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Thread: Right Hand Technique?

  1. #1

    Default Right Hand Technique?

    Hey, does anyone have any right hand speed techniques they could share? Thanks.

  2. #2

    Default Re: Right Hand Technique?

    Yes. Loosen your grip on your pick. You will lose volume but increase speed (you can't have both while still maintaining good tone)

  3. #3
    bird and mando geek Rob Fowler's Avatar
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    Default Re: Right Hand Technique?

    I disagree with the "lose volume" portion of your statement, jazztune18. In general, you actually can increase volume with a very loose grip on the pick because when the pick hit's the string with a loose grip it helps the notes ring out more freely and therefore with more volume because the pick is spending less time in contact with the string and more energy is transferred to the string. But, yes, the faster you tend to play the less volume to you tend to generate but I think that's based more on the speed of playing not the pick grip. Anybody else agree out there?

    Before speed worry more about tone, TheBently. If you have good tone already then by all means work on the speed! Something I can always practice before I preach about it, also! I'd recommend trying to hold the pick with a loosely closed fist. There's a lot of threads about this if you just search with "right hand technique" or "Mike Compton grip," etc. Cheers!

  4. #4
    but that's just me Bertram Henze's Avatar
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    Default Re: Right Hand Technique?

    Many players start with the habit of moving the pick just with index and thumb, leaving the rest of the hand idle or planted. This works for instruments with little driving forces such as the tenor banjo or electric guitar, but high-tension courses as on a mandolin require a different approach.
    Try the following:
    - grab a broomstick with your right hand. Thumb on one side but touching the index, all other fingers on the other side, neatly aligned.
    - take the broomstick away but leave thumb and fingers where they are.
    - wedge a pick between thumb and index.
    - start to play, just one open course, up, down, up, down and so on.
    - do you feel picking impact in your thumb or index? Wrong - relax those.
    - do you feel picking impact in the wrist? Right, that's where it belongs; counter the impact forces with the wrist, not with thumb or fingers

    That's the way to play. Keep the fingers aligned like on the broomstick, and you'll notice no extra force neccessary to hold the pick. You can stretch the pinky and let it brush over the instrument top if you need a navigation reference, but don't plant it. Leave the other 3 fingers where they are.
    You might feel lost in space with your hand at first, banging the wrong courses every now and then, but this is a passing phase, your hand will learn to know its way around - don't give it up.
    Now all motion and power comes from the wrist that can provide both at any speed you want.
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  6. #5

    Default Re: Right Hand Technique?

    Thank you all! It was a great help! Oh, i tend to move the pick with the index and thumb just a little when i play guitar, is that a problem?

  7. #6
    but that's just me Bertram Henze's Avatar
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    Default Re: Right Hand Technique?

    Quote Originally Posted by TheBently View Post
    Oh, i tend to move the pick with the index and thumb just a little when i play guitar, is that a problem?
    The mother of problems. THE problem. See above ...
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    Default Re: Right Hand Technique?

    What have i done............ *facepalm

  9. #8
    Lost my boots in transit terzinator's Avatar
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    Default Re: Right Hand Technique?

    For me, it's when I start to try to synchronize right and left hands that my right-hand technique suffers. (And that's kind of a problem when you want to play more than just open strings!)

    If I just practice on open strings, my right wrist moves nice and free and I get good tone and it all feels natural. But when the right hand needs to track the goings on of the fretting fingers, "trust" goes away and "control" takes over.

    If I'm doing a fiddle tune or other rehearsed thing, it's not bad. But if I try to improvise, eeeek.

    I'd love to find some exercises and drills (or a lobotomy) for that.

  10. #9
    Middle-Aged Old-Timer Tobin's Avatar
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    Default Re: Right Hand Technique?

    If I'm doing a fiddle tune or other rehearsed thing, it's not bad. But if I try to improvise, eeeek.
    I have that same problem, and I'll bet nearly everyone does. Playing a rehearsed sequence is mostly muscle memory, requiring very little active input from the brain compared to improvising, where the brain has to stay ahead of the hands.

    I apparently suffer from a very slow reflex speed. My wife loves to test this all the time by reaching out and pinching me, and I react about a half-second too late each time. Even when I know it's coming! I would totally suck at combat sports.

    But I think it also translates into improvising. My nervous system apparently has a delay period between the time it receives a signal from my brain and the time my hands react. And it also seems to create a temporal offset between the signals going to each hand, because they fall out of sync with each other. But when playing a tune I know by heart, they can do just fine.

    This is why I really appreciated some of the advice given in one of the books I'm studying about bluegrass improvisation on the mandolin. By learning "licks" and throwing them into my "bag of licks", it makes improvising much easier. There is less thinking involved. It's just picking licks to play, and putting them in the right place, letting my hands take control of each lick; they already know how to play them without my brain getting in the way. Hopefully, with a lot of practice on lick assembly, and a large bag of licks, I can one day master improvisation at breakneck speeds. Much of it becomes autopilot.

  11. #10
    Innocent Bystander JeffD's Avatar
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    Default Re: Right Hand Technique?

    There are a bunch of little licks I can play fast. Its a launch kind of thing, where I have ceased to think of them as individual notes. What they are are interesting ways of getting from here to there, this note to that, this chord to that, etc. I don't play them, I launch them and they take off.

    They are the few things I can do fast that the left hand and the right are in sync. And its because they are brief, and because I practice them a lot. My right hand is doing basically a tremolo, which in my mind exists in a different place than playing a series of notes fast. My left hand is just climbing up or down or sideways. I don't think of individual finger placement.

    There is the going up a fifth via the major scale, there is going up a fifth via I to V chord arpeggio thingie. There is the V to I bouncy thing, the V to I skippie thing, the V to I with a quick visit to IV on the way, etc.

    I made them up, mostly, or they are parts and pieces of exercises I have worked on. Whatever. They seem to exist in my mind as little chunks, little bursts of unsustainable speed.

    I just practice them and then I toss them into my playing where its appropriate.

    This, and double stop tremolos, and people now think I play fast. I don't correct them.
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  12. #11

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    Hi guys,


    Just my thoughts on the improvising side of things. I have been fortunate enough to study with some GREAT improvisers many with astounding technique. Firstly let me say I'm new to mandolin but have been playing guitar for 20 years. Here's what I've learned about improvising. Generally the faster something is played the more "composed" it is, if you listen to John coltrane's giant steps solo, you can hear pattern after pattern (a lot of1,2,3,5 pentatonics).

    Any great improviser practices licks over and over and over again. Go get the Charlie Parker omnibook, every page you can circle streams of semi quaver patterns over 2-5-1 chords that are "composed". The beauty is in the TIMING, SWING, DYNAMICS, PHRASING, and the improvisation bit comes from when these decide they want to pop out your brain, it's almost like you don't have to think about that bit. It's a magic that I don't really want to question.

    At first these licks and phrases do seem a bit like playing an exercise, and if you can't HEAR them you won't be able to play them as well. Try this: before you play the lick, sing it as loud as you can in your head first, then play it, you will be AMAZED how it all comes together quickly.


    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_7DgCrziI8&sns=em

    5:31 6:51 are two of the most important things I have EVER discovered LIFE CHANGERS!

    Hope some of this helps.

    Craig

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  14. #12
    but that's just me Bertram Henze's Avatar
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    Default Re: Right Hand Technique?

    Quote Originally Posted by 55bar View Post
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_7DgCrziI8&sns=em

    5:31 6:51 are two of the most important things I have EVER discovered LIFE CHANGERS!
    Do or do not. There is no try.
    the world is better off without bad ideas, good ideas are better off without the world

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    INDEED! Hahah

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    formerly Philphool Phil Goodson's Avatar
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    Default Re: Right Hand Technique?

    Quote Originally Posted by JeffD View Post
    There are a bunch of little licks I can play fast. Its a launch kind of thing, where I have ceased to think of them as individual notes. What they are are interesting ways of getting from here to there, this note to that, this chord to that, etc. I don't play them, I launch them and they take off.

    They are the few things I can do fast that the left hand and the right are in sync. And its because they are brief, and because I practice them a lot. My right hand is doing basically a tremolo, which in my mind exists in a different place than playing a series of notes fast. My left hand is just climbing up or down or sideways. I don't think of individual finger placement.

    There is the going up a fifth via the major scale, there is going up a fifth via I to V chord arpeggio thingie. There is the V to I bouncy thing, the V to I skippie thing, the V to I with a quick visit to IV on the way, etc.

    I made them up, mostly, or they are parts and pieces of exercises I have worked on. Whatever. They seem to exist in my mind as little chunks, little bursts of unsustainable speed.
    I just practice them and then I toss them into my playing where its appropriate.
    This, and double stop tremolos, and people now think I play fast. I don't correct them.
    Jeff,

    That's almost scarey!! You've told my story!

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    Registered User Chip Booth's Avatar
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    Default Re: Right Hand Technique?

    Quote Originally Posted by Rob Fowler View Post
    I disagree with the "lose volume" portion of your statement, jazztune18. In general, you actually can increase volume with a very loose grip on the pick because when the pick hit's the string with a loose grip it helps the notes ring out more freely and therefore with more volume because the pick is spending less time in contact with the string and more energy is transferred to the string. But, yes, the faster you tend to play the less volume to you tend to generate but I think that's based more on the speed of playing not the pick grip. Anybody else agree out there?
    No, I have to disagree with this.

  18. #16

    Default Re: Right Hand Technique?

    Well it's been 7 years since I have played the mandolin, and I played a more "Monroe style mandolin" lots of double stops, downpicking etc. I had found that the kind of pick you use and pick material affects the tone and playability as much as the right hand. The thing is, their are so many different right hand techniques. If you compare Adam Steffey to Bill Monroe let's say. The most important thing is keeping a loose wrist. I also personally found that I had more control and better tone with a stiff heavy pick with a rounded filed point...also held further back between my thumb and first finger. Also you'll be tempted to stiffen up and grip harder during some of the faster instrumentals once you improve. If your'e forearm is getting sore and stiff while you play your'e not using enough of your wrist. Just know your limits...speed will come with time. I found when I learned a song slowly first and gradually increased it helped. But the right pick, pick material and a loose-wrist is tantamount. I also think a thicker-heavier pick delivers a better tone, but takes more practice to get the right control.

  19. #17

    Default Re: Right Hand Technique?

    "This is why I really appreciated some of the advice given in one of the books I'm studying about bluegrass improvisation on the mandolin. By learning "licks" and throwing them into my "bag of licks", it makes improvising much easier. There is less thinking involved. It's just picking licks to play, and putting them in the right place, letting my hands take control of each lick; they already know how to play them without my brain getting in the way. Hopefully, with a lot of practice on lick assembly, and a large bag of licks, I can one day master improvisation at breakneck speeds. Much of it becomes autopilot.[/QUOTE]"

    I am curious as to what the name of this book might be? I am a newer mandolin player having started last October. I used to play guitar and was never very good at it. I am a lefty, so my chords and notes are not a problem. I am having an issue training my right hand to do what it needs to do. Tremolo is very difficult for me, chop chords, and even some strumming patterns. I'm beginning to think it's a brain to hand issue. I am open to whatever books or links that are suggested. Thanks

  20. #18
    Registered User Texas_Surfer's Avatar
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    Default Re: Right Hand Technique?

    Quote Originally Posted by Rockin Robin View Post
    "
    I am curious as to what the name of this book might be? I am a newer mandolin player having started last October. I used to play guitar and was never very good at it. I am a lefty, so my chords and notes are not a problem. I am having an issue training my right hand to do what it needs to do. Tremolo is very difficult for me, chop chords, and even some strumming patterns. I'm beginning to think it's a brain to hand issue. I am open to whatever books or links that are suggested. Thanks
    A great book that I have and use a lot like this is called The Mandolin Pickers Guide to Bluegrass Improvisation by Jesper Rübner-Peterson. Its awesome with tons of licks to play over all types of chords and keys and examples of how to tie them all together. Its almost 200 pages! Comes with a CD with all the examples played. Well worth the money!

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