SPEAKER_02 0:00

Do you have anything in particular you need to get off your chest in this in this episode?

SPEAKER_00 0:05

I don't think so, man. We had a good therapy session yesterday, you know, with my uh the the rise and fall of Hayes's, you know, first Rocky Grass experience.

SPEAKER_02 0:16

The hero's journey.

SPEAKER_00 0:18

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 0:21

Yes, yes. Well, so okay. In the last episode, we were talking all about a lot of what we were talking about was the the mental game of preparing for for these competitions, which you could totally apply to how you might prepare to go to a jam or a gig or something like that. Um, maybe in this episode, we could talk about the the cold hard facts of playing the guitar. We could talk about some some uh some technique stuff, some practice stuff. We could, you know, really get into the mechanics of of some stuff. Because I find myself thinking about that all the time these days, just trying to figure out how I want to play, like how I want my hands to work to get the sound out, right? Again, uh I've been playing guitar for whatever, 20 years, something like that. And uh, you know, and now I'm re-investigating all the things that I'm doing just to say, like, is this how I want my hand to move? Is this how I want to hold the pick? What pick do I want to use? All this stuff. Uh, so maybe there's an avenue we can go down for some of that. I will say, now I'm kind of curious because we just did uh a quick video for my YouTube channel, which uh you may have already seen if if you're following Eli Gilbert Guitar. But we were talking about, you know, sometimes using a closed hand or an open hand. And anyone who's watching any of my YouTube videos knows that I have uh probably too many of these practice logs dedicated to whether or not I'm playing with a closed hand or an open hand. Uh, and I've gone back and forth, I've tried a bunch of different things, and so now we're gonna spend even more time talking about that, I suppose, is what I'm getting into. So, Hayes, you use when you're when you're flat picking, uh my understanding is most of the time you're using a closed hand. Is that is that the case?

SPEAKER_00 2:11

Almost exclusively these days. And I I made that choice. Man, I started playing guitar when I was eight. I started flat picking when I was 13, and I made the choice to switch exclusively to a closed hand when I was like 18, I would say. It was like that was the my freshman year of college when I saw you know a lot of my favorite players using that closed hand grip. Finally, I was like, I committed and you know, kind of hit a year's worth of just like, I'm not, I'm gonna suck. I'm gonna like stuff is gonna feel weird, you know what I mean? Like all these things that I'm normally used to doing, but it'll be in the service of of doing, quote, the right thing.

SPEAKER_02 2:51

Yes, right, right, right. Which which always is accompanied by you know that that kind of epiphany feeling like, ah, this is exactly what I should be doing. This will change my life. This is this is the new me. This is how it's going to be for you know. And then you realize, oh no, I've been holding my pick a millimeter too far from where it needs to be. This is the new me. I hold my pick like this now.

SPEAKER_00 3:17

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 3:17

Uh, which can happen, yeah. I feel like you can go down, you can go down a path of having that feeling every week. Uh, and and when I do that, I spend way less time playing. And and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with kind of figuring that out for yourself, but there is it's a slippery slope between, you know, like, okay, I gotta get all my ducks in a row before I can play guitar and play music. You know, I have once I have perfect technique, then I can learn some tunes, right? Yeah. So I don't want to do that either. Um, but uh yeah, I guess so. When you when you were playing um with the open hand, did you have anyone in particular that you were trying to emulate, or or was that just what you happened to do and when it was kind of haphazard, it was just whatever it was?

SPEAKER_00 4:02

Yeah, I think that the open hand was a result of watching all the rock guitar players that I had been emulating before I started playing bluegrass. Because if you look at most people that play an electric guitar, they play with open fingers because there's so much palm muting and like blocking that happens in that genre. And I never thought about it until I didn't do it, you know what I mean? But like Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like a lot of times on the flat top acoustic guitar, we want the strings to ring as long as possible and and all that stuff. So you're like less concerned with being able to like palm mute or have those fingers there to kind of like do that stuff with, right? Um, yep. So I I think that's why I naturally fell into that open-handed technique first. It was just like what I saw people doing that I happen to be watching. Um, Tony Rice, the first few videos I saw of him, I was like, oh, he's playing with open fingers, great, you know, just like Angus Young, you know, just like Angus Young. Um, so um when I was later in college, you know, this is like dating myself, but I think it was like sophomore junior year when like YouTube came out.

SPEAKER_01 5:10

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:13

You know, or it might have been out for a year or two, but that's when it got really big. You know, it was something like I remember YouTube just not being a thing that was on our radar until then. And when that did become a thing, I remember one of the first um kind of rabbit holes that I went down was watching Chris Theley. Because I think no matter what instrument you played, guitar, mandolin, you know, anything with a plectrum, you could look at that guy and be like, this is a clear, like virtuoso of right hand plectrum technique. So this is probably worth studying, you know. Um, and if you watch Thely early on, he played with an open hand.

unknown 5:49

Fingers.

SPEAKER_02 5:49

I was no kidding, I didn't know that. Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 5:52

So uh I believe if I could be mistaken, but I believe if you watch like the Gator Strut video that he does with Mike Marshall on uh the Wood Songs Acoustic Radio Hour, um the he's playing with more fingers out kinda, you know. Um and then later, if you look at just some of the even more recent, like Punch Brothers type of stuff, he's playing with you know fingers kind of in, and sometimes you'll see a little bit of variation, you know what I mean? Like fingers in versus versus fingers out. But it seems like his evolution was the same as the one I was describing earlier, where it's like, you know, open-handed to closed-handed. Um that that said something to me, you know. When I was able to like visually trace that through Chris Thhieley's history, I was like, there must be some benefit to this closed-handed thing because Chris Thhiely decided to modify his technique toward that, you know?

SPEAKER_02 6:47

Yeah, someone who already had technique or or you know, it's such a interesting, you know, it's like it's not all about playing fast, you know, or or whatever. You know, it's like there's there's a lot of depth to um tone production and uh certainly the speed, but also like certain techniques are gonna help you have a certain time feel, something like that. So it's it's more complicated than that. But you know, even as uh at that age, playing with an open hand, many people would be very would be like, oh, I'd be thrilled to have Chris Thaley's facility on the instrument at any level, you know, whatever when he was 10 years old. Sure, that'd be great if I could play mandolin like that, then that no problem. Um so to see that, to see someone who had like above average facility on the instrument say, This is gonna work better for me, or I can continue to grow this way, like that's that's pretty huge to see that and say that must be meaningful in some way that that someone who you know it's so easy to look at someone playing well and say they have it all. Why how could they possibly, you know, why would they complain about anything? You know, and but but in in everyone's mind they're saying they're optimizing, they're always trying to optimize something or be more comfortable or not injure yourself or or whatever it is, you know.

SPEAKER_00 7:58

Exactly. Yeah. I I want to know what Chris was playing and or practicing around that point in time that kind of shifted his mindset toward the other technique. You know, that could be a big clue too, like what was he doing, you know?

SPEAKER_02 8:11

There's a great I don't that this may not be relevant to that specific question, but it would be hilarious if it was that there's a great interview. I it must be on it's not on a music talk show, I don't think, um, because if they would know what he was talking about, but they were, you know, he's he's playing really well. It's like on a on a maybe like a morning talk show or or late night or something like that. And and either asking him what he's playing, and he's just this little kid. So it everything he says is cute kid, you know, the kids say the darndest things, whatever, you know, about playing mandolin. And uh and he plays this great stuff. And they ask him, you know, what are you working on, or or what's left for you to learn? It was one of those questions, like, Yeah, you can play everything. What else could you possibly, whatever? And his answer is great. He's like, Oh, well, I'd I'd really like to work on like Mark O'Connor triplets. And the person he tells this to has no clue what that means. Like, there's no context whatsoever for who Mark O'Connor is or what a triplet is, and um and uh they say, Oh, I don't even know what that is. And Chris says, Oh, it's like this. And he he he like doesn't even play it. I think he like sings the triplets or something like that. So, you know, maybe he wanted to play some Marco Connor triplets, and that you know convinced him he needed to change his technique. But um I mean it's an interesting thing because like anything, any decision you make about your technique, you can find a million examples of people doing any different version you can imagine. And you can also find examples of someone saying, Oh, yeah, I was playing closed hand, but then I got a lot more comfortable when I went to open hand. Or as you described with Chris, it's the opposite. You know, it could be a million different things. I mean, who could so who's who are the big people playing with the open hand that you can think of? I mean, like you mentioned Tony Rice. Yeah, Brian Sutton. Definitely a lot of Brian Sutton is kind of my example, my peak example of like one of the people when I was trying to do the open hand, that's that was the ideal for me. Is like that seems great. That seems like a great technique to have.

SPEAKER_00 10:05

Absolutely. I think Sutton is to me, he's the he's the best uh modern example to look at for the open hand because unlike Tony, he doesn't do all of the economy pick cross-picking stuff. He's like mostly an alternate picker. So it's a technique that more of us are adopting these days. So if you're studying Brian, his right hand thing is gonna work with like most of the vocabulary and like the tunes that you've probably been working on, you know what I mean? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and I love, man, he's got so many great licks that I feel like only, not only, but just work really well with that open hand technique, you know. Cause it like I said, it gives you that forward lean to your pick, you know, and you'll see him dip his hand back like this now too into that pronated position I was talking about. But there are the these like uh uh that's a Brian Sutton lick that I yeah. And I feel like because he's got that forward lean, those upstroke notes get like a sharper attack because the pick is like coming through it at more of a point. Yep. Totally. So there's stuff like you know, I feel like there are just advantages to those techniques that come out into the into the phraseology. Like you don't hear a lot of closed hand people, at least the ones that I've studied, play that lick specifically. So, like, is that is that a result of a Brian Sutton forward-leading open finger right hand thing, you know, maybe.

SPEAKER_02 11:40

Yeah, it's really interesting. I mean, think of any of the other people. Okay, another great example. Um, we were talking about Clarence White uh a couple episodes ago, about um a lot of the stuff he was playing with these downstrokes, um uh just like repetitive downstrokes, basically. Yes. Kind of like the the Django style thing. It's uh a lot of what he ends up doing, kind of pick direction wise lines up with that. And that's of that's kind of the forward-leaning thing, is you get these downstrokes with uh rest rest strokes, basically. Yes. Even when he's playing single note lines, right? And which you have to kind of forward lean to get that, which is easier to do, you know. So and it's the same thing with Brian, where it's the open hand and it's resting on the guitar, it's not planted or anchored, but it's resting, you know? And there's a stability there where you I don't think you necessarily play certain things. You probably can play anything either way, right? But it lends itself certainly, as you're describing, to to certain sounds. So think of Clarence White with the downstrokes, think of um Kenny Smith or Tim Stafford. Um, you know, players that are not Brian Sutton is a little bit the example where he's like he's kind of shredding, like he's he's got that here where he's you know, he was kind of like at a certain point, he was the here's the new shredder, basically. Here's the new bar for what that could be, um, along with all the other great stuff that he plays too. But you think about Kenny Smith or Tim Stafford, or um, you know, we can make a much longer list if you want, where sometimes the open hand, if you're forward-leaning, doesn't lend itself to that, you know, like Kenny, for instance, is kind of the forward lean all the time, seemingly, um which gives him a which it gives him a really specific tone and a lot of those downstroke rest strokes. Um, but it also it almost like lends itself to more sparse playing in some ways, right? Where if you listen to the solos that that both Kenny or Tim Stafford play, um there's there's a lot of melody there. It's not so much the uh lines through fiddle tunes necessarily. It's a it's these kind of like little melodic ideas with filler notes between. It's almost more like a banjo player in a way, where it's like the the idea is a small part of what's being played, and what's around it are open strings or cross picking or or whatever it is, right? So it's not uh it's you know, sorry. Yeah. You know, there's there's a little bit of um, it just kind of lends itself to that thing, right? Whereas for me, when I noticed when I started doing the closed hand, it almost is a little too easy. Yeah, you know, whatever you're just like kind of gonna move all around the the scale because it just like uh there's no nothing getting in your way there, right? Um so so it but then you you listen to players and you kind of you know, I a good example would be Jake Workman with the closed hand, um, where I've I've asked him kind of to demonstrate things that like okay, well, you don't do this that often, but what with your you know technique, what does it sound like if you try to do that? And he plays it and it sounds great, right? Like I'm not I'm not trying to test him, but I'm just saying, like, okay, is this gonna work in this context? And yeah you can you can make that choice, certainly.

SPEAKER_00 15:21

So um without me putting 20,000 hours into learning how to do this thing to see if it sounds good, Jake. Can you do it for me right now? Yeah, exactly, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 15:32

And really, I mean it's interesting because it so okay. Jake is is is should be a big part of this discussion because in some ways he is the absolute highest level of facility with the closed hand. I mean, with for anyone really, but with the closed hand, certainly with speed, but also just the consistency, the um and and also just being kind of like knowledgeable about what he does. He's really understands what he's doing, right? So you can ask him a specific question, he'll give you a specific answer about the pick direction, the leaning, the where you know, where he's holding the pick, all this stuff. And so so this became a big part of the discussion for me because I was just trying to find something comfortable. So I was kind of following Brian Sutton for a while and just trying to copy his right hand because that seemed comfortable and that was working. And so I've oscillated between the two things. But the what I found interesting with with Jake is um the way he's he's very clear about which direction his wrist is leaning, uh, and then how much rotation there is, all these things. So it was very easy to follow that too. So again, it doesn't mean that I'm like, okay, now Jake is the that's the correct right hand necessarily. But it was like, okay, if I want to follow that path, which at the moment I'm kind of doing, um it's been laid out very clearly. So so there is there is that, you know, that that sometimes you might copy, like if you want to copy Tony Rice in his right hand, I've seen people do it and and they kind of get certainly that vibe, but you have to do it pretty much only by watching because there's he never described really what he was doing in detail, why it's not really going to describe it in detail in a way that that Jake does with what he does. So, you know, there's there's some there's a challenge there, uh education-wise, where like you might have to just teach yourself how to how to copy a certain person, which is great. That's a great thing to do, but you know.

SPEAKER_00 17:24

And I I like that you brought that up, right? Like that the the access to information almost might influence which technique you um lean into because it's like, well, this guy is highly documented with it. He what he does is absolutely amazing, like Jake Workman means. Yeah, right. So it's like like I'm I'm probably gonna lean into that one, right? Whereas Tony's like, I don't know, I just put four downstrokes in a row sometimes, you know, and and it's like, yeah, there's a there's a uh steeper learning curve. I'm also glad that you brought up uh Jake's um attention to uh pick slant in relation to the closed fist way of playing, because I think that is one of the major advantages to curling the fingers in is the is the fact that you can get into what metal guys for years have called pick slanting, right? Sure, yeah. Um and and it's interesting. I was thinking as you were like wrapping up your thought there that Tony and Jake Workman, like if you were to put both of them together, the technique is actually um what I think a lot of metal guitar players would consider like a well-rounded guitar technique because Tony did economy picking, he would sweep essentially, right? He would he would play like four or five downstrokes in a row that were articulated as eighth notes or sixteenth notes, however you want to like see that. Um so metal guys do that all the time, right? You know, like sweeping is a huge thing on on like metal guitar. You they also talk about having a a rock solid, um, like eighth note right-hand tremolo picking technique. So they call it tremolo picking, yeah, but but it's really what Jake is doing with this kind of rotational wrist motion, and then having like a fixed amount of pronation where your pinky's pointed out from the guitar and you're doing that rotational wrist motion, or a fixed amount of supplination where your your pinky's pointed toward the guitar and you're doing that wrist rotation. Um, each one of those has rules to it. I don't know if this is the time and place to discuss those rules because it's it's a very heady topic, but like essentially the number of notes that you play before switching to the next string will determine which angle that your hand will want to be kind of like slanted at. You know what I mean? So if you're doing a fixed amount of pronation, you're gonna have one string that's odd note groupings, you know, uh one, two, three, my wrist is free of the guitar, and now I can do one, two, three, uh one, two, three, one, two, three. I'm free of the guitar, one, two, three, one, two, three. So it's all even after that, right? So like and then nice, yeah. That's stuff becomes possible. But I only figured that stuff out from watching this Troy Grady dude on YouTube, the one that has all the cracking the code, yeah. Yeah, that has all those David Greer, Molly Tuttle, Andy Wood uh videos, you know, because he's he's like a metal guy, but he's kind of grabbed some of our people and studied them too, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:31

Um it's fascinating uh to see some of those people on that on that channel. Uh there's such a it's not easy to play electric guitar, but there are certain things about it that are um kind of ergonomic for you know, in a way that it's it's it's less of a barrier between playing that fast. So then the people who are able to play on a dreadnought with that kind of facility, it's like I it doesn't surprise me he's interested in that because it it it really is kind of a um I don't know, it's a it's a unique challenge to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_00 21:04

Yeah, absolutely. Um so yeah, I I think uh it's related, is all I'm getting at, is that like the closed hand technique gives you some of these more, like you were saying, eighth note uh run kind of possibilities because uh your hand is not uh physically attached to the guitar. And I know that we said we're not planting, we're more resting, but still I feel like when your hand gets used to touching the top of the guitar, it feels unnatural to pull it away to maybe do a pronated thing where like I can't keep my fingers on the top of the guitar. You know, Brian uh does. I've noticed this, but when he pronates, it's typically on the top four strings.

SPEAKER_02 21:45

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 21:46

Where he can still keep his hands down. You know, he does those you know, like that sweep thing, you know. Yeah, yeah. Totally. Um so I I I think we're honing in on a theory of some sort. I don't know what it is yet, but

SPEAKER_02 22:00

Well and w and one of the interesting things, I mean, okay, two things. One, first of all, if you're listening to this podcast audio only, uh, great, but it's possible that you may be interested in the video version of this on YouTube because we are demonstrating some of the way that this stuff looks. And so if you're curious, you can find this on YouTube and and and see what Hayes' hand looks like. But also this the other thing being, you know, uh when I because I took a less a lesson with Jake to kind of figure out like what is the what is the deal here, which I can't recommend enough if you're curious about what he does. Uh it's it's absolutely worth the money. Um uh though I would also say Hayes is is doing a lot of very similar stuff. So take a lesson with Hayes too. But um but the point being that you know when he talked about it, he he knows what he's doing and he does it for a certain reason. But he says we really you can do all the stuff he does with an open hand. Um it just it's not going to be uh it it it's a little more challenging in a way, right? Like you can do the same thing and it's gonna make your life easier in terms of your technique. It's a very sound technique, um, but it it's just more efficient with the closed hand, the way he does things. Um and and a lot of that has to do with this like rotating uh wrist thing that Hayes has been talking about. And what was interesting, the reason I went back to the open hand after I took that lesson eventually, I was like, oh great, I'll do closed hand problem solve. This is the new me. This is what I do now, right? And then uh, and I can't remember what I was learning. You know, this is one of the challenges. I was learning some Norman Blake thing, another open hand player, right? A great, another great example of someone playing with an open hand, very much forward-leaning in some cases. Um, and I was like, you know what, this feels better to play this Norman Blake thing with the open hand. And I was like, oh, but I was doing all this work on the closed hand, like, how do I know if I should switch or not? Like, I don't really want to switch back and forth this often. I know sometimes I want to, you know, but I don't want to, I want to mostly be doing one thing. And uh and what I found was uh uh I hadn't understood what Brian Sutton was doing with his right hand until after I took the lesson with Jake because I thought I was doing the same thing Brian was doing. Um I thought it was just gonna take a long time to make it work and and really be able to play. But what I didn't realize is the same backward leaning thing that I had learned from Jake, that's what Brian is frequently doing when he's playing some of his faster passage or more linear eighth note things, is he's doing that that backward leaning thing, which you can do with the open hand just as easily, right?

SPEAKER_01 24:36

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 24:36

That wasn't the problem. So I so I saw that, I was like, oh, cool, I can do that. And it specifically lends itself to like a tune like Building the Low Ground, where if I just play the real true melody of Bill in the Low Ground, uh almost every string crossing there is an upstroke. I mean, up until that very last moment is all upstrokes. And so if I'm backward leaning, it just means I'm doing I'm not doing any figure eight stuff, my hand's not bouncing, I'm not, you know, I'm just doing one thing until I get to that A minor, at which point I have my first downstroke string crossing, right? So that's great. So I was like, oh, I can just do the same thing with the open hand and problem solve. Now I have the best of both worlds. This is the new me, right? And it worked for it worked for a while. It was great. Um, the the challenge I eventually came up with, because you know, like I think before that I was just kind of like, I don't know what I was doing before that, honestly. I didn't know what my technique was. It was just okay, my hand to look like Brian's, and then if I just kind of move it like it looks like Brian's, eventually it'll feel like that. It and I wasn't really doing anything in particular. So uh it was a lot of like kind of bouncing around as I, you know, you know, it's a lot of else as I could play.

SPEAKER_00 25:53

And I see more like like almost like the wrist is coming out, you know, like you're you're like like figure eight, I think you mentioned it a minute ago. You know, there's yes, more of a tendency.

SPEAKER_02 26:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because if you know, which makes sense, it's sometimes you you have to do some version of that. And so when I started doing this backward leaning thing, um, where I'm doing all these uh upstroke string crossings, not always, but when it happens, you you get into that zone and it feels good. I I was kind of kind of instantly play it that fast as opposed to so big break through big breakthrough great. Um, but it didn't fix this the problems I had with the non-leaning moments, right? Where uh cross picking is the perfect example where you're doing a different, you know, depending on on how you if you're doing alternate picking, cross picking, then every string is a different direction. So you can't lean in any one particular direction. You're kind of still just hopping around. And uh and what I eventually realized was you can do some amount of the rotation with the closed hand, right? You know, uh yeah. Yeah. So there's some amount of that rotation. So I'm not just hopping up and down, right? It's possible. But then it really became clear what Jake was talking about when he said, you can do this with the open hand. It's not gonna be the same. It's not gonna be the same, you know. So when I do it now with the closed hand, the cross picking alternate picked.

SPEAKER_00 27:24

Such a tighter motion, right?

SPEAKER_02 27:26

You're it's a tighter motion, it's not up and down. I'm only moving in the direction of the string, right? So I I go down and I'm uh in a position to then hit the next string. I go up in a position to hit the next string instead of hopping up and down, moving away from the string and then back to it and blah blah blah. It's a lot deeper than that. Check out what Jake's doing. But you know, it I kind of had to come to that realization of what am I prioritizing? What do I want this to sound like, and what do I want to feel easy versus challenging? Because I do think still with the open hand, some things are less challenging. But um uh for whatever reason, uh I had to go back and forth a couple times before I'm back where I'm at now. And now I'll tell you folks, this is the new me. This is this is it. I'm never going back again.

SPEAKER_01 28:16

Never exactly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:17

So very long-winded thing to just say like uh there's always that extra depth level of depth, you know, that you can get into in terms of like the mechanics of art, how it feels, or okay, I was trying this, but that was six months ago when I didn't know how to hold the pick, and now I'm holding the pick differently, so now I need to try it again. You know, that kind of thing happens all the time. So I don't know if you went through that level of um psychosis, um, you know, uh in obsession, but yeah, I'd be curious to do that.

SPEAKER_00 28:47

You use it in your you you said the past tense like I'm through with it, you know what I mean? Like yeah. No, I seriously, the last I I tell people this all the time. So as of the recording of this episode, it is 2026, and I just dropped my pick. Oh well, I'll get that later. Um, it is 2026, and uh I it was four years ago that I discovered the technique that you're talking about, Jake um having having kind of like mastered, right? This uh pick slanting or you know, pronation, suppanation, tremolo picking. There are a million terms that people use for this kind of thing. Um and that required I I didn't I never knew how to rotate my wrist this way. I was never doing that. Isn't that crazy? I'd been playing guitar for like like 25 years, and I just never thought to like, oh yeah, you can rotate the wrist that way. Um, so I've even seen myself since I discovered that, I was like, just like you're saying, I was like, this is the new me. Only wrist rotation, only you know, and my cross picking went to crap, you know, for like three years. Like I didn't work on cross-picking, and I was like, wow, I really need to get this muscle going again. You know, it was when I started doing the windfield arrangements because like cross-picking is something you have to do if you're if you're playing a contest. So um that really forced me to kind of like look at cross-picking through the new angle of the wrist rotation, right? Like, like that kind of workman style way of like turning the the the doorknob across the strings, you know. Um versus like there are certain instances you'll see me play my windfield arrangements where the fingers pop out, I touch the top of the guitar, I play a thing, and then I'm back to the closed fist, you know. Um just to hit those moments where that technique just feels a little better to me that way, you know. So I'm I'm negotiating that right now still. Totally, totally. That's really interesting.

SPEAKER_02 30:41

Yeah, it's um it's a it's such a personal thing, obviously. But but and I experience this with banjo all the time, where I'm trying to help people uh understand how to play comfortably and what's gonna sound right. And there's this thing that keeps coming up, which you know, everyone has to do things the way that's comfortable for them. It's worth keeping in mind that although all of our hands and bodies are different shapes and sizes and whatever, which means we're gonna do things differently, there are enough similarities that it's worth trying to kind of emulate a little bit of what most people do just to see, whatever. And then there's always an exception to that, which is so-and-so does this really weird thing, and it sounds good, but I wouldn't rec I wouldn't recommend copying that, right? There's plenty of Tony Rice rules.

SPEAKER_00 31:29

That's what I call that one, man. Totally, yeah. Yeah, people are like the the reason that Tony got arthritis was the way that he played guitar. And I'm like, I don't know if I'm willing to like go that far, you know, because I'm not a doctor or anything, but it's like but that is a thing that you hear people say when it comes that like Tony's technique comes with like a little asterisk disclaimer kind of thing from a lot of people, you know.

SPEAKER_02 31:50

Totally. And it's you know, in the banjo world, JD Crow is kind of the example. You know, people talk about the claw. The people who have emulated his sound the best uh do not do what he did. Um, but there are a lot of people that really focus on the way his hand looked, and then they don't get the sound, right? Like, so you you have to be you have to follow the sound, really. Uh and then ask yourself, like, okay, am I gonna be the exception? This weird thing that I do, uh, am I gonna be the exception where you know maybe, not likely, you're probably not the exception where you do things really wildly different and it sounds great. But if you like the way it sounds, then sure, you are the exception. You just have to really like the way it sounds. If if you do some crazy weird thing and you and you think it'll sound better in 10 years, that's a big bet to make, basically. So that's but that's the bet you have to make is is my technique gonna bring me to the right place? Um, so struggling with that is is natural, but you have to uh you have to you have to also play some music. So so don't don't get lost in it like we have or are, you know, if if you're curious about trying an open hand or a closed hand.

SPEAKER_00 33:00

Absolutely. I think it's you know, as you're driving in your car or on the treadmill right now, listening to this or watching this, it's a great thing to ponder. But like at some point you just have to do, which is kind of what I hear a little bit in your you know, kind of spiel here that like experimentation is the only way to kind of determine the the benefits and and and you have to spend some time with each one of these techniques. If you sit down for the first day and it feels awkward and sounds like crap, well, that's what what have you done on the first day of anything that that was perfect, you know what I mean? So yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:34

Totally. I had a really interesting experience. I was teaching at the Ossipee, um Ossipee Valley uh, you know, music festival has a string camp before the festival. And I was teaching the string camp, I was teaching Clawhammer banjo, but as every camp that I'm teaching at, um I bring a guitar and I spend all my time playing guitar instead of uh banjo now. But um, so I was jamming with a couple people and it was great, but I was just on the verge of trying again the closed hand. And I'd been practicing again with the open hand for a long time, and then I thought, ah, maybe I'll try the closed hand again. And I got in a jam where, you know, depending on how much experience you have, playing in a jam can be um a little bit of a high pressure situation. Like it can be a little bit, you know, if you're it's it's these people that if I'm playing banjo that I'm like, cool, we're all in the same kind of wavelength and we all know what we're doing, whatever it is. When I'm playing guitar with some of the friends that I have, it's a it feels a little bit like uh let's let's try to rise to the occasion and not be a drag on this this thing, right? I'm not I'm not trying to be self-deprecating, it's more just like I'm lucky enough to be, you know, teaching with all these incredible musicians and I'm working on this thing. So so anyway, it feels a little I'm a little more nervous than I would be otherwise just playing music with my friends. So I say all that to mean that in the moment playing, I was like, okay, I'll play with the closed hand, I'll play the open hand, see what kind of feels good. And I was noticing with the open hand, uh things just weren't just coming out, right? I had to like, I was almost feeling myself muscling through it. And I was like, oh, that's interesting because this feels comfortable when I'm on my own and I'm just practicing and I get comfortable and I warm up and everything feels it feels fine. But in this moment, I'm kind of prone to tensing up. I was like, okay, let's try the closed hand then and see what happens. And there was a little bit of that same phenomenon, but the music was coming out. I was just playing. Like I could just get the ideas out and it wasn't, it wasn't stopping and starting. And I was like, okay, so I have stuff that need to, I need to iron out with the closed hand. There's stuff that still feels uncomfortable, or there's there's things I haven't found solutions for, like certain types of playing or certain things I've transcribed where I'm like, this feels better with the open hand, but maybe I can iron this out with the closed hand. And now I'm realizing this is how I I kind of decide these things is like, okay, I've done, I've taken all the data, right? And the the the you know, benefit, the cost-benefit analysis is like, okay, the benefit of the closed hand is I can just play, right? And then there's a couple areas that need like serious work that I just don't, I haven't figured out what my hand should be doing. The open hand is a little bit like, oh, it's it kind of lends itself to this certain type of playing that I don't have to think about too much, but in the moment, it does not really work flawlessly. So that's a bigger issue to me. Yeah, is kind of how I'm looking at it. So I kind of look at it, you know, I just decide, well, then the closed hand is the better bet for the moment, and I and I'll practice that other stuff. But but if I can get something out comfortably that seems to sound good, then that's worth that's worth more than the kind of hypothetical music I could be playing with the with the open hand. And that's just me. I mean, it reminds me also of um, you know, I always try to think about this when I say, oh, the correct right hand is blah, blah, blah. You know, we talk about Chris Thaley going from the open hand to the closed hand. Uh there's a great um interview with Trey Hensley where he's talking about a situation where he had some hand or wrist problems, or I wouldn't know if it was carpal tunnel or his elbow, whatever it was, where he was playing with the closed hand, switched to an open hand, and it seemed to fix some of the problems, or or sometimes switching to the open hand, which to me just means not only is there closed hand versus open hand, there's also like different ways of handling each of those because the way that Jake or Trey or Chris Theley does the closed hand are all very different. And depending on your body, you may injure yourself with any one of them, or neither of them, or the open, you know, whatever it is. So, you know, you you want to follow somebody's uh that you find inspiring, but you also really have to take into account that you don't you don't know exactly how your hand is gonna react to their technique necessarily, right? So so you um yeah, I don't know, maybe this is a good advert advertisement for being more psychotic about it, but but it's it's just worth investigating, right? And trying to try to, you know, listen to your body and see what, see how it feels, you know. Which then, yeah, just the patience to to start over every once in a while, you know.

SPEAKER_00 38:15

I think that's a that's a good way to frame it, like the patience to start over. And and it's not like you're starting over you like what we've been joking about this whole episode is like that the new me is not the we don't want to look for the absolute new me. Yeah. We wanna we wanna like build upon what we already know works and sounds good, and you can do that while still exploring these new areas. What I what I tell my students um when they're doing something like this, it's like, oh, I have to change my right hand technique, but now I can't do my gigs or the jam's gonna suck. And I'm like, well, no, just like practice the new way at home, and then like do some just like playing afterwards where you just don't think about it and you kind of like use whatever comes to your mind. And usually that'll be the old way, but you might, you know, with this new exploration of this new thing, you might find that you're uh popping it into those passages like you're talking about that are a little more difficult for that that old technique. And maybe that's actually just the goal. Maybe the the like finding those gaps and figuring out which technique solves those things. Because like for you, hearing you describe your thing, it's like my eighth notes are gonna crush if I do that closed fist. So I'm just gonna think about that 80% of the time. And then when I've got a cross pick or do something, you know, like that that maybe requires that forward lean a little more, maybe those fingers pop out for a sec. Who knows? You know?

SPEAKER_02 39:41

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 39:41

Um, so I I'm not gonna say that you're like there's no right, there's no wrong, there's no all that kind of stuff. There's just kind of like what works and what doesn't work, you know.

SPEAKER_02 39:52

Totally, totally. Yeah, that's really interesting. So then assuming everyone here who's listening has figured out exactly what their permanent right hand technique is. Um the new, we're the new them, the new us. Um you know I'm curious too. You we were talking about um uh before we started recording this talking about talking about cross picking. Um do you find that uh maybe this is more of an improvisation question than it is a uh just technique question or something like that? Do you find uh when you're then because when when you are doing a certain right hand thing, it lends itself to a certain type of playing, and then I find that I improvise in a certain way or I play certain things or whatever it is. Do you uh do you find yourself kind of thinking about that? Um almost like trying to fight against that, like fight against the tendency to play just like, oh, this is how I play with this right hand technique, therefore I'm gonna try to seek out because I'll I've I found myself maybe saying uh when I try to do what Jake does, I find it it lends itself to playing the stuff that Jake plays. No surprise there. So then I'll play some of that stuff, like I've learned a couple solos, right? But then I'm like, okay, well, that actually is the stuff I probably don't need to work on quite as much. I want to see can I use this right-hand technique and make it work on some Norman Blake stuff, right? Can I can I try to learn some of that material? Do you ever do anything like that that's just like trying to negate the the convenience of any particular technique?

SPEAKER_00 41:36

Yeah, absolutely. I I would say I'm in a spot right now where I'm actively trying to kind of figure that out because for me, this um suppanated grip that I've been talking about, you know, like we're talking about like pronated meaning pinky out, and like, you know, you're switching on the upstrokes, like that billy in the low ground thing you were talking about. Right? You know, that kind of thing. So what I'm trying to do now is actually figure out can I use this technique but switch on the downstrokes? You know?

SPEAKER_02 42:09

Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:10

So like one thing that I'll do for like a Billy in the low ground is like uh simplify the melody and just play eighth notes uh on one string, and when I find so the the spot to switch on that downstroke, I'll I'll do it. So like instead of you know there's old technique, new technique would be so I'm doing all even notes there and just working on the right hand for that thing.

SPEAKER_02 42:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:44

And you see, when I tried to throw eighth notes back in, I had to switch to the like I can't I still can't do it the other way. So I'm I'm working on just getting the right hand feeling natural, switching on those downstrokes. And I my theory is that the left hand will eventually kind of learn to compensate for that.

SPEAKER_02 43:04

Yeah. What I feel like I noticed watching or watching Jake talk about stuff is is kind of what you're describing is intentionally practicing the the kind of challenging parts of that technique, and then in the moment you do become accustomed, or you do kind of because you're always it's like uh you know, a plant will just like kind of seek out sunlight, and so it'll it'll just like go towards the window. I we do kind of do that, where in the moment we are seeking the the path of least resistance in terms of playing a certain idea, and so that's really interesting you mentioned that because uh that connects with the Norman Blake thing I brought up because specifically the the thing I was learning. If you listen to the Brian Sutton record, Not Too Far From the Tree, I think it's called, um he has a one of the it's all these amazing duos with uh incredible guitar players. It's some of my favorite of Brian's playing, but there's really great playing from Doc Watson and Norman Blake and David Greer and Russ Berenberg. I mean, it's it's truly like one of the best flat picking records. Um and the tune Bully of the Town.

SPEAKER_01 44:08

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 44:08

Uh, great tune. And Norman plays it really differently the way he's recorded it in the past. You know, he in that way it was like kind of a strummier version of it or more cross-picking. But for whatever reason, he plays, uh, if I can remember it, um the opening of the melody. Yes. A lot of which, you know, so this is all changing strings on downstrip.

SPEAKER_00 44:44

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 44:46

Same thing. Then it switches to the to the back. So that first part. That's like an impossible run to me, you know? It's really tricky. Yeah. And that was one of those things that with the open hand was a lot easier. Essentially, you're doing exactly what the the Django style players do. I mean, they do it on every string crossing regardless, but that's how you would you would do that, right? What I eventually found was um you can you can to me it was the stability that was missing. If I'm doing that with the open hand, I didn't know how to make some sort of contact with the strings and forward lean, but it's it's the knuckles. You can have the knuckles on the strings. And so each each place, I'm not actually leaving the guitar there. My my knuckles are resting on the strings below what I'm playing, so that I'm still just doing that rotating motion just with that anchor there. And there's a bunch of stuff like that that, like, you know, if you were gonna do like on guitar, the the minor pentatonic shape is a perfect, it's two notes per string. You could all of that downstroke string crossings, right? One exercise I came up with that's kind of fun is you can do it either way. You can do, if you just go straight up and down without stopping, you do downstroke string changes on the way down, yeah. On the way down. So this would be downstroke, and then on the way up, yes, that's all upstroke. And if you if you syncopate or you set it off by an eighth note, you can do the opposite, right? If I go, so if I go one, two, three, four, on the way up, it's the upstroke. And then if you go uh uh sorry. Uh and then yes, so when you go, and then on the way down, yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 46:57

You if you keep the same flow, it'll be downstrokes, uh down slanting on the way back. Exactly. Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 47:06

Yeah, so so you could do that, and then you could put that all over the neck if you wanted to. But but finding those, I mean, the same like um the lead into a bunch of stuff, like um I haven't been doing this like in practice. I'm practicing it, but in the moment I have been doing it because it's really not there yet. But like uh Gold Rush.

SPEAKER_00 47:24

The intro to that one kills me every time because of what you're talking about. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:28

Exactly, yeah. And it's like, you know, if I do if I do the the regular rotation thing, it's fine. But there's a part of it that knows doing that with the uh forward leaning is going to be better if I get there. It's just so far away from being there that it is, again, you're making a bet on whether or not that's gonna work for you. Absolutely. So yeah, I don't have anything to add in terms of like uh, well, here's how you do it. It's just like I think it's it seems worth it. And and Jake talks about that too. But uh but what a mountain to climb since we're so comfortable with the backward lean now, you know.

SPEAKER_00 48:07

Yeah. And I think that gold rush thing that you brought up is really interesting because these techniques that we're talking about and these preferences for like switching on upstrokes versus switching on downstrokes, they were created by um I like how you use the analogy of the plant bending towards sunlight, you know. Um I was at Swannanoa last year, uh, and Joe and I, Joe K. Walsh is a is a good friend of both of us, and um was talking about this. He was like, I noticed that dog only switches on upstrokes. And he doesn't have like the the Troy Grady terminology, but he noticed the same thing as us. And he was like, all of his switches happen on upstrokes like that. And is it does the vocabulary determine the technique, or does the technique determine the vocabulary? Is it the chicken or the egg, you know? And and we had Mike Marshall there, who like stood next to David Grisman for a number of years playing mandolin and plays a lot of the same stuff and uses a lot of the same vocabulary. So Joe asked him, he's like, Mike, you gotta tell us. Like, we were we were noticing, you know, that the dog was only switching on upstrokes and and that kind of affects like his right hand technique and stuff. And and Mike was just like, What are you guys talking about? Just playing music. What do you mean by like literally that was the thing? That's so good. But it's one of those things where like the the thing I took from that is that both of those guys, uh, dog and Mike Marshall, did exactly what we taught. They they allowed themselves to be plants and just didn't care about why they were bending toward the sunlight in the way that they were. You know what I mean? Totally. Um whereas as us, we're like analyzing ourselves against these guys. We're not generating this vocabulary and we're noticing gaps, right? It's like I'm not playing everything like Mike Marshall here or Jake Workman or whatever, and like this one thing doesn't tend to work here. So, like, what's the what's the fix, you know?

SPEAKER_02 49:59

Yeah. Wow, that's that's really interesting too, because it also kind of is a a little bit like you know, you can these are great things I think that we're we're working on to try to develop our technique to play the music we want to play. Certainly. I I would not, you know, I don't regret any of my uh neuroses in this.

SPEAKER_00 50:20

No, we're super nerds and we love it.

SPEAKER_02 50:22

It's great, but it is kind of interesting, uh you know, you you do have to be careful. Am I obsessed with this because I'm comparing it to what someone else can do? Which can be okay, but but there's a there's a toxic version of that that's like for me to be do okay, I need to be cover all these bases and and be able to do what everyone else can do. Or am I saying, like, this is the music that I want to play, this is the language that I want to play, and what's the best way to do that? I think I think we both do that. I mean, I I'm I I have no idea what you do actually in this respect. I certainly do both of those things where in my best moments I'm seeking a certain sound, and then the technique follows and you make adjustments. And then in the worst moments, it's you know, I could watch a Brian Sutton video one day and say, Oh, I should be playing with an open hand, and I'll watch a Jake Workman video and say, Oh, I need to be playing with the closed hand. That's the worst version where where there's really no critical thought there. It's just Yeah, oh, I can't I can't do that thing I'm watching. I need to get to work to make sure I can do everything I'm aware of, you know, which is crazy.

SPEAKER_00 51:24

So no, I I think your your uh exploration of the intro to Gold Rush there is the perfect medium to to that that spectrum we just described, because it's like, oh, this tune has a phrase built into it that the way it just happens to lay out on the instrument that I play requires this one thing that is the opposite of like my natural tendency. So like I am thinking critically now, right? Like you said, there's a there is a presence of critical thought here where it's like the thing that I normally do doesn't work here. So then it's like you have two options bend the tune to fit the technique, or bend the technique to fit the tune. That's the way that I I have been exploring this thing. So it's like using my backward slanting, how can I make gold rush work? You know, because like like, oh, now it's caught between here and I need to do a downstroke on that next string, so that doesn't work. Yeah, a hammer on fixes the the uh issue. Right? So a legato technique can help me keep the backward slant, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 52:29

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:30

And and and kind of still, you know, do the rest of my stuff like pretty naturally, or like like we were saying earlier, flip that hand momentarily, and then I need to flip there to get that upstroke on the E. So so I think for me that's a more rewarding process than like you said, like either getting into this like black and white extremist kind of thinking on this thing. It's like just at least for me right now, I'm trying to be happy with the thing that I'm naturally starting to do with this technique, and then also just kind of keep my head on a swivel for like when that technique doesn't work, is it is it best to kind of adapt the tune or adapt the technique? There's those are my two options.

SPEAKER_02 53:17

Yeah, right, right, right. And which feels truer to the the music you're trying to make, basically.

SPEAKER_00 53:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:23

I I think I it's so funny when you mentioned you know, Joe is talking about this uh this pick direction thing, which uh I I play a lot with Joe um at like this weekly Tuesday bar gig that we've got. And uh and so uh played a lot with Joe playing when I'm playing banjo. And before I was really interested in guitar again, he brought this up a couple times uh just in casual conversation. And it's not that I didn't care, but I didn't really know what he was talking about. So I was like, Oh yeah, that's nice, that's interesting. And he had all this, you know, he he was obsessed at the time, you know. I guess I guess he still is, you know. Still is, yeah. He and I talk about this one almost every year. This this came up again this year, yeah, exactly. But so for like, you know, a year or two, we would talk about it once in a while, and we're like, eh, that's kind of interesting. I don't know. And but in the back of my mind, I was like, oh, that sounds like a drag to focus on one kind of string change, because think of all the how much that could limit you melodically. Of course, if that's what David Grisman does, then whatever, then I guess you're fine. But it always reminded me of, you know, I've always had a little bit of uh an aversion to the shredding guitar world, not because of what people play, but because the obsession with technique controls sometimes what you play. And so I would see people playing certain things, and it's like, yeah, that is the fastest thing you can play, but that's why you're choosing it, is because it's a particularly ergonomic thing to play. And so uh, I always assumed I was like, I don't really want to get into that sort of thing because you know, I just want to play what I want to play, you know. But this is all hypothetical, this is all just my, you know, uh imaginary high horse that I'm on. This is before I even was interested in playing guitar again. But so then I start playing guitar again and we start talking about it, and it's like, oh, that's what you were talking about. That that thing, and now I'm obsessed with it. Um but I find it really fascinating because it doesn't have to be uh it doesn't have to control what you play. And and if you think about what Jake Workman does, especially, it doesn't really control what he plays uh because he spends so much time practicing all the different scenarios you can be in, in which he will sometimes upstroke on a string change or downstroke or different directions that you're leaning. I mean, you can you can really quick if you just um one thing I can recommend people check out he's got a great um right hand uh exercise packet you can buy on his uh site that is worth checking out, you know, so I won't give that whole thing away. But you know, if you think about just playing um four eighth notes on your second string and one on the first string, you can do backward leaning and you can you know if I just do that on the one string, I'm leaning back and it's a rest stroke on every upstroke, right? Yeah. But when I move to that first string, I have to rotate to get a downstroke, right? Then I come back again and it's I change directions again. So it's like you you're practicing the thing that's really comfortable, but then every so every so often you have to you have to do the uncomfortable thing. And so that becomes the exercise. And so but it's one of many, many examples of like that could come up in a tune, and if you're prepared, then that's gonna feel comfortable making that switch, right? So it's not about only doing one direction necessarily, it's kind of about predominantly, especially a lot of fiddle tunes, lend themselves to to the backward leaning thing. But it often enough you're gonna want to be able to switch, and so if you kind of switch, you know, you do all the different combinations, then you'll be prepared for that. Um and then you can kind of see what feels, you know, what what's comfortable for you. I mean, uh in a way, the backward leaning uh and therefore uh string changes on upstrokes for bluegrass musicians kind of should be the uh the standard or the the the predominant one, but only if you're just playing the melodies to some of these tunes. Like a lot of these tunes spend a lot more time, you know, you think uh Big Sandy River, all of that is upstroke uh string changes, right? So if you're playing the actual melody to to the tune, then that's what you'll end up with. If you wanted, if you insisted on leaning forward and doing downstroke string changes, you have to change the in every you have to change every other note of the melody. So, you know, that's something we're thinking about, but uh but I don't know, you still have to have kind of your own style. But it I don't know, it it's interesting to to uh to see how different people deal with it, and you can use that in inspiration uh to say, like, okay, here's there's a lot of different ideas you can play with each of these styles. You're not gonna it's not gonna lock you into any one particular thing, you know.

SPEAKER_00 58:10

Yeah, and and I think the way that I'll I'll at least cap my thoughts on that conversation is like no matter what you're choosing, exploring what the weakness is is always going to yield good results. You know what I mean? Yeah. So so just constantly be looking for like what's not happening when I use this technique and how can I attack that a little bit, right?

SPEAKER_02 58:37

Yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah, that's great. Well, and and cap this conversation, we shall, because our time is up, and also um bless your heart if you just listened to uh an entire podcast about uh what direction your pick is moving when you change strings. But I guess that's what we're here to do.

SPEAKER_00 58:56

This is the flat picking podcast, people. This is what we're here for.

SPEAKER_02 59:01

It is. This is the flat picking podcast in which we talk about uh angling your pick, not playing with a flat pick angle. It's confusing. Uh sorry for that one. Um, so folks, that's gonna do it for this particular episode of the flat picking podcast. Um, at this point, I imagine you're aware that you can find both Hayes and I uh various places online, but remind them, Hayes, where they can find you and your uh wonderful content, which I'm sure includes lots of information about this very topic.

SPEAKER_00 59:32

Unfortunately, it does. I love to nerd out on the pick slanting. It's where my brain is. Um, yeah, you can find some of those lessons uh here on YouTube. So youtube.com forward slash HayesGriffin. And if you're interested in um some more curated exercises for this thing, like Eli was talking about how to like uh use the minor pentatonic scale to kind of uh workshop this. I actually have a bunch of exercises inside of my guitar club, hazeGriffin.club, um, that are specifically designed to kind of uh help you with this pick slanting thing. So yeah, check me out there. What about you, Eli?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:05

Well, yeah, so after you go over to Hayes' uh page and learn how to do all this stuff, you can come over to Eli Gilbert guitar on YouTube and you can watch me struggle with all of it. Uh try to figure out how best to apply some of that. And uh yeah, you can find us obviously on this podcast. And uh go ahead and check out all the different various social media sites. Uh there'll be various different clips and other content you can find associated with this podcast. So here on uh your podcast service or on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, all that stuff. Um or do yourself a favor and do none of that and go play guitar instead. But that uh that's been another episode of the flat picking podcast. So thanks for listening, and we will see y'all next time.