Floating?

[Joel Glassman]

Does anyone use "floating" in their playing?
I could be wrong but I think it involves playing
in higher positions while letting open strings ring out.
Doing this in a linear way without crosspicking...
Its not something I hear very often, but an old friend
used to do it to beautiful effect. Would be interested
in seeing some tab for this. I imagine some chord shapes
for crosspicking could be used.

[mandocrucian]

Not sure if I'm reading this the way you meant, but I think so.

Are you refering to substituting open string notes rather than playing it "normally"?

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I call this "melodic crosspicking", as in the sense of Keith-style "melodic" banjo playing. There are several arrangements in this style in Hot Licks For Hot Picks. "Old Joe Clark", "8th of Jan.", "Devil's Dream", "Red Haired Boy" and (in Bb) "Sailor's Hornpipe".

Taking this to a much more advanced level involves adding "artificial harmonics" into the note flow. (And for this, I also include harmonics on open strings because you'll be using the RH index finger on the hanrmonic node while holding the pick between the thumb and middle finger.) I worked out some arrangements of (slower) Irish tunes and you get the overlapping notes of "across the strings" playing combined with harmonics that are allowed to ring and overlap. (Never published this stuff - just part of instructional volumes that were shelved for reasons of "no real market")

But the stuff with the harmonics..... if you get Eric Johnson's Total Electric Guitar instructional DVD, he demonstrates the general concept/technique, which is where I got it from.

And you can get chord voicings (with the inclusion of harmonics) that you could never get any other way.

Niles H

[Mark Robertson-Tessi]

I call this "melodic crosspicking"

[Jeroen]

What Niles said, plus (I think) minimising pick use by spicing up with (large interval!) hammers and pulls, and melodic (glissando like) slides.

[Tbone]

I was thinking Joel was referring to something like this:

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Or something of that sort. I think Bobby Osborne maybe used to do it a lot? I very recently had a lesson with Andy Statman and he mentioned it. I use it occasionally, when I remember.

[Mike Bunting]

I've always understood "floating" to be as Niles described it.

[pglasse]

I had not heard that name for the technique. It's a cool sound. I agree with Niles that it's analogous to so-called "melodic" banjo playing.

Jesse McReynolds was doing this at least as far back as the 1970s, if not earlier. I recall a version of Sugar Foot Rag that he played in the key of G (perhaps on electric mandolin) in which the 3rd and 4th bars of the A section and most of the B section were all played in this manner. (Not to be confused with his Newport Folk Fest version.)

Jethro did some of this as well and would often teach students how to play a descending F major scale, starting on the G note on the E string -- moving on down to the F note on the D string. He played this in second position, using open strings and fretting the high F and later Bb on the 8th frets with pinky. Yes, letting the open E and A ring nicely.

In this video at around :26 I play a version of my "Mandola Song" in which bar bar 3 has some "floating" going on.

It's a nice technique to play around with.

[Jeroen]

I love that little descending F scale, and use it often. It is somewhere in Jethro's Mel Bay books too.

I posted a little illustration on youtube of what might be called "floating" or something close.

It is in 3/4 in G with a heavy dash of McReynolds. I used it as an intro to "Before I met you".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOagY8Tktjo

[Rob Fowler]

Hi all,
So I guess Chris Thile's tune "Hop The Fence" is using the floating technique since the tune employs the open E for every high E note? Is that correct?

[Joel Glassman]

Thanks for all the replies--lots to play with here.
I guess the sound is like Niles notated. It seemed to be playing
in G (for example) at the 4th fret but never using the second
finger--always reaching up to the next string to play a ringing
open note. Doing this as part of a linear solo with no particular
pattern or "roll". Sort of unstructured... :^)

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Here's a Japanese sounding G minor lick in a melodic crosspicking
or floating style:

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