I
have started practising the glorious technique of Hybrid Picking, an
advancement on 'Chicken Picking'! For the last six months I have been
writting a few exercises to build up speed and the like but didn't
progress very much. Not until I learned that other heavy metal
guitarist like Brent Hinds from Mastodon (WOOT!) uses it and John 5 has
recorded video lessons for Total Guitar magazine which includes that
technique and has been of great help to me in improving Hybrid Picking.
I first became interested in it when I saw a unknown Jazz guitarist in
a pub in Leicestershire, England three years ago. I noticed he could
string skip from the 6th to the high E so quickly when it could take
years to get up to that kind of speed with a plectrum. I tried it out
but i failed miserably! I couldn't even finger pick normally, even
after a few months of practise. So I gave up hope until I saw Mastodon
playing in Dublin and noticed him playing some amazing solo's using
this techinque! Even the riffs he has written require Hybrid Picking. I
was astonished at this because if you tried to play his solo's and
riffs without using that technique, you could be there for hours
running circles around yourself trynig to complete it acurately. What
amazed me even further was that when I tried it again (obviously I had
improved a lot since I had first saw the Jazz guitarists demonstration)
and I did it! I was naturally quite competant at Hybrid Picking when I
hadn't even used normal finger picking in a long time! I waas so
chuffed with myself that I continued to practise different exercises as
I stated and I have written a number of songs based on that technique
that my band have now began working on for our originals! I think
everyone shoudl try it, I personally found it so very easy compared to
string skipping, albeit it wasn't very accurate, I do believe that I
can correct that with a year of solid practise and then I'll be picking
and pluckin' my way to succes!!! Cheers Folks!
| My Profile
The lustful art of Hybrid Picking! blog
