Developing a lighter touch on the pick and strings

[J.C. Bryant]

Recommended exercises on not digging in, especially on faster tunes. Just a light touch, what some call picking just the top of the string?

[Bren]

I have a tendency to dig in too much and the first thing I do to counteract it is relax my shoulders and breathe calmly and steadily.

[Simon DS]

Learn any tune in 7/8 time. https://youtu.be/GGr0BSYaWR4?feature=shared
You have to use irregular emphasis at least twice in each measure, on pairs and triples. It makes you constantly assess your heaviness.
Play the tune over and over with a metronome getting lighter each time, see how you feel as your muscles start to tire.

Good luck!!

Also, if you haven't already done so, learn clean tremolo and triplets
https://youtu.be/XxvD41asKCY?feature=shared

[John Kelly]

Experiment too with different picks. A heavier pick can make you play more lightly as you feel that it needs less picking power to get a good tone. At least I seem to find that! Bren mentions relaxing the shoulders and this can help you have a lighter grip on the pick.

[pops1]

I find the better I know the material the lighter I can play. It' like I breeze thru it. If I am learning it on the fly I tend to play harder. Also if you lighten up your fretting hand it will help lighten up your picking hand, seems they work together. Or visa versa.

[Mark Gunter]

J. C., I don’t think there are any specific exercises for this, you can use any tunes that you know, or scale & arpeggio practice, etc. Here are some tips on how to practice those. These are not “one size fits all” but different people have used different ones for practicing that lighter stroke:

1. Relax. That one can’t be overstated.
2. Light grip on your pick, almost light enough to drop it. Relax entire body and especially your picking hand.
3. Allow much less of the tip of your pick to show, or stick out. This will help to get started on not digging in, and you can practice this way from time to time.
4. If you float your hand, never touching anything but pick to strings while playing, more power to you. That is an excellent technique! But if you do, and are having trouble, you might want to brush the back wrist palm area on the bridge a bit to help gauge where you are in striking the strings.
5. Relax your fretting hand as well, and use the lightest touch necessary to fret a clean note.
6. Relax, practice at a slow tempo without digging in.
7. Practice at the fastest tempo you can, the faster you go, the less you’ll be able to dig in.
8. Relax