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Thread: Picks Vs. Finger Picking

  1. #26

    Default Re: Picks Vs. Finger Picking

    Here's some fantastic fingerpicking on an octave. I think that the added sustain, deeper register, and lower tension helps to let fingerpicking ring out a bit more.



    --Tom

  2. #27
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    Default Re: Picks Vs. Finger Picking

    That's really lovely.

    But look how long his fingernails have to be to do that.

    I'm a practical person - my fingernails never make it beyond 2mm

    Interesting seeing the finger picking style work with the bigger spaces of the mandola. Maybe elfkin fingers manage it better for

    mandolin?

  3. #28
    Innocent Bystander JeffD's Avatar
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    Default Re: Picks Vs. Finger Picking

    Fingerpicking a mandolin to expand your sonic palette, well that's cool. Very cool.

    Fingerpicking because you came from a finger picked instrument to the mandolin and its all you know how to do, not so much.
    A talent for trivializin' the momentous and complicatin' the obvious.

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    Default Re: Picks Vs. Finger Picking

    Look up Radim Zenkl on the youtubes or other intertubes for a fine example of what can be done playing wide-necked mandolins with the fingers rather than a plectrum. I think he sometimes uses finger/thumb picks or thimbles. He was a Comando guest of the week a few years back and he elaborated on his style a bit.

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

    If you put in the money there's no reason you can't have a wide-necked mando, and if you put in the time there's no reason you can't learn to play it without a pick. You may have to figure out everything for yourself though, and that's more work than most folks (myself included) are willing to put in. Bass players are often pretty darn good musicians. If you have the background to work out a mando playing style all by yourself, more power to you I say!

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    Default Re: Picks Vs. Finger Picking

    At some point you will begin to make tremolo sound as if you pushed your doorbell... and that is pretty cool! But I found the really hard part was moving in and out of tremolo without skipping a beat. I think that took me well over a year, maybe two, but the results are doing it effortlessly as one tool among many. I emphacise tremolo because that seems the most difficult tool to learn to do well.... I think you will eventually amaze yourself with the amount of stuff you can do with that little flat pick.
    Bart McNeil

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    Registered User Jordan Mong's Avatar
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    Default Re: Picks Vs. Finger Picking

    I was playing a mandolin with my thumb at a pawn shop the other day. Not only was it incredibly uncomfortable, borderline painful, but also not very loud at all. There is not enough room for me to even think about finger picking, and I find it as difficult as finger picking a 12-string guitar. It just does not quite work for me. I much over prefer picks.

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    Default Re: Picks Vs. Finger Picking

    I wonder what a lute player would say on this thread...
    Musica mulcet ad animam.
    Musica placet aurium.
    Musica aedificat corda

  8. #33

    Default Re: Picks Vs. Finger Picking

    We've had some lengthy discussions on the subject

    http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/sh...which-is-right

    http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/sh...01#post1155101


    Playing a musical instrument--or in any form of creative expression--involves problem-solving. The degree to which you employ concept in your endeavor is another choice in the process. Every instrument presents challenges; every instrument has relative advantages and disadvantages. The mandolin possesses inherent limitations where it comes to fingerstyle/attack--as should be obvious. Generally, when we're talking about fingerstyle approaches--gut (or its modern "equivalent"--nylon and synthetics) is where it's at. Anyone who really is interested in experimenting with fingerstyle approaches on the mandolin should most certainly check out charangos, ukuleles and other similar double+ course instruments typically employing nylon strings--instruments particularly well-suited to fingerstyle approach by their physiognomy effectively enabling deployment of a wide array of of fingerstyle technique.

    Concept in creative expression involves intent, efficacy and intelligent application. There is always a relationship between process and product--environment and concept--and so we choose among the spectrum of options to form our equation: from "working with what we have" to "not limited by our tools." Choose a good tool for the job that you are doing

  9. #34
    Innocent Bystander JeffD's Avatar
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    Default Re: Picks Vs. Finger Picking

    Quote Originally Posted by bmac View Post
    But I found the really hard part was moving in and out of tremolo without skipping a beat..
    And its so very important to do.
    A talent for trivializin' the momentous and complicatin' the obvious.

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  10. #35
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    Default Re: Picks Vs. Finger Picking

    Quote Originally Posted by TheArimathean View Post
    I wonder what a lute player would say on this thread...
    He would say something like: thank goodness I don't play mandolin, because then I would have to learn to use a pick.
    A talent for trivializin' the momentous and complicatin' the obvious.

    The entire staff
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  11. #36
    String-Bending Heretic mandocrucian's Avatar
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    Default Re: Picks Vs. Finger Picking

    Once amplification via pickups is involved, the whole "not-enough-volume" argument becomes less and less relevant. If you are playing a solid body electric 8-string or 5-string, it becomes irrelevant!.

    I've been using pick+fingers for decades, on my acoustics as well as electrics. I'll pinch chords and doublestops for that 'tight' samba sound (all the notes sounding simultaneously), and I use pick+fingers for crosspicked rolls (and clawhammer stuff) which I find ro be far more fluid/smoother as well as faster. I'll also use that middle finger to sneak it smooth/fast Irish 'trebles' --that sputtering ornamentation you hear from Mick Moloney or fiddler Tommy Potts.

    I can't really imagine playing the mando without using the right-hand finger(s), but it's hard to think about playing the instrument without using electric guitarists vibrato and microtonal intonation either.

    On acoustic, you can fingerpick a mando. Are you really going to be playing some Mississippi John Hurt arrangement in a "jam" or with a full band anyway? No you'll probably do it as a solo piece, or maybe with a bass player and/or one other instrument. As far as increasing your volume, you change your attack via the same way you get to Madison Sq. Garden. (practice practice practice!)

    And on the bigger and lower instruments (OM, cittern), it's far less of an issue to get some decent volume out of just the bare RH fingers.

    Fingerpicking a mandolin to expand your sonic palette, well that's cool. Very cool.
    Fingerpicking because you came from a finger picked instrument to the mandolin and its all you know how to do, not so much.
    Well.... so much for Ry Cooder and "Billy The Kid", I never realized his mandolin playing was only pseudo-cool.

    NH

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    Innocent Bystander JeffD's Avatar
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    Default Re: Picks Vs. Finger Picking

    Quote Originally Posted by mandocrucian View Post

    Well.... so much for Ry Cooder and "Billy The Kid", I never realized his mandolin playing was only pseudo-cool.
    Are you saying Ry Cooder had no choice but to play it that way? I am not convinced of that. Its cool because its a choice out of alternatives, not because its all he knows how to do.
    A talent for trivializin' the momentous and complicatin' the obvious.

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  13. #38
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    Default Re: Picks Vs. Finger Picking

    Are you saying Ry Cooder had no choice but to play it that way? I am not convinced of that. Its cool because its a choice out of alternatives, not because its all he knows how to do.
    The only thing that is "cool" is what comes out of the instrument. Why, or how, is irrelevant (in terms of whether it sounds "cool" or not). When Ralph Stanley fingerpicks a mandolin like a banjo it is "cool" because it sounds "cool". When British folkie Steve Ashley played as bouzouki, the fact that he's lefty and plays RH-ed instruments lefty and consequently strung upside-down (for him) is besides the point, cause it sounds good. Or how about Kenny Hall (who plays more like a sitar player with his RH)?

    Or if some guitarist (Jimmy Page, John Abercrombie) plays a mandolin tuned like the top 4 strings of a guitar, or tuned in 4ths... because that's what they do on guitar, how does that in any way negate what comes out sonicallyof their mando or electric mando?

    Or how about guitar players who finger a mandolin "all wrong", using all sorts of stretch fingerings instead of the 'conventional' mandolin/violin fingerings? I can think of one guy right off the top of my head, Robert Schaeffer, who won a few Winfield guitar championships, and a lot of mando contests too. He played the mando more like it was a guitar.

    I think you've got a case of mando-dogma. You seem to be all hung up on "the 'mando' way" of doing things, and stuff that bypasses or ignores it is "wrong' or "uncool". But if some name bluegrass mando celebrity did the exact same thing in the same unorthodox manner, it would be "cool" (?) because he "chose" to be unconventional instead of barfing up the same-old-same-old.

    Some of my favorite mandolin players aren't what might be considered "real mandolinists". But that is what makes them so cool (imo) because they demonstrate a thought process, applied to the sound of the mandolin, which has nothing to do with any so-called mandolin tradition/approach. Martin Carthy on mando sounds like Martin Carthy on guitar, just higher in register. Ian Anderson didn't come up with the stuff he did on mando from listening top mandolin music.

    I always liked handing a mandolin to a good musician who never played one before, just to see/hear what they would do, because they would tend to approach it the same as their primary instrument. Too bad there isn't an old bootleg tape somewhere of some guy handing a mando to Jimi Hendrix to noodle around on. I'd like to hand my mando to Dr John to see what he would play on it!

  14. #39
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    Default Re: Picks Vs. Finger Picking

    Quote Originally Posted by mandocrucian View Post
    The only thing that is "cool" is what comes out of the instrument. Why, or how, is irrelevant (in terms of whether it sounds "cool" or not).
    I can't disagree with that, because that's the bottom line, what comes out, that's what is heard. And one can love it or not on its sonic merits, musicality, etc.

    I think you've got a case of mando-dogma. You seem to be all hung up on "the 'mando' way" of doing things, and stuff that bypasses or ignores it is "wrong' or "uncool". But if some name bluegrass mando celebrity did the exact same thing in the same unorthodox manner, it would be "cool" (?) because he "chose" to be unconventional instead of barfing up the same-old-same-old.
    Well not really, I don't think. To narrow it down, to me there are two points.

    One is that it matters what gets recommended to a newbie. Yea it is true, ultimately, that one can do what ever one wants, and if it sounds good or musical to someone that's great. But I think more guidance is required in answer to legitimate questions about how to play the mandolin. I don't think it helpful, however true it might be (depending on how you look at it), to tell someone, well do what you want, there really is no "how" in how to play a mandolin.

    Second is that one of the things that gives music a meaning, I think, is that it is intentional, that what you hear is what the artist is going for. Part of that, is that departures from so called best practices are intentional. I am doing THIS for THAT effect. At least for me, part of the aesthetic judgment I make as a listener involves how much of what I am hearing is what is intended by the artist.

    But you have a point, it may be impossible to discern "intention" in the sound alone.

    Some of my favorite mandolin players aren't what might be considered "real mandolinists". But that is what makes them so cool (imo) because they demonstrate a thought process, applied to the sound of the mandolin, which has nothing to do with any so-called mandolin tradition/approach.
    The thought process makes it deliberate, no? Do you not distinguish between the thought process you point out, and say, the one that says "I'm going to do this because doing that is too hard."?

    Here is a trivial example, but illustrative. Say I hear a lovely slow piece on the mandolin, at a concert or a recording. Does it not make a difference to know that the player can play fast, but has chosen to play slowly, as opposed to, say, its all he can do. Isn't that, in part, why most performers include a brilliantly fast piece somewhere in the concert or album, to give meaning to everything else. To say, in effect "I can do anything, and what I have done on this album is what I have done, out of everything I could have done, for you to hear."

    But again, you are right, if you only hear the slow piece, but its done beautifully, does it matter whatever else the musician can do. Isn't it still beautiful, even if (in the extreme) its the only piece the player knows and the only speed he can play it at. Its an interesting question. I dunno.

    But for the record, I am enthusiastic about envelope pushing and extra-orthodox playing, and if it comes out as great music, its great music. Heck, in some extreme cases I might not anymore call it mandolin playing, but still think its great music.
    A talent for trivializin' the momentous and complicatin' the obvious.

    The entire staff
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  15. #40
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    Default Re: Picks Vs. Finger Picking

    I think nothing is cool or not just by itself. Cool is a tag hung on what you do by one audience (or not by another). Cool is what impresses me, in my universe. The player and his technique have no chance of controlling this process - winning one audience makes you lose another.
    Another immaterial parameter is intention: the player may have done this or that intentionally or inadvertently without me ever finding out. If there is an intention, I still may question it: does he do this for the beauty of music (cool) or to appear cool (a showoff)?

    I think this is not a bad thing. It helps protect the player's mental privacy, and the listener's.
    the world is better off without bad ideas, good ideas are better off without the world

  16. #41
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    Default Re: Picks Vs. Finger Picking

    I think Niles could make the argument that even great musicians may have a style defined by their limitations. Some of the greatest blues guitar players just did what they knew to do. Others following on say "how brilliant, how innovative" and emulate their style.

    And I don't have a good response to this. I want to say that its not intentional when its all you can do, but it might be world class beautiful. I don't know where the line is. Because the argument is exploited by a lot of young newbie guitarists I see, who call it innovation and envelope pushing when its actually as far as they have gotten so far. Its hard to be impressed.

    So if the end music is awesome, where and how does it matter that the techniques used are informed choices?

    And if the end music is eh, what then. Do we care that the technique is "perfect"?

    I am comforted by this: a newbie who has real talent and drive and musicality is not going to give much long term credence to some jamoke on the internet talking about whether to use picks or not. So by giving advice along the lines of mandolin best practices, I think I am helping those who want the help, and I am not going to be inhibiting any great artists.

    If you are really really great, what the heck are you listening to me for?

    A talent for trivializin' the momentous and complicatin' the obvious.

    The entire staff
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  17. #42
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    Default Re: Picks Vs. Finger Picking

    Optimally you learn something new every day, and I just learned a new word! (I'm surprised it's new to me, having grown up in such close proximity to Chicago.)

    -----------------
    jamoke

    Pronunciation
    IPA(key): /d͡ʒəˈməʊk/

    Etymology
    Appearing at the end of the 19th century as a blend of java and mocha, by the 1920s it became slang for someone who lacked mental abilities beyond that of a cup of coffee, probably influenced by moke. In the 1930s it also first appeared in the old Italian neighborhood of Chicago southwest side of "69th and Ashland" in the early 1930s. Considered to be a true Chicago lingo word.

    ----------------

    Thanks, Jeff!

    bratsche
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