Breakthrough! Right hand technique

[Kelly_guy]

Hallelujah! I can pick faster, with a much cleaner sound now! I'm still probably in the "slow" category compared to you real mando players, but I've been struggling with speed and clean sound since I started playing, and now I seem to have found a solution.

I was taking lessons last year from a jazz mandolinist, and he insisted that I try playing with his RH technique. He has incredibly good tone and speed, but he plays with a "gypsy" style of wrist, sort of dangling. He picks the strings at an angle too, and he picks into the strings on the down stroke and out of the strings on the up stroke. The down stroke is sort of like a rest stroke in classical guitar: the pick comes to rest on the adjacent string.

I said during lessons that Chris Thile advocates a very different technique on his DVD, but my instructor insisted that I try his method. And I think that is entirely fair--when you're with a certain instructor, you do it their way.

But I gave up lessons nearly a year ago, due to financial constraints (I'm becoming a schoolteacher). I didn't play for about 6 months, then I got back into playing bluegrass. But I struggled with that RH technique.

I went back to the Chris Thile video last week, and WOW! His technique tips were exactly what I was looking for. I now rest my wrist on the strings right behind the bridge, and I find that I can have lots of control and a very relaxed wrist that way.

Before, I struggled playing a simple tune like Old Joe Clark at anything over 200 bpm. Now, I can play it cleanly at 220 bpm, and it still sounds quite good at 240 bpm. Fisher's Hornpipe is a tune I've played for years, and now I can play it very cleanly, whereas the string jumps always threw me off before.

This is so cool! It's given me a whole new motivation for playing more, and learning new tunes.

[mandolin_cauldron24]

That's really great. I'm glad you've found a solution. You know i have never watched a video in my life or took any kind of a lesson for that matter. Just played to old recordings of THE FATHER OF BLUEGRASS. But I still remeber quite well when I had my picking breakthrough and its great to hear when other people hit a breakthrough on the mandolin or guitar. Anyways great job!

-----------------
C.J. Clayton

" Some people say a hippie won't steal but I caught three in my corn field," RIP- Mr. John Hartford ( his music forever lives)

[carolynbeth]

Way to go Kelly_guy! may this be the first of many.

Carolyn

[adgefan]

I had exactly the same breakthrough about 4 months ago. I was struggling to play anything over about 160bpm, and finding it difficult to play tunes the whole way through without messing up. I *thought* my right hand technique was ok, but in reality I had been ignoring it. So many people say it's all about the right hand and I never believed them.

Once I accepted the right hand was a problem for me (someobne by the name of Tim O'Brien pointed it out and I could hardly ignore his advice!) I really worked hard at getting the DUDU strokes correct. I almost immediately started being able to play cleaner, faster and with better tone.

I'm still a long way off playing "fast" and I've still got a whole load of work to do before my tunes sound anything other than just the correct notes being played at the correct time (i.e. something actually interesting to listen to), but sorting out the RH technique really solves half the problems us newbies encounter when we start playing.