Forum - Banjo Ben Clark

Right hand guitar critique please!

#1

This is a repost that i first posted on the video swap, which I am thinking must have been the wrong spot. Please pardon the newby.

Good morning everyone.As embarrassing as it is. I’m posting a video of my right hand I hate to say it but I’ve been playing for about, I don’t know 25 years I’m always had a struggle with Alternate picking up-and-down. I’m trying to break that habit so I’ve looked up everything. I can find on the internet and YouTube and on this site trying to study right hand . one thing I come across a lot is about anchoring your right hand versus floating.
I’m not sure if I’m really anchoring.
Or just as some reference to using their pinkie to kind of hold their place as a gauge.
I would appreciate any critique or suggestions on if I really need to let go and curl my fingers inward and not touch any part of the bridge anywere. Any other thing that you might can point me in the right direction? Thanks to the Vance for your help I look forward to your input.

P.S. I’m trying to do a restart I heard @BanjoBen refer to in a practice video. I got the guitar out of the case and hung it on the wall earlier this year now it gets daily.

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#2

Hey Matthew! Nope, that wasn’t a problem at all, sorry I/we didn’t get back to you sooner!

As far as whether or not you are “anchoring” or whether that is a bad habit… anchoring can induce limitations if you are completely stuck in one spot and not able to move with your anchor. This can look different for every player and the best judge of this will be you. It’s hard to be too loose, however, so I’d say it’s safe to try to lighten up that anchor and move your wrist more. You don’t need to use a strict fist or “float”, but you can always try it to see if it works for you after adjusting.

100% a bigger issue is your pick directions (this is not directly tied to your hand position, but you can experiment with that as you learn alternate picking too). If you’ve never learned alternate picking, it will be a battle, but it is crucial to most pickers’ progress for sure. After building a habit of using economy or random pickstrokes for lots of your licks, it will take slowing down and practicing on the most miniscule level to build that new habit. At the beginning, you will literally have to pay attention to and make a conscious decision for every single pickstroke to start building that muscle memory in your mind and in your hand. It gets easier as you go on, of course, but it takes practicing the smallest components first. Altering your actual right hand position can definitely help your speed and accuracy later on, but it won’t directly help your habitual pick directions – that is more of a mental battle than a physical one.

Though I can’t see your left hand, the level of accuracy/consistency that you sound like you’re fretting notes with indicates to me that it’s doing great! The factors that are holding you back from better accuracy/speed/consistency across the board are mainly in the right hand, and that’s entirely normal. Once you get that new right hand engine installed and oiled, you’ll shoot through the roof!

#3

Thanks for the response. I’ve been spent some time on ytube last night searching guitar right hand and from what I can tell people like Tony Rice and Bryan Sutton don’t play closed fist but there fingers graze the pick guard as opposed to actually anchoring. I think this is a road I have to go down since I have started trying to methodically do Alternate picking it sounds stilted and stiff, this has to be some of the problem.

#4

I am no expert, but as a faithful student observed this from the video…the right hand appears to be plucking upward (sometimes ) which does effect the playing. A smooth pick-thru technique is lectured in this video starting at about the 3:00 minute mark:https://banjobenclark.com/lessons/pick-angle-beginner
This might be helpful, and I’m not trying to be critical, but helpful. Lord knows I need all the help I can get!

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#5

Thanks for chiming in I’ll check it out!

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