cross picking

[billkilpatrick]

just out of curiosity, how many of you can do this? i'm determined to get this but it's heavy going ...

[AlanN]

We have a true Jedi Master on here, he being Jordan from Colorado. Me? No way. The flowing d-u-u does not compute

[John Flynn]

I do it a lot for arpeggios fills on mandolin and even fully arpeggiated rhythm accompaniment on OM, somewhat like finger picking a guitar. I can do it with alternating bass notes also. I'm pretty satisfied with my abilities for that application. I've never mastered chord/melody cross-picking, but I've dabbled with it and I think I could do it if I had a context to use it.

I'm one of those people who learns things based on context. I struggled with cross-picking when I was trying to "learn it just to learn it." But when I started hearing tunes I wanted to play that really had nice cross-picking "hooks," it became more about making a sound I wanted to make than learning a technique. But once I learned it, I could apply it anywhere I wanted.

If you have adjacent string DUDU picking down, it is not that much of a stretch to do DUU. The "D" and the "U" are just longer and the "U" hits two courses on the way up.

[Beanzy]

I just work away at it on open strings using my wee chart of rolls and cross picking patterns on open strings, then move on to adding and removing fingers in chord shapes as I move through a tune. I'm really using it as an alternative to chord accompaniment rather than as a way of playing the melody; for melody work I'm using duo style and chord-melody techniques.

Here's the chart showing courses (not staff lines) and sequences I'm using

And a clearer PDF link

Unless stated they are alternate picked.
F = forward roll R= reverse roll A=alternate

[derbex]

Thanks for those Eoin, I imagine that I'll use them mostly for finger picking though.

With the cross-picking do you use a glide stroke for the adjacent up strokes or two distinct picks of the plectrum?

[billkilpatrick]

fitting a tune into cross picking (or viceversa) is a challenge. i'm hoping it will become second nature at some point but as it is, i think i'm concentrating too much on my right-hand. i can't imagine it being played ala jessie mcreynolds, bluegrass style but it certainly makes a lovely ornament.

incidently, i asked mauro squillante (https://www.facebook.com/groups/casa...apoli/?fref=ts) if cross picking exists in the classical/neapolitan repertoire and he and eugene (braig) responded with a page from gabriele leone's 1768 method.

in trying to discover if cross picking was identified by name at an earlier date ("cross picking" defies translation, btw) eugene wrote: "Simply different patterns for executing "triplets" or "arpeggio." It was historically notated with stroke-direction symbols (similar to those for bowing), often with a single directional symbol tied or bracketed across notes."

sooo ... i'm thinking if jesse mcreynolds named it, we can claim it as 100% amurican ...

[Tavy]

+1 on the "use as chord backing" here.

Once you have it down, it translates well to OM, slide guitar (no really!), regular guitar, even a banjolele once (but only the once!).

You can also experiment with using it for fills in a chord-melody type arrangement.

I haven't got it down for melody playing though... I've tried some of the stuff on Tim O'Brien's instructional DVD, but it just doesn't "grok" somehow.... I'm sure a lack of willpower is in there somewhere too.

BTW to practice the patterns, start with all open strings and just focus on the right hand, the sound will get pretty old rather soon, but there's enough for your brain to focus on without trying to change chords as well as pick the pattern.

[Beanzy]

Thanks for those Eoin, I imagine that I'll use them mostly for finger picking though.

With the cross-picking do you use a glide stroke for the adjacent up strokes or two distinct picks of the plectrum?

Initially I was doing only distinct upstrokes, as it was essential to keep the even timing until I could begin messing with that.
Once I had a good even and fast enough capability then I began to play with glide strokes and biasing the timing towards particular notes in the pattern. That's a tough one as you need to keep the overall length of a pattern spot on or it gets messy and unclear where the pulse is. So if I steal time from one stroke I need to to give it back to keep the overall pulse.
I also play with imagining a bar line or pulse which shifts along by one note of the pattern every couple of passes. That gets in to real head-messing territory pretty quickly. I've put it all on hold until after my trio plays at the BMG festival in March, (in full on baroque mode until then).

[JeffD]

BTW to practice the patterns, start with all open strings and just focus on the right hand, the sound will get pretty old rather soon, but there's enough for your brain to focus on without trying to change chords as well as pick the pattern.

Absolutely true.

[Simon DS]

I typed out Eoin's post on Musescore, (https://musescore.org/en) I hope that's alright!
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ltpm0m9h2t...ises.mscz?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/zi0cxcv4bh...cises.pdf?dl=0
I think the original drawing is clearer and visually maybe easier to remember, but musescore plays it so much better than I do.
If you have anything to add or change or errors, please don't hesitate.

[Beanzy]

I can't import a muse score to check on the iPad, but from the PDF the picking direction looks off in the first ones I looked at.
Only R#1 R#2 R#3 R#4 R#5 & F/R#1 have anything other than strictly alternate picking. Also A#2 F#6 & F#7 have rests in them.
Hope that helps.

[Tom C]

IMO..Very tough to do as you are doing a lot of picking on the outsides of the strings.

Outsides of the strings meaning if you just play 2 strings in this order....G and D you start on the outside of G string then your upstroke is from outside of D string.
Compared to Playing D then G where you are playing on the insides of the strings.

[billkilpatrick]

least we forget ...

http://www.mandolincafe.com/crosspicking.html

[Hany Hayek]

Bill, thank you for bringing this up. (at least this thread is peaceful and going very well so far
Although I don't play bluegrass, but I found this thread very useful.
I checked Gabriele Leone's method, I had it but did not pay much attention when I downloaded it.
I have been always working with Muniers books. I found that I have to start working on my right hand technique from scratch.
It's not only about chords, I think it gives another taste to any melody we play. I think we should all check Leone's method from page 4 to 24, all about the right hand.
Furthermore up strokes are very important to develop a good tremolo. My teacher (viola soloist) is making me play scales with upstrokes only as this is the weak part of the pick movement.

[billkilpatrick]

Bill, thank you for bringing this up. (at least this thread is peaceful and going very well so far
Although I don't play bluegrass, but I found this thread very useful.
I checked Gabriele Leone's method, I had it but did not pay much attention when I downloaded it.
I have been always working with Muniers books. I found that I have to start working on my right hand technique from scratch.
It's not only about chords, I think it gives another taste to any melody we play. I think we should all check Leone's method from page 4 to 24, all about the right hand.
Furthermore up strokes are very important to develop a good tremolo. My teacher (viola soloist) is making me play scales with upstrokes only as this is the weak part of the pick movement.

ciao hany - yes, the BG set do seem fractious and attitude laden ...

i have marilynn mair's mandolin method but haven't progessed very far with it - too anxious to play the music to study it properly. here's a surprise development, however: i've reverted to the tiny, purpose built mandolin pick. don't know why but picking seems to be easier and more accurate:

[David Lewis]

I do a little bit... It's a useful technique.

[Hany Hayek]

Bill, I have always used the small teardrop picks, and you don't need anything thicker than 0.90. In fact you can use medium picks 0.73 mm. You have Clayton producing these and the Dunlop 423 small teardrop tortex green.

[derbex]

I've started to do left and right hand warm up exercises as things have been getting a bit sore -maybe I'll use these for the right hand.

[billkilpatrick]

Bill, I have always used the small teardrop picks, and you don't need anything thicker than 0.90. In fact you can use medium picks 0.73 mm. You have Clayton producing these and the Dunlop 423 small teardrop tortex green.

"tear drop" ... sad ... romantic ...

[mlinkins]

Great thread/discussion! Just seeing this now. Thanks for all the ideas/suggestions.

I like the combination of cross-picking with GDAD tuning. It offer a lot of possibilities for doing arrangements in G and D major. Really nice resonance, especially when one or more open strings are included in the crosspicking patterns. I had a lot of fun arranging Christmas tunes with GDAD and various amounts and styles of crosspicking. Here are a few samples:

[JeffD]

. I had a lot of fun arranging Christmas tunes with GDAD and various amounts and styles of crosspicking. Here are a few samples:

Great stuff. Very nice.

[JeffD]

I learned cross picking from the Jesse McReynalds examples given in the first mandolin book I ever got, "Bluegrass Mandolin" by Jack Tottle. (Learned a lot from that book. I shudder when I look at when that thing was published, because that was the year I got it.)

Over time and lack of practice I just lost the knack.

Because of this thread I brushed off my crosspicking and while I haven't forgotten it, I had forgotten how exhausting it is. Got to get my right hand in shape.

I never figured out a way to use crosspicking as an ornamental choice. As I see it, crosspicking really is a style, not an ornament. Its not like tremolo, or double stops, which you can use here and there to add flavor to your playing. It seems you either crosspick the whole tune, or section, or you don't. Transitions into and out of crosspicking are too contrasty to sound good, even if done well.

Or maybe I just haven't been able to tastefully go into and out of it. Ornament wise, the best I have been able to do is a relatively slow crosspicking on the last note or phrase of a waltz, which sounds pretty good.

[Simon DS]

least we forget ...

http://www.mandolincafe.com/crosspicking.html

I like the book by Mickey Cochran, here's a musescore translation of the Mandloincafe page http://www.mandolincafe.com/crosspicking3.html
https://www.dropbox.com/s/nvfzic6rmm...html.mscz?dl=0
So he plays alternate/upcross-picking?

[billkilpatrick]

... I never figured out a way to use crosspicking as an ornamental choice. As I see it, crosspicking really is a style, not an ornament. Its not like tremolo, or double stops, which you can use here and there to add flavor to your playing. It seems you either crosspick the whole tune, or section, or you don't. Transitions into and out of crosspicking are too contrasty to sound good, even if done well.

Or maybe I just haven't been able to tastefully go into and out of it. Ornament wise, the best I have been able to do is a relatively slow crosspicking on the last note or phrase of a waltz, which sounds pretty good.

discouraging ... i'm hoping that when/if i manage to get it up to speed, i'll slip cross picking in, when appropriate, as an ornament to the early music dance tunes i'm obsessed with.

i take your point about it being a style rather than an ornament - BG springs to mind - but the DUU patterns opened up a whole new world of possibilites for me.

[mlinkins]

[QUOTE=JeffD;1475096]I learned cross picking from the Jesse McReynalds examples given in the first mandolin book I ever got, "Bluegrass Mandolin" by Jack Tottle. (Learned a lot from that book. I shudder when I look at when that thing was published, because that was the year I got it.)

QUOTE]

"Bluegrass Mandolin" was the same source that I used. I shudder too at the passage of time since then. I got a few years after it was published, but it was still along time ago (1977 probably). That book really was a great resource. It was series, I think. I also used the "Bluegrass Bass" book which I liked as well.