Guitar Picking – Right Hand Tips
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Here’s a question from Mark Pierce
QUESTION:
Hey Bob:
The DVD was really informative. Can you give me further guidance on your right hand technique. I have plenty of dexterity in my left hand and want to “rebuild” my right hand technique. What interested me in you to start with was your similar right hand style of Doug Aldrich. I quit playing guitar for 17 years and have spent the last 2 regaining chops. My right hand technique used more motion of my elbow than I should. I know my music theory etc. My challenge is my right hand and want to emulate what you are doing. Any help and advice would be greatly appreciated.
God Bless!
Mark Pierce
Answer: Great question Mark! You mentioned using your elbow more than you should. The truth is, it can be a good thing, and it can be a bad thing.
- Good Thing: Using the elbow-forearm technique can allow you to play at speeds that would be difficult, if not impossible, using only the palm pivot method. With that being said, it is a method that can be used occasionally for the extreme high speeds, but I would not recommend it as your full time picking style.
- Bad Thing: This method doesn’t allow you to have a pivot spot on the bridge, and due to that, you don’t have a sweet spot to work with. This method also tends to wear you down after long periods of playing.
WARNING- The worst thing that can happen from this style of picking is the possibility of developing tendonitis in the elbow. This did happen to me, and it took a few years to work through it. I’ve since discovered tons of other people having the same problem from this style of picking. I’m not trying to give any medical advice, I’m only sharing with you what i’ve already been through, and what i’ve learned from others who have experienced the same things.
THE REMEDY: I recommend using the movement between the index finger and the thumb, while resting the palm of the hand on the sweet spot of the bridge. This allows you to have a pivot point as well as using your sweet spot for guitar tone enhancement at random. This is probably 90% of my picking style before I enter into to the elbow forearm method, which i still use for the fast stuff when needed.
REMEMBER: The number one thing to remember when you’re developing your right hand is to try and relax when you start playing faster. It’s more of a mental thing that you need to be aware of, when you start picking fast. It’s real easy to start tensing up when you go faster, and that wears you down quickly. The more you can relax when you pick fast, will result in you being able to play much longer, and more accurately at those speeds without getting fatigued.
OVERVIEW- Use the movement between your index finger and thumb, while pivoting off of the bridge. Use your sweet spot at random. Only use the elbow-forearm method for the extremely fast guitar picking, and be careful not to tense up when using it. Use the very tip of the pick, as to not get too much friction drag across the strings. I recommend to always use alternate picking, unless you are sweep picking. Also, practice your alternate picking with a metronome daily, for at least 15 minutes or more…
It might take a while for all of these things to start feeling comfortable, but I guarantee you will never look back once you start getting contol from this combination style picking.
Hope that sheds new light on the subject…Please post a comment to let me know how this helps you. Be assured, others will learn from your questions and comments as well.
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Guitar Chords within Modes
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- Ask in the comments section, or
- Email Bob Molton at Bob@BobMolton.com
- I’ll be sure to answer back ASAP!!
Thanks alot
Here’s a question from Klint
QUESTION:
- Hey Robert… thanks for the lessons… I appreciate you going to all the trouble posting those lessons. I’ve got one question…How do you create a chord using the modes? I mean, your chord progression in the Lydian mode sounds sweet, and I wanna how learn to do it. How do you do it? thanks…
ANSWER: Another Great question! One of the things I teach all of my guitar students is that just because you don’t know the name of a chord doesn’t mean it’s not a chord… With that being said, every mode has it’s different shapes and petterns, which makes it slightly different from the one before it, or ahead of it. Although they are all the same notes as the original scale, the notes are in a different order and that creates different shapes and patterns.
EXAMPLE: If I’m playing in the Lydian Mode, it has a certain pattern that must be followed, and within that pattern you can experiment with playing any of those notes together. This is how you create chords within a mode. You can play two notes together, or three, four, five notes together, and then you tie all of it together with little runs from within the mode.
Overview - you’re playing several notes together using only the notes within the mode pattern, and stringing them together with single notes from the same mode as well. This all goes back to what I was saying about how it doesn’t matter whether you know the names of these chords or not, as long as you can apply them musically and be comfortable doing it. You can always learn the names later. This method gets the ball rolling much quicker in a musical sense.
Re-apply this method to all the modes and you’ll soon be creating some real musical compositions.
Hope that sheds new light on the subject…Please leave me a comment to let me know how this helps you. Be assured, others will learn from your questions and comments as well.
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Guitar Body Wood
Ask Bobby Molton Your Guitar Related Questions:
- Ask in the comments section, or
- Email Bob Molton at info@topfuelguitar.com
I’ll be sure to answer back ASAP!!
Thanks alot
Here’s a question from Tyler Davis, WI .
QUESTION:
- I’m gathering information about building my own guitar and was wondering if you could give some insight on what the different types of woods sound like for an electric guitar body…
ANSWER: Great question! The wood tones from an electric guitar can really vary, because wood really does sound, and resonate differently from each other. It also varies from the shape and thickness of the cut. The best thing to do is research several different wood types and see what type is closest to the guitar tone you are going for. Then start with that wood.
EXAMPLE: If you want a real bright sound with lots of punch and sustain, you might lean more toward maple wood. If you want a real dark sound with lots of bass and growl, you might lean toward mahogany.
So you can see that the wood is the most important place to start.
Here’s a video to give you further insight…
Hope that sheds new light on the subject…Please leave me a comment to let me know how this helps you. Be assured, others will learn from your questions and comments as well.
More soon…
Bob Molton
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Guitar String Changing
Hey Guitar Friends, Thanks for all the questions. I’m thrilled to be able to help so many of you improve your guitar playing skills.
Please continue to ask your question in the comments section, or email me at bob@bobmolton.com
I’ll be sure to answer back ASAP!!
Thanks alot
Here’s a question from John weise, Arizona:
QUESTION:
- Can you elaborate a bit more on the importance of changing your strings properly. This is something I was not aware of at all. When you mentioned what was happenning with the string as it gets twisted it all started to make sense, but it would help to know a bit more…
ANSWER: Yes absolutely, I’ll even do one better and show you a video that goes over everything you mentioned. It’s actually pretty simple but very critical for proper tone, intonation, and chord voicing.
Hope that sheds new light…Please leave me a comment to let me know how this helps you. Others will learn from your questions and comments as well.
More soon…
Bob
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Ask Bobby Molton
I’m answering your questions in the order they come in.
Please ask your question in the comments section, or email me at bob@bobmolton.com
I’ll be sure to answer back ASAP!!
Thanks alot
Here’s a question from Mike in Barrie, Ontario:
Hello Robert, my name is Mike, Ive been playing guitar for about 4 years now and i am looking for some advice to spice up my guitar playing. I feel i have used the pentatonic scale far too many times and that is why i am going to learn the scale modes you have put on You Tube.
QUESTION:
- I would like to know when you would use these different modes and some of the patterns i can incorporate into them.
ANSWER: You would use these mode patterns to play more melodic, and with much more feel. You see each mode has it’s own unique tonality to it, and the key to using the modes, is to bring out the unique tonality each mode has to offer. Keep in mind that modes are just ONE SCALE’S worth of notes played in seven different orders. They are always the same notes, otherwise it would become another Scale instead of another mode. Each scale has it’s own modes that follow, including the pentatonic scale. The pentatonic scale has five modes instead of seven because there are only five notes in the PENTATONIC SCALE. It can get overwhelming if you try to learn to many scales and their modes all at once. The most important mode system to learn is the MAJOR SCALE MODES. This is what i teach in the guitar mode videos. It’s the guidlines for everything. In my opinion the second most important modes are the Pentatonic Modes. I’ll be releasing a whole series on the Pentatonic Modes in the near future.
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Another question i have is about amps. Right now i am using an LTD EC-1000 LP with a Boss Ds1 and a chorus pedal through and old Yorkvile Sound Bass amp from 1972 called a Sonax 550B (solidstate).
QUESTION:
- I would like to know if there is an amp out there around $1,300 that provides a nice beefy but still “rectifireish” tone.
ANSWER: Well, since you mentioned you wanted something “rectifireish” I would keep a close eye on eBay and find a killer Boogie Dual Rectifier for under $1300.00. I know you can find them because i’ve watched them from time to time and you can actually get deals lower than that. The key is to keep your eye on the auctions and watch them for a week or two before you actually get one. This allow you to know what your up against by the time several auctions have ran their course. Also, wait till the last few minutes to bid because you don’t want to drive the price up too early. You may have to bid a couple times but know your limits and stop if if it’s beyond your budget.Me personally, I would buy a used Marshall JCM 800, Mid 1980′s, master volume, vertical input, and drive the front with and old Boss Overdrive (OD-1). That Set-up will always deliver the goods!!
Hope that sheds new light…Please leave me a comment to let me know how this helps you. Others will learn from your questions and comments as well.
More soon…
Bob
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Ask Bob Molton
Hello Guitar Players,
I wanted to share the answer to the question that many people seem to be asking.
Guitar modes can be intimidating, and more confusing than they need to be. Here’s a brief example of how to view them more clearly.
Here’s a Question from Jordan Mackie: Well, I am confused by this whole mode business. I have previously learned 5 caged shapes for the major scale.
Are modes basically just giving names to all those shapes?
Say I wanted to write a solo in ”A Lydian” am I limited to that one shape on the neck that you did in your video, Or does the Lydian scale have other shapes all around the neck?
Good Question, first off, I think it’s very important to understand the difference between modes and scales.
- Scales: Scales are a series of notes that create a particular sound. Typically, there are seven notes within a scale and the eight note is the octave. Whatever the notes are within that scale, are what gives it it’s tonal identity. To identify the scale by name you would use a name such as “Harmonic Minor” or “Melodic Minor” etc… The important thing to remember is that anytime you change a note within that scale it’s becomes a different scale entirely, with a different name, and a different sound, and different feel.
- Modes: Modes are the particular set of notes (that make up a scale) played with different orders, but always the same exact notes. For example, if you had the scale – (ABCDEFGA) the next mode would be (BCDEFGAB) and the next mode would be (CDEFGABC) and so on…
You’ll notice that the notes never changed, only the order in which they were played. The way you bring the tonality of the mode out is by leaning on the beginning note of each mode. It takes practice and ear training to get a good grip on the tonality differences, but rest assured your ear will begin to pickup on the sound very quickly. This should make things much easier to view in your minds eye.
As far as the different positions you’ve learned, it really doesn’t matter as long as you are playing the same notes, such as if I would play a G major scale in 3 or 4 different positions, it’s still the G major scale, it’s just played in a different position. A mode only changes when you change the order of the notes used in a particular scale.
Hope this sheds more light on the subject.
Please comment on how this has helped you.
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Guitar Lessons
Hello Friends,
If you’re interested in learning some helpful tips and some insider information, I highly urge you to go on over to Top Fuel Guitar and check out the cool resources available for all guitarists.
You’ll find some killer free videos to get you rolling in the right direction.
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