Need advice re plucking low E and A on electric guitar

[Wonks]

Playing style is down to what suits you best and I'd be wary of blindly following 'pros' on YouTube. It may be what works for them but it may well not be what suits you. I tend to rest my hand on the bridge when I play but also rest my little finger on the pickguard. It may not be the best technique in the world but it's developed over many many years. But I'm comfortable with it. I think my hand swivels at the wrist when I'm picking like that.

So I'd try out a position that you feel comfortable with.

I have mentioned pickup height before, but I was wondering if it could be that you have the neck pickup too near the bass strings and you are getting a bit of a 'wolf' note, where the magnetic pull of the pickup interferes with the normal vibrations of the string so you hear the string trying to play at least a couple of notes at once. That may be the sound your hearing.

If you drop the pickup height significantly on the bass side, and it now plays clear, then that's it. If so, raise the pickup slowly until it starts sounding funny and then just drop it back slightly. If it sounds the same, then it's something else and put the pickup back where it was.

[merlyn]

... All of the Youtubes I have watched by the "pros" say that you should play with the palm of your hand placed flat against the bride.

Which videos are those? I think if you look at videos of players that you like, you will find that most of them don't rest their palm on the bridge. Albert Lee plays with a clean sound and doesn't rest his palm on the bridge:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5hQrgVGQ2s

I don't rest my palm on the bridge. It's possible to change the sound by changing where you pick --- near the neck is mellower, and near the bridge is brighter. It's not possible to do that if your palm is anchored on the bridge.

[Sam Spoons]

Not electric guitar but Molly Tuttle has a floating wrist when playing rhythm and switches to anchoring her hand on the bridge (but not palm muting) when playing lead.

FWIW I think, from your description of the sound you don't like when picking the 5th and 6th strings, Wonky's 'wolf note' suggestion may well be right.

[Wonks]

Though with a neck humbucker + neck single coil, there’s far less magnetic string pull than with a Strat. Possible, but not too likely.

But we’ve no pictures and no measurements of anything so far, so it’s all just possible reasons to date.

[Sam Spoons]

True enough and, I hadn't thought of it 'till you mentioned it, but the sound description does fit with your 'wolf note' idea and 'wolf notes' can be caused by things other than the pickups.

[Mannyrock55]

Thanks Guys,

I'm checking out the Wolf note idea.

As to resting the wrist, if you are not playing lead electric with your wrist on the bridge, . . . then where is it? Is it just floating around over the strings? Or resting on something else?

I have tried stabilize my wrist by resting my pinkie on the pick guard, but my pinkie is too short. And, if I play for any length of time, the middle knuckle gets really stressed and sore, because of the downward weight of my hand.

Thanks, Mannyrock

[amanise]

It'll probably end up doing lots of things depending what's required at any point in time and what instrument you're on. Check out some music vids of different players. I'd start with one of your favourites, but then people like Clapton, Beck, Young, some jazzers. Keith Richards, his hands all up and down everywhere. Half the time he's picking somewhere around the 15th fret and all his Teles are sculpted by his knuckles above that fret. Sometimes the violiners even spend the whole gig with pinkie curled around the volume pot. I know! Shouldn't be allowed! It takes time and variety of stuff played. Keep going!

[Sam Spoons]

I'm relearning how to hold a pick, it's taking a while I used to hold it as if it was an extension of my index finger but and gradually changing that to holding it in a 'Bluegrass Grip' (YT vid link below).

But, gypsy jazz picking is unusual as it developed to generate as much volume as possible out of an un-amplified acoustic guitar so resting your hand on the bridge is a definite no-no.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHu3nu5-U7o

[adrian_k]

I don’t rest my hand on the bridge either. As Merlyn says, you need to be able to move between neck and bridge to change tonality. TBH I wasn’t really aware of what I was doing, I’ve been doing it so long now, but looking now I rest my hand lightly on the E string unless I’m playing that string in which case I lift it slightly. I hold the pick in what Sam describes as Bluegrass grip, point of pick 90 degrees to thumb.

But also as others have said/implied, might be best to take anything on YT as possibly useful but not comprehensively ‘right’.

[Drew Stephenson]

It depends quite a bit on how and what I'm playing, but for solos or any kind of riff work I do tend to rest my palm on the bridge.
Given the standard of my guitar skills this should be probably be treated as an example of what not to do.

[merlyn]

My hand is hanging in the air. My anchor point is my elbow on the guitar. At first that might feel a bit weird, as you don't know where the strings are. Once you make contact with a string you now know where the strings are relative to the string you are on.

I used to have my fingers on the body of the guitar, but I started using a guitar with f-holes, and if my fingers are on the body, they can go down the f-hole, which is no use.

I play chords with hybrid picking i.e. with the pick and three fingers of my right hand, which is another way to tell where your hand is.

[Mannyrock55]

Thanks for all of your excellent advice regarding palm position.

I have been playing long hours for 6 weeks, with my palm resting on the bridge. I have mentioned how my hand goes off the rails when I run out of bridge.

Another problem I have with my palm on the bridge, is that the distance between the place on my palm where when it rests on the bridge, and the location of the pick point with my grip, is only about 1.5 inches.

As a result, my pick is way back on the strings, right over top of the rear pickups of the humbucker. At this point, the strings are really tight to pick, and I get somewhat of a "rockabilly" sound. Even that high E string is tight at this point.

I think I am going to go forth and try a pretty dramatic shift, by resting my palm on the two low bass strings. I have never tried doing this, because of course it causes muting of the strings, which I thought was a really bad thing. But, I am now coming to understand that this may actually be a positive, a skill I need to learn, in playing solo.

If that doesn't work, then I guess I'll think about something more dramatic. I have seen that some people screw a long palm bridge over the rear of the strings. This smooth bar would let me slide my palm up and down the strings easier, maintaining full contact, and move my pick location further up the strings, to reduce the tension of plucking.

So, if my new hand-muting position doesn't work out, I'll be checking back to see if using a palm bridge is something that is really rare and dumb, or whether folks had had good success with them.

Thanks very much,
Mannyrock

[Sam Spoons]

I can't help thinking that you'd be better off sorting your technique rather than adding hardware to your guitar or other 'cheats' to get around your problem. Playing with an almost entirely floating wrist is perfectly doable with practice and if you need help why not get some coaching/lessons?

[merlyn]

I think what it is is that you want an anchor point. Your right hand can feel a bit lost without an anchor point, but with practice you will learn where the strings are. If you play the guitar you are bound to end up playing a chord at some point. To strum chords you simply can't have your right hand anchored. Try strumming some chords and you'll see what I mean.

I don't think playing single notes and playing chords is that different, and the relaxed, free right hand used in strumming can also be used for playing single notes.

[Mannyrock55]

Guys,

Here is something big I forgot to mention, and should have mentioned at the outset.

This guitar has an upgraded, block bridge, not the normal fan tail or saddle bridge. The block is pretty darned close to the rear pickups. And, the tops of the vertical height adjustment screws for the high B and E strings stick up about an eighth of an inch above the block, and are darned sharp. When I slide my palm down the bridge to play high strings, the top knuckle of my little finger (which is bent inward tight like a claw), hits those share screw tops and gets torn. I really can't file them down, because it would ruin the hex opening at the tops of the screws. Maybe I can find some plastic screws that would work.

The good thing about this block bridge, is that I can play for an hour and a half, with those pure nickel strings, and the darned thing stays in tune. Unlike my old Gibson ES 335, which I had to retune about every 10 minutes.

Mannyrock

[Mannyrock55]

P.S. After 6 weeks of playing, my left-hand finger and scale work is really good and clean, but it is really frustrating that I just can't find the right picking position for my other hand.

I am really stunned by this, because I never gave it a thought when I was playing rhythm guitar 30 years ago.

Mannyrock

[Sam Spoons]

You could file some length off the bottom?

But they do give you another reason not to rest you hand on the bridge

[merlyn]

It's worth realising that there is a difference between practicing and playing. When playing, you don't want to think about anything other than music. Practicing is the time when you can zoom in with a microscope.

It could be worth practicing alternating on one string. Take the left hand out of the equation and just alternate (up-down picking) on an open string. Find a position that is comfortable, works and doesn't go 'phoom, phoom'. But when you're playing forget about all of that and just play.

[amanise]

Yep. I'd go with that. Maybe some old funk tunes and switch from rhythm to lead back and forth, while keeping with beat and tempo. Your hand will definitely need to float it's way around that. Some old Gorge Benson stuff ought to do the trick.

[Mannyrock55]

Well Guys,

I spent six hours yesterday re-reading all of the great advice, and adjusting and changing things on my guitar and my picking hand location. And thanks to all of you, I think I have gotten things straightened out and I'm on the right road.

With respect to the two low bass strings giving me the phoom sound, I think the Wolf note remedy was a substantial cure. I spent an hour raising and lowering the strings just a bit, and lowering the pickups and then slowly raising them a little at a time, until I finally got good round sounds out of those strings. Not perfect, but a 90% improvement. (The remaining roughness is almost certainly due to my cheap amp.)

As to the two bass strings being hard to pluck, those strings are currently pure nickel strings, but I am going to replace them with a good quality nickel plated strings. I think it will brighten the sound somewhat, and maybe lighten up the plucking weight . If this goes well, I will consider that problem totally solved.

And, the big issue, of where to rest my plucking hand. I ditched everything I was doing, closed my eyes, and kept shifting my hand around until it was comfortable and I could pluck strings with my eyes closed without muting them. When I opened my eyes, I could see that my palm was resting in a totally different position.

Originally the part of my hand that I was resting on the bridge was the large palm area under my thumb (a very meaty, fleshy part of the hand). Instead, the part of my hand that was resting on the bridge was on the opposite side of my hand, i.e. the bony round heel of my hand (what you would use to give someone an old fashioned Judo chop.)

This part of the hand is very distinct, stable, strong and circular, and being less fleshy, it slides easily up and down the bridge. Resting my hand on this spot raises my thumb and forefinger a bit higher above the strings, letting me pick up and down the scales without my three remaining curled-up fingers touching the strings, accidently muting them, or getting scratched on the block bridge screws. It also lets me pick with an back and forth wrist action with little effort, because that round bone is like a little ball joint for my wrist to pivot on.

The picking is a bit clumsy for me right now, because the pick attack is a bit higher from the strings, but it is really comfortable and flexible, and I really think that for me, this is the right direction to go.

I really regret watching six Youtubes, where excellent guitar players said the proper way to rest my palm was something totally different.

In short, it all depends on the shape and muscularity of your hand. I have been doing lots of finish and fine carpentry for the last ten years by hand, and the round area of my hand underneath my thumb is really large and muscular, due to the extreme exercise of using that hand for hammering, drilling, and scraping.

I will leave you with that, and my renewed thanks for all of this help. Maybe with the different palm rest, I won't be able to pick 16th notes very fast, but for me, I will gladly settle for nice clean quarter and eighth notes that sound good.

Mannyrock

[Wonks]

You might as well replace all the strings with a standard nickel set. The three plain strings are already just steel, so the only Pure Nickel wound string will be the D string. And that will undoubtedly sound a bit duller than the other two wound strings. So for a balanced sound I'd simply fit a complete new set of strings.

The saddle grub screws digging into your hand has four solutions (that I can think of).

The cheapest, as already mentioned, is to file or cut down the bottom of the screws (not the top as you'll lose the slot/hex key hole). It's time consuming as the screws tend to be quite hard, but I've done it in the past.

Then there's replacing the grub screws with shorter ones. Luthier suppliers like Allparts do different length replacements. Measure the length of the current ones, take off how much they stick out the top, and that's the maximum length you need. As they are block saddles, then there's still plenty of thread for the screws to grab onto if they sit slightly below the top of the saddles. But you'll need to know if you've got metric or imperial threads. Probably metric unless it's a made in the US model.

The next option is to shim the neck by putting a small bit of wood veneer or thin hard plastic at the body end of the neck pocket. This will increase the neck angle relative to the body, and the saddles will need to sit higher to compensate for this. So the height grub screws get screwed in further and should sit within the saddles.

Standard hobby veneer (I normally buy packs of marquetry veneer for various guitar-related repairs and adjustments) is around 0.8mm thick. You won't need anything thicker than 1mm. I cut a rectangle the width of the pocket and a maximum of 10mm in depth, so that it fits behind the two rear neck screws. If you need to raise the saddles too high, then sand the strip down a bit.

The last (and most expensive) option is to replace the saddles with bent steel ones designed to keep the top flat. I have some 'Tone Up' saddles on one Strat, which I find easy on the hand. They seem to be UK/EU only from a web search, but there are similar alternatives out there. They are basically reversed/flipped over steel saddles, with the grub screws fitting in the bottom bit of the bent scroll at the front edge of the saddle, accessed through holes in the top of the saddle.

[merlyn]

If you're having trouble with something I think it's a good idea to come up with an exercise to address the issue. I came up with this exercise on the lowest two strings:

If you've been playing scales across the strings, then you won't actually get to spend much time on the bottom two strings. This exercise is an F scale going up and down the bottom two strings.

[Mannyrock55]

Thanks for that custom exercise. Although I don't play in F, I think the point is just to learn to pluck the bass strings properly, so F in an exercise would work for me.

Mannyrock

[adrian_k]

Although I don't play in F,

Woah that’s a luxury I haven’t come across before!

[merlyn]

Maybe G would suit you better:

You're right though, it's just an exercise to familiarise you with the E and A strings.

It's possible to play a one octave scale on the E and A strings: