Does picking upward on a string change it's 'apparent' sound ?.

[Ivan Kelsall]

I've noticed many times when tuning my mandolins,that after i've tuned a pair 'in unison',one might still sound a tad 'not right'. If it's the lower of the pair,i'll pick upwards on it, & quite often,it'll sound different that when i pick down on it,even if my tuner is telling me it's 100% spot on in tune.

Cafe member Willie mentioned this to me in an e-mail & asked if i'd heard this - which i have. What could be the reason for the 'apparent' difference ?. To my ears,it always sounds a bit 'brighter' in tone which makes one think that it's sharp,
Ivan

[Martin Ohrt]

Well, a well-trained ear works more precisely than a tuner, IMO - so it is no wonder that you can hear differences between the strings while the tuner can't.
The upstroke accentuates the treble-side string of the pair, while the downstroke accentuates the bass-side one. Therefore, if the two strings are not fully in unison, it is dependend on the picking direction which one of the two tones of the pair sounds more dominant. Thus, the overall or apparent sound of the pair changes with the picking direction.

Does this theory make sense? I don't know; maybe someoen else has another idea? ;-)

[John Kelly]

Anything to do with the down stroke being (for most folk) a stronger stroke than the upstroke? This is one of the reasons that fiddlers work so hard at getting good bow control on both up and down bows.

[Beanzy]

Many people allow the pick to give on the way up, resulting in quite a sloped pick releasing the string, along with less displacement on the way up by comparison with down.

[Mark Wilson]

I've noticed many times when tuning my mandolins,that after i've tuned a pair 'in unison',one might still sound a tad 'not right'. If it's the lower of the pair,i'll pick upwards on it, & quite often,it'll sound different that when i pick down on it,even if my tuner is telling me it's 100% spot on in tune.

I've noticed that. If I'm matching strings by ear I pick each in same direction. The difference in the stroke direction makes it harder(for me) to fine tune pitch.

[Ky Slim]

I've noticed it. Perhaps the stroke arc is different. We pick slightly inward when we pick down and slightly outward when we pick up. So the upstroke is more of a pop or a pull. The down stroke is more of a strike like hitting a golf ball "down and thru".

[sblock]

Two reasons:

A) You hear the string that's struck first a little louder. So, depending on the pick direction, the "blend" of the two tones is different. Unless the two strings happen to be at exactly the same pitch, you will hear a difference.

B) You very likely hit the strings with a different force and pick angle on an upstroke than a downstroke. This difference is small for some pickers, but larger for some others. The result is that the string is initially stretched to a different degree, which causes minor departures from the tuned pitch. Also, the overtone series will be just a bit different, since this depends, to some degree, both on how hard you hit the string and the pick angle (and bevel). You may by more sensitive to minor differences in pitch when certain overtones are present.

When tuning, it's a good idea to always use the same stroke, for the same direction, and not to hit the string too hard.

[dhergert]

... If it's the lower of the pair,i'll pick upwards on it, & quite often,it'll sound different that when i pick down on it,even if my tuner is telling me it's 100% spot on in tune. ...

I tune that way. When it's the upper string of a course, I pick downward through that string to the point where I hit the lower string of the course, so it stops that lower string from sounding. I do as closely as possible the opposite when tuning the lower string, picking upward through the lower string to the point where I hit the upper string of the course, so it stops that upper string from sounding. That also helps prevent tuners from getting confused by sympathetic string vibrations.

Up-picking can produce a different voice than down-picking. My observation is that it is the stroke that causes a different voice though, not the string itself, and that it is really a voice difference, not the tuning. So I try to make sure the stroke is as close to identical as possible with either up or down stroke. And, I do tend to trust the tuner better than my ears.

If you do a lot of down stroke dominant playing, the up-picking voice can also be different because the pick might be more polished on one side than on the other.

I do a lot of up-picking work when I use tremolo because I do a lot of chord-melody style tremolo, and a lot of time that's playing melody off the first course with the background full chord notes from the 2nd and 3rd course in a double and triple stop stroke. So my up-picking stroke gets a lot of practice and refining.

[catmandu2]

Different attack - every different stroke, on every instrument - renders different tone, as the dynamics involved are different. There are specific exercises to work toward equalizing strokes - in this case, lots of alternating picking exercises.

[CarlM]

If I hit the string harder of softer it affects the pitch according to the tuner regardless of direction. When I tune i hit each string separately so the top of the pairs are upstrokes and the bottom downstrokes which probably affects my tuning as well.

[Willie Poole]

Ivan, Thanks for posting this question...A lot of suggestions made by our friends on here but non with a real scientific answer, which might not be available, I do like the suggestion that one side of the pick might be a little rougher than the other but I find it happens with any pick that I use, I have been told that my ear is "Too" good and I hear the slightest little difference when others can`t hear it, it`s hell to be so perfect

Willie

[sblock]

Ivan, Thanks for posting this question...A lot of suggestions made by our friends on here but non with a real scientific answer, which might not be available, I do like the suggestion that one side of the pick might be a little rougher than the other but I find it happens with any pick that I use, I have been told that my ear is "Too" good and I hear the slightest little difference when others can`t hear it, it`s hell to be so perfect

Willie

Gee, I thought my answer (post #7) was quite "scientific" (and I am a scientist). There are several good reasons why up-picking and down-picking can generate slightly different sounds, and these reasons were enumerated in the response. They were not meant to be "suggestions," so much as explanations. You might not like the answer that was posted, and you are quite free to disagree with it, but please rest assured that an attempt at a "scientific" answer was, in fact, supplied.

Your ear might be extra sensitive to rather small differences in pitch, true, but it might also be picking up very small differences in timbre ("voice") and confusing these just a little. This is quite common, incidentally, and not an imperfection.

[EdHanrahan]

... Up-picking can produce a different voice than down-picking. My observation is that it is the stroke that causes a different voice though, not the string itself, and that it is really a voice difference, not the tuning.

That's been my observation, and it's true on guitar as well as mandolin. My assumption has been that a less-forceful upstroke tends to excite more overtones and less fundamental tone than a strong downstroke does, (okay, brace yourselves here ...) similar in effect to using a lighter pick.

[Mandoplumb]

Like opening up, there is something different sounding about a down stroke and an up stroke and we can talk and explain why till the cows come home, the truth is nobody knows.

[JeffD]

I haven't noticed this, but it seems plausible.

[catmandu2]

It's among the first lessons in string playing - weighting (shorthand for striving for evenness of attack) each stroke evenly. It's essential study for every instrument: you want to sound as fluid as possible - imparted by evenness - until you want unevenness. (Recall from the Hal Galper masterclasses - he emphasized "Bach phrasing' as a 'default' approach - this was for jazz, but the idea is the same).

If it's any consolation, fundamentals such as this are revisited whenever necessary - usually as part of scale studies (why scale studies are important, etc.)

[UsuallyPickin]

Yup ... Playing with a closed hand will add mass and power to your upstroke so the tonal balance is better but the two will not sound the same. R/

[Ron McMillan]

Are people only reading the thread heading, and not bothering to read the text in Ivan's original post? It seems like many of the responses address something completely different from the question posed by Ivan.

[Ivan Kelsall]

Frm Martin Ohrt - "Well, a well-trained ear works more precisely than a tuner, IMO...". I agree totally - that's why i tune one string to the tuner & the second string to the first to the point where striking both strings sounds like one string being struck. The strings sound 'in unison'.

I'm wondering if,wehn tuning,when picking upwards,we hold the pick slightly tighter,less loosely & the pick imparts a tiny bit more energy to the string & it's maybe not 'tone' i'm hearing,but volume ?. My pick ''flexes'' between my finger & thumb as it should on a down stroke,but maybe it a bit more rigid on the way up.

I think sblock's comments go along pretty much with my own thoughts - a down stroke is performed differently than an up stroke. Maybe only very minute differences,but enough for a sensitive ear to hear.

Thank's for the comments,
Ivan

[JeffD]

It's among the first lessons in string playing - weighting (shorthand for striving for evenness of attack) each stroke evenly.

This addresses not the original question but another perhaps equally important one:

Does picking upward on a string have to change its 'apparent' sound? IOW can we adjust so that down and up sound the same, and if so, how?

[Beanzy]

JeffD, among other resources I use Gertrude Tröster's" Technique on 8 Strings" books and she has a lot of exercises which focus on evening out the differences, only so they can then be re-introduced as desired. So you eventually end up with exercises where the pair are used on down-strokes and lower single for up-strokes or straight on one way & inclined the other etc. My teacher's comment about it was that it can be a bit too much detail in some of her exercises & he wondered whether the time invested would be better used on other things. He wasn't decided one way or the other about that. I just worked through the exercises, but I can't say that it's much use beyond ensuring I have the ability to make the pick address the strings at the same depth, speed and angle most of the time whether it's up or down stroke. Other than as an exercise I'm not sure that I ever would have much use for her double down single up technique on any pieces I play.