Blue Grass and cross picking

[david]

I am trying to learn a Carl Miner ditty. It is much quicker than anything I currently play. In trying to determine how it is done I came across the video below. So now I need to determine whether I should learn cross-picking, up-picking, or down-picking. I will likely practice some scales to speed and see what is most natural to do.

[Village Idiot]

I am no expert on cross-picking, up-picking or down-picking. One reason is that in the end they're all pretty much part of the same animal, aren't they? If you are concentrating on one of those you are actually incorporating all three techniques. Another reason is that if you play the ditty in front of 1,000 people, there is a very slight chance that one person might recognize the ditty you are playing.

[coachdoc]

Feb 22, 2024 20:36:36 GMT -5 david said:

I am trying to learn a Carl Miner ditty. It is much quicker than anything I currently play. In trying to determine how it is done I came across the video below. So now I need to determine whether I should learn cross-picking, up-picking, or down-picking. I will likely practice some scales to speed and see what is most natural to do.

Cross picking is most useful as it fills in chords. Little spurts of it while singing an uptempo song sounds great and is most gratifying.

[james]

Carl is so awesome. Thanks.

[drlj]

Feb 22, 2024 20:36:36 GMT -5 david said:

I am trying to learn a Carl Miner ditty. It is much quicker than anything I currently play. In trying to determine how it is done I came across the video below. So now I need to determine whether I should learn cross-picking, up-picking, or down-picking. I will likely practice some scales to speed and see what is most natural to do.

Playing fiddle tunes or Bluegrass usually requires down/up picking. Alternate picking gives you speed and keeps the notes flowing.
Cross picking is a nice embellishment but down/up is essential and comes first. First stroke is down, second stroke is up. You can practice that on open strings, picking notes out of chords, or playing a simple melody.
Once you can do it, moving across the strings to pick out leads or melodies becomes easier.
There are lots of videos, some basic, some advanced, on YouTube. I have no idea where you are in picking skill so I am not going to put up videos because they may be too simple or too hard.
No matter how fast the tune will eventually become, practice it slowly. You don’t want to try to go faster than you can comfortably because then you often find yourself practicing mistakes.
Movement comes from the wrist so keep it loose. You don’t want to move the arm from the elbow.
I have found that I usually use down/up patterns but occasionally, and often without even realizing it, I will do down/down/up to emphasize a run or passage.
The video you put up starts with classic down/up or alternate picking.

Go to YouTube and look for Bluegrass picking, alternate picking, down/up picking, and down/down/up picking and you will find lots of stuff.
Once you get some of it down and are comfortable, learn the tune and play it your way.

[Dub]

LJ speaks the truth. Pay attention.

But…

Crosspicking, as we think of it now, began with Jesse McReynolds who developed the technique to enhance his mandolin solos. The first guitar player to seriously incorporate crosspicking was George Shuffler who played for the Stanley Brothers. He used the down-down-up technique for crosspicking. Take three adjacent strings and, while holding a chord, pick down on the lowest-pitched string letting the pick come to rest on the next higher string. Continue the downward thrust of the pick to play that string but don’t play the third string.. instead, pass over the highest string and pick it using an up stroke while returning your pick to the lower string for the next down stroke. Rinse and repeat. To evenly fill a measure of eights notes you play d-d-u-d-d-u-d-u.

Clarence White used that d-d-u technique as did all of Ralph Stanley’s lead guitar players, following in Shuffler’s footsteps.

Doc Watson picked up that idea not long after George Shuffler. But Doc’s playing was way more advanced than Shuffler’s and Doc worked out the same d-d-u idea but always kept his pick in a strict down-up motion with down always being on the downbeat (1,2,3,4] and the upstroke always on the offbeat (the and of 1-and, 2-and…). Doc said he did that so he wouldn’t have to remember to change the way he used the pick. Using Doc’s technique one can switch between regular down-up picking and crosspicking almost without thinking about the difference.

Tony Rice and all modern players used both techniques. The two have a different rhythmic feel so we really need to master both.

And all these players held and used the pick in slightly different ways. Shuffler used his wrist and fingers together to do it. Doc, at least in the early days when I saw him, played with a stiffer wrist and drove the pick from his elbow. Tony used both wrist and fingers but in a more refined way than Shuffler. Sometimes he’d drive the pick mostly with his thumb and forefinger using his forearm to move over the target strings and sometimes he’d use his wrist more. It depended on the rhythmic nature of the passage he was playing.

Rice also did something that jazz players do, he tried to make his playing as efficient as possible. If a phrase involved multiple strings, he’d keep the pick going in the same direction for the next string instead of crossing over the string just to pick it in the opposite direction.

Today’s youngest players have taken it all to yet another level. I have no idea what Molly Tuttle or Billy Strings are doing and, with my RA, trying their stuff would be a waste of time.

[coachdoc]

This is why MJH was my hero.

[Dub]

Feb 22, 2024 23:30:25 GMT -5 coachdoc said:

This is why MJH was my hero.

Hurt is my hero too, as are the Reverend Gary Davis, Brownie McGhee, Big Bill Broonzy, Etta Baker and hundreds of others. But George, Doc, Clarence, Tony and their ilk will always be among my heroes too.

I also have several heroes right here on the SoundHole.

[Dub]

I’ve just been watching the video that David posted. The narrator doesn’t seem to be talking about crosspicking as I understand the word to mean. He seems to be talking about pick direction and the idea of playing a fast series of notes on non-adjacent strings.

Miner is amazing and incorporates all the techniques of the best bluegrass players and incorporating techniques from other genres as well. Carl had passages in which some crosspicking was incorporated but, for the most part, he’s not doing what bluegrass players think of as “crosspicking.”

[millring]

Feb 23, 2024 0:22:13 GMT -5 Dub said:

crosspicking was incorporated but, for the most part, he’s not doing what bluegrass players think of as “crosspicking.”

I didn't think so either. He did some crosspicking, but that didn't seem to be what he was describing unless what he meant to be describing is how you hold your pick directionally in order to economically pass over adjacent strings. I'm not sure I ever really grasped what he was describing.

[millring]

Like Dub, I didn't think he was describing crosspicking.

1. I remember that instructional video of Brad Davis's and he definitely was not talking about crosspicking. He was demonstrating a technique (I think he calls it "double-down") by which he achieves the sound of super speed.

2. Cross-picking -- to my understanding -- is merely crossing over adjacent strings when flatpicking in an up-down manner. One way I think of it or describe it is that it is a way for a flatpicker to do with one plectrum what a fingerpicker does with a thumb and two or three fingers. And, yes, sometimes the up-down is broken up to fit the meter, but it still remains as the constant.


3. As far as I can tell, in David's video the narrator seems to be talking about pick orientation or angle when he mistakenly keeps referring to that as pick direction. Pick direction is up or down. Orientation or angle is whether the pick is angled up or down in the fingers.

4. Another picking technique that is also often mislabeled "crosspicking" is "floating" -- a technique that sounds fretted strings above the fifth fret along with open strings such that the fretted string is higher pitched than the open string below it (a string that would be higher pitched if both strings were open.

[drlj]

Ah! Floating. I forgot to mention that. 😊
As Dub said, they are all related techniques but they have their differences. Getting a technique down sometimes takes time because you are thinking about it. Once you get to the place where you can do it without thinking about pick direction, then everything improves.
I think, in truth, flatpickers incorporate the techniques that move the song along so someone like Rice, Crary, or Davis, would use some of all of them and, as Dub said, might throw in some jazz licks, too.
Flatpickers hold the pick in a variety of ways, too. Crary used two fingers and his thumb which, to me, is really uncomfortable. It worked for him.
I think a fairly heavy pick, lightly held between thumb and finger with just enough of the tip exposed to strike the strings works best. Too much pick showing and I lose control. Keep tension out of your hand and gripping the pick too tightly creates tension.
You also need a very expensive handmade pick!😁
Learn a tune like Red Haired Boy and you can practice all of it in one song.

[PaulKay]

What’s a flatpick?

[coachdoc]

Feb 23, 2024 8:27:58 GMT -5 PaulKay said:

What’s a flatpick?

A straight pick.

[Dub]

Feb 23, 2024 10:50:41 GMT -5 coachdoc said:

Feb 23, 2024 8:27:58 GMT -5 PaulKay said:

What’s a flatpick?

A straight pick.

That’s true but Paul’s question wasn’t a straight line.

[coachdoc]

Just dropping in an Eddie reference.

[coachdoc]

I had an arrangement of Frankie and Albert that leaned heavily on cross picking. It was fun to play.

[theevan]

Fantastic musicianship! And interting video.

My answer is use whatever picking style gets it done for you.

The only way to gain speed is to play extremely slowly WIYH A METRONOME, striving for accuracy. ANY wee glitch demands slowing the metronome more. The purpose of the metronome is not to gain speed, it is force you to play slowly. Once fluidity is attained, up a few clicks until proficiency at speed is acquired.

[coachdoc]

Often when I play with a metro it will randomly speed up and slow down. It’s gotta be the metronome. Can’t be me.