My buddy/guitar teacher told me the other day about something that was standard technique, and I’d like to run it by y’all to see if there’s any BB video on this to help me. I hope I can explain this right . . .
Let’s say we’re doing scales (though I guess it’s supposed to apply to any picking), say the open G scale. When we get to the B string from either direction, we have the 1 finger playing the first fret and the 3 finger playing the third fret. He says that while going up the scale, after you play the first fret, the 1 finger stays on the first fret until you’ve played the third fret . That part’s not so hard. But going back down the scale, you also want your 1 finger on the first fret before you play the third fret, which basically means the 1 and 3 fingers have to arrive on their respective frets at about the same time - and damn, that’s hard to do!
And he says it’s the same for anytime multiple fingers are playing on the same string: the one closest to the tuners stays on after it’s struck, until you pick the one closer to the bridge; and that if you’re picking the one closest to the bridge first, the one closest to the tuners needs to already be on its string and pressed down, and that left hand fingering in this fashion makes your picking sound a lot smoother.
I hope I explained this right. This stuff is complicated (and a little tedious) to articulate!
Does Banjo Ben speak to this technique in any of the videos?
Many thanks!
