough to do it on the mando yet. Essentially it's a full or partial chord hammer-on. This works particularly on open position chords. Try strumming the full chord, releasing and strumming, and immediately hammering-on and strumming. It's an interesting technique.

I'm assuming you're NOT just talking about 'bass lines' or accents. For example, you can play G using a closed shape but release the G string to play the open G, then hammer-on to play the third. This MIGHT be what you're seeing though, these guys are just used to opening up a particular string on a chord form to let the open string ring for effect.

[AlanN]

Somebody asked about other chop shapes.

I chop 'em all In A major - 2245, 2200, 6779, 9779, 6745, etc. It all depends on my mood, where I'm at with a previous chord, what I had for breakfast that day

[elExtranjero]

For what it's worth...

The way I teach my students to deal with chords is to memorize both the basic formula and the patterns on the fretboard. For example;
Major: 1 3 5
Maj7: 1 3 5 7
Dom7: 1 3 5 b7
minor: 1 b3 5
min7: 1 b3 5 b7

There are several others that you should have available as a reference, but you DON"T need to memorize them. Just memorize the basic formula as above, know how to use them, and have the others available as a reference.

Then memorize the patterns on the fretboard. For example; if the 1 is on the G string, the D string is 5, the A string is 2, and the E string is 6. Using this pattern, you can see how the open G chord is formed as 0023 (GDAE). You're playing the 1 and 5 open, and the 3 and 1 closed. You can play the G chord in closed form at the same position by playing 4523 (GDAE) and you're just playing the 3 and 1 of the chord. In this case you're playing the 1st inversion because you're hitting the 3 as the bass note.

You can then memorize the other 3 patterns with the root on the D, A, and E string. It's really MUCH simpler than it sounds! I've included an image below to help visualize the concept. I'm working on a book explaining these principles that will be published at http://www.fretboardpatterns.com.

[WillPick4Beer]

alot of times my fingers do things like that with out me knowing, i see it as my chi is trying to kickstart itself into flowin with the rythm. other times i do it more consciously to omit or add a fifth. when you do it with the G chord you get a deeper bass note.
you also might not notice that they are doing this with alll thier fingers, just the pinky (which is harder to control) and the ring finger(which moves with the pinky) both have a twitchier movement where as the index and middle finger are less pronounced. next time when you notice someone doing it, ignore the pinky and see if they are lifting up the index finger slightly too.