Hello folks,
I've been playing at / playing mandolin off and on for many years (don't let that lead you to believe I'm very good, however) and decided a couple of years ago to get a good instrument (Kentucky) and start playing seriously with a view to really improving.
Scales, fingerings, all that are not a problem. I grew up playing guitar and also play jazz/bluegrass double bass. But try as I might, I can't seem to really get anywhere with my right hand picking technique.
Possible reason: I'm just a little under 7 feet tall with correspondingly long arms and large hands. In other words, my arm and hand don't fall on the instrument where they do for "normal" players. For me, a comfortable resting position leaves me almost picking on top of the bridge, which is too thin. Trying to move my arm/hand closer to the neck fo a richer and louder sound means I don't feel I have control of what I'm doing. My hand is essentially floating and I can't control what I'm hitting with any real accuracy, forget anything like actual song playing speed.
Also, I constantly feel like I'm fighting the instrument. As soon as I try to increase speed any, I can feel tension build in my arm and shoulder and no amount of relaxing seems to help. I don't seem to have this problem when playing the guitar (I'm not a fast guitar picker, I might add).
Is there anyone out there who might be able to spend a few minutes with me via Skype and try to suggest where I'm going wrong? I've tried all the pro tips (e.g. Chris Thile: hold the pick like you're just about to drop it - and I do) or sitting and playing with the neck tilted upwards, but none of it has seemed to fix the problem.
Ideally, I'd love to sound more like Andy Statman and be able to play with a wild right hand like Sam Bush (how can he play so fast and accurately with his hand swinging like that!?!), but am happy to anchor my pinkie if it will get me playing like Adam Steffey (so far I've not had much success with that either). :D
I hope this doesn't come over as all negative - it's not meant to be, honest - I'm just a bit frustrated and as such have pretty much stopped taking the ol' mando out of the case.
I hope someone can help.
Thanks,
Will
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