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#11 Economy Picking for Bluegrass · The Flatpicking Podcast

0:00
SPEAKER_02: Uh I just got back from uh a couple of gigs in Portugal over uh I was there about two weeks, which was fantastic.
0:06
SPEAKER_02: But uh I haven't played guitar in about three weeks and I was over there, you know, just feeling so pitiful about about I'm losing all this practice time.
0:17
SPEAKER_02: Am I even gonna be able to play?
0:19
SPEAKER_02: I was really feeling, you know, I was really feeling sorry for myself.
0:22
SPEAKER_02: And it took me a good week and a half to remember, oh man, Hayes hasn't really played for real in a way longer than that.
0:30
SPEAKER_02: And he actually has an injury.
0:31
SPEAKER_02: What am I talking about?
0:32
SPEAKER_02: Why am I That's hilarious?
0:36
SPEAKER_02: Just an astounding lack of perspective um on how uh how ungrateful I could possibly be about that.
0:43
SPEAKER_00: We can all uh follow uh fall into that path, man.
0:46
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's okay.
0:48
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
0:49
SPEAKER_02: So, you know, I've got plenty to, you know, uh everyone takes a break here and there, so I've got plenty I can talk about, but um, but I do uh, you know, we haven't checked in on uh how you're doing with with both yeah, yeah, exactly the lack of um use of your finger, but also like all the stuff you have been doing has been kind of astounding to me.
1:07
SPEAKER_02: So like uh can we first check in on give the folks a reminder, but can we check in on your injury and where you're at?
1:13
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
1:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thanks for asking, dude.
1:16
SPEAKER_00: So we are in week uh at this point, we are in week seven uh of eight weeks in recovery.
1:24
SPEAKER_00: We just kind of like turned over into the seventh week, um, which is really cool.
1:29
SPEAKER_00: Uh I've I've been keeping this splint on because in case you folks didn't know out there, I've got a condition uh known as mallet finger.
1:38
SPEAKER_00: Which is there's got by the way, there's a tune being composed right now.
1:43
SPEAKER_00: Um don't worry, mallet finger will be uh, you know, in stores near you.
1:50
SPEAKER_00: Um that's that's when you hit your finger with a mallet, is that exactly and it hurts a lot.
1:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:56
SPEAKER_00: Um so mallet finger is where you tear the extensor tendon in uh the very last knuckle of your finger and the the knuckle droops and you can't pull it back up and do all that stuff.
2:06
SPEAKER_00: So I've just been keeping my finger straight.
2:09
SPEAKER_00: The doctors tell me that um you know the tendon tissue is just so fine down in there that it repairs itself if you just keep the finger straight for eight weeks.
2:18
SPEAKER_00: Um, and no joke, I I haven't tested this like crazy, but I can feel it uh engaging when I pull back.
2:29
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
2:30
SPEAKER_00: Like for like the first three weeks, I couldn't feel like essentially the tip of my finger and like pulling it my hand this way, you know?
2:38
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
2:39
SPEAKER_02: Um, because that was the issue, right?
2:40
SPEAKER_02: Was it it was like it wasn't just it hurts to do something, it was like a complete inability to move that part of the finger.
2:47
SPEAKER_02: So the fact you can feel something is is that's the whole thing you're looking for.
2:51
SPEAKER_00: The bone was not connected to a muscular structure.
2:54
SPEAKER_00: That is one way to put it.
2:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
2:57
SPEAKER_00: So so that uh that's kind of the skinny on that.
3:01
SPEAKER_00: But recovery's been going great, and what's funny is as the further I've gotten in recovery, it's gotten more swollen and painful.
3:07
SPEAKER_00: It didn't even like hurt at the beginning, but it's like I think the body's like doing something down in there now, so it's it's doing its thing.
3:16
SPEAKER_00: Um, but like you said, you know, there was a brief moment when it happened.
3:22
SPEAKER_00: I think I I told you guys on the podcast that I was scraping dirt off the seat of my car, and that's how this happened.
3:28
SPEAKER_00: It just like popped, you know.
3:30
SPEAKER_00: Um, I think there was a brief moment in there where I was like, oh my god, like I'm not gonna be able to do the like one thing that I love most in the world for like, and you know, I Googled it right away, you know, as Quinn and I were sitting in the car, I had my hand on my chest like this, so my knuckle couldn't, you know, like bend anymore or whatever, you know.
3:50
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like reading, reading the Google, and they're like, you know, 10 to 12 weeks of recovery, and I'm just like, no, like what's 10 to 12 weeks?
4:00
SPEAKER_00: Like, I haven't done anything that long in forever.
4:02
SPEAKER_00: Um, but I figured out pretty quick that actually there's tons of stuff that I had um, you know, it's kind of like if you're really busy working and then you come home and and you realize, like, you know what?
4:14
SPEAKER_00: I've bought like 500 books.
4:15
SPEAKER_00: They're just all sitting on this shelf, you know what I mean?
4:18
SPEAKER_00: Like, I could just like like wow, I'm not busy anymore.
4:20
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I should like read one of these things.
4:22
SPEAKER_00: So um I started reading some stuff and uh got back into economy picking.
4:28
SPEAKER_00: That's one thing that's kind of kind of happened.
4:30
SPEAKER_00: I've never done economy picking at all.
4:32
SPEAKER_00: Is that something that you you did in your jazz days or anything like that?
4:36
SPEAKER_02: In a way, yeah.
4:37
SPEAKER_02: And we we should uh we should come back to that because I've always it's a thing I'm trying to not do as much now because I have a little bit of a habit of it.
4:44
SPEAKER_02: But um the way I've been watching you get into it seems like the the more useful Yeah, we'll we'll come back to this because yeah, this this this is what's very helpful.
4:53
SPEAKER_00: Um so economy picking is has been something.
4:56
SPEAKER_00: Um and uh you know, I I've also like like at the very beginning of the journey, I I pretty much I had a splint that pretty much made my hand immobile, so you guys know that I was doing the one-finger fiddle tune stuff, and that blew up into like a a whole thing there for a minute, which was kind of hilarious.
5:14
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, thanks to you came up with a bunch of cool stuff, yeah.
5:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it man, there there are still a few popping up every now and again.
5:20
SPEAKER_00: I think you know, like it's it's kind of calmed down, but it was hilarious there for a week.
5:24
SPEAKER_00: Like Marcel and everyone's there like taping their hands up and like doing all this crazy stuff.
5:28
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, guys, I never once taped my hand to get you like out of it.
5:32
SPEAKER_00: Like this is all you made that part up.
5:35
SPEAKER_00: Um But Patrick at Flat Pick Nation was the one who started the whole thing, and it was you know, thanks, Patrick.
5:42
SPEAKER_00: He's he was like he reached out almost immediately, was one of the like first people once he saw the news and was like, So the same crap happened to me, dude.
5:48
SPEAKER_00: Like, I get it, like you know.
5:51
SPEAKER_00: Um so yeah, that's that that that was really cool.
5:55
SPEAKER_00: And I I would say most of this has been a study in right hand efficiency and well, I guess I guess you could say left-hand efficiency in a way.
6:05
SPEAKER_00: What's the most you can do with the least?
6:08
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
6:10
SPEAKER_00: Um the about two weeks ago, I started reincorporating other fingers in a serious way in the left hand.
6:17
SPEAKER_00: So, like my you know, my billy in the low ground doesn't sound too bad these days.
6:22
SPEAKER_00: I think I showed it to you at one point, but etc.
6:42
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
6:43
SPEAKER_00: So we're we're getting around a little bit, and and I've noticed, you know, huge improvement in the pinky strength.
6:50
SPEAKER_00: Like, I knew it was gonna happen, and I was like, I've never felt a strong pinky in my life before, so like what's that even gonna feel like?
6:59
SPEAKER_00: And I can tell you what it feels like.
7:01
SPEAKER_00: It feels awesome, dude.
7:02
SPEAKER_00: And we should all be working our pinkies out.
7:06
SPEAKER_00: It feels powerful.
7:07
SPEAKER_00: Yes, exactly.
7:08
SPEAKER_00: It's like when when you throw a middle finger back into this mix, you know, it's like you know, the possibilities are gonna be endless.
7:16
SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, you'll be unstoppable.
7:20
SPEAKER_02: Can I um can we pause for a second?
7:22
SPEAKER_02: I have a question.
7:23
SPEAKER_02: Um, I was just watching you play.
7:24
SPEAKER_02: So, okay, so one of the things that you know, um the the plight of me not playing for a whole two weeks as opposed to your eight, I was going down like real weird um kind of mental rabbit holes of like thinking about stuff that I would practice or play or something.
7:41
SPEAKER_02: And it got so deranged that without even playing, I was like, Oh, I've been playing with a closed hand again.
7:45
SPEAKER_02: Maybe I should do an open hand.
7:47
SPEAKER_02: And so even without playing, I was I was that it was that psychotic to be like, no, no, no, I should have a closed hand.
7:54
SPEAKER_02: Well, maybe I should you know there was that kind of you know neuroses going on.
8:01
SPEAKER_02: But what I ended up kind of doing when I got back and started playing a little bit was uh uh experimenting with, you know, depending on what I was playing, an open hand or a closed hand, whatever it was, which I kind of thought I don't see a ton of people do that all the time, but once in a while you see it, except that I just saw you do it when you're playing Billy in the low ground, in a way that I that seemed to match up with what I was thinking.
8:25
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so you were playing the single note version, uh, and and that's when you had the closed hand, it seemed like.
8:32
SPEAKER_02: Then when you went to the kind of strummy version, you had the open hand, which is what I imagine is like to me.
8:38
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, well, that kind of is the best sound for that strummy version of the melody.
8:43
SPEAKER_02: Have you always done it like that?
8:44
SPEAKER_02: Or is that a new thing?
8:45
SPEAKER_02: Have you always kind of done it that way that you switch when it seems like that's the right vibe?
8:50
SPEAKER_00: So what's funny is like I there was a period of my life where I think I noticed what you're talking about too, and I'm like, I must eradicate this from my plane.
8:59
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
9:00
SPEAKER_00: I I think to me, I was like, I'm being inconsistent, you know, or something like that.
9:05
SPEAKER_00: But I think uh I over time I started watching people.
9:08
SPEAKER_00: Um Greer was was a big one that would do this kind of thing.
9:13
SPEAKER_00: Um uh feely I was the first one that I saw who actually changed the closed hand versus open hand thing mid-song, and I was like, oh, like what's that?
9:25
SPEAKER_00: Because you know that guy doesn't do anything mindlessly.
9:29
SPEAKER_00: Yes, you know what I mean?
9:30
SPEAKER_00: Like that's like you know that that's something that like Chris Theeley thought about for eight hours on a plane ride from Portugal one time, you know what I mean?
9:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right, right.
9:40
SPEAKER_00: So but he was practicing in the airplane bathroom.
9:42
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
9:43
SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, yeah, could you imagine that?
9:45
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure he does.
9:46
SPEAKER_00: Um so it isn't something that I I like specifically incorporated until I got back into pick slanting.
9:55
SPEAKER_00: When when I got back into this like speed picking thing, there were um there were times when I would notice that like the closed fist, because I was trying to like I was I was fighting that tension thing, uh, I was like using the fist to like bear down and grip, you know what I mean?
10:14
SPEAKER_00: So I think what I started to do was almost like when I'm speed picking, I actually do the opposite.
10:21
SPEAKER_00: I I push the fingers out to a to a relaxed position, you know what I mean, to kind of like almost help my mind combat the like the urge to like grab a fist and like you know get tight while while I was trying to do that speed stuff.
10:38
SPEAKER_00: Um and then the more I thought about it I I I looked at like I think most good rhythm players, like some fingers are out, you know what I mean, while they're doing that kind of thing.
10:49
SPEAKER_00: And I think like you said, when you're doing that card or scratch or strum kind of thing in between, to me it's almost like it's like a um what do you want to say?
10:59
SPEAKER_00: It it it adds a little bit of um like redistributes the weight of your hand, you know what I mean?
11:07
SPEAKER_00: In a in a way that's almost like more conducive to the like fast, rapid strumming through like five strings as opposed to one string kind of thing.
11:17
SPEAKER_00: Totally, totally, yeah, yeah, yeah.
11:18
SPEAKER_02: That makes sense.
11:19
SPEAKER_02: I also feel like it um yeah, it it allows me to use I feel like it allows me to use gravity to emphasize those notes because obviously the strum is one thing.
11:30
SPEAKER_02: It's like when I feel like the closed hand strumming, fine, single notes fine, but it's the going back and forth, having just that point of connection almost for me, because I'm not I'm not planting when I do that on the on the pick guard, obviously, but there's there's some amount of contact there where I feel like I can use just a little bit of gravity and not feel like I'm locked into that spot, right?
11:55
SPEAKER_02: So it's it's it's yeah, you're floating by or something, right?
11:59
SPEAKER_02: Exactly, yeah, yeah.
12:10
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and then but then it doesn't feel like too much to switch back again.
12:15
SPEAKER_00: No, I think it, yeah, to me it's like uh yeah, the little garage door opener, you know what I mean?
12:21
SPEAKER_00: It just like goes in and out uh like exactly like you're talking about.
12:25
SPEAKER_00: But then for a fast, like like you know, for anyone that's that's wondering, I'll show from this angle how you know maybe that's like a good one.
12:34
SPEAKER_00: Um, and by the end, I'm back to closed fist or whatever, you know.
12:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
12:56
SPEAKER_02: Um when you're doing it, you're not even it's not even like the Brian Sutton like making contact.
13:01
SPEAKER_02: It's still you're still actually making contact the same way as you were with the hand on the strings, not on the pick guard.
13:07
SPEAKER_00: I might feel the the tips of the fingers touch like something in this area.
13:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
13:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
13:14
SPEAKER_00: Um but but I I think uh to your point about the Brian Sutton thing, that's like the there is some variability, right?
13:21
SPEAKER_00: Like you can be somewhere between those two things and it's probably fine, you know.
13:25
SPEAKER_00: I still we've talked about this before.
13:27
SPEAKER_00: I still feel like the the like massive if you're like really pushing into that top, you know, then you're you're losing something, I think.
13:34
SPEAKER_00: You know, totally.
13:35
SPEAKER_02: Wait, and at the very least, it seems like it um it just limits what you you know, you really are just locked into that.
13:42
SPEAKER_02: Whatever you're able to do like that is the only thing you'll be able to do, you know.
13:46
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
13:46
SPEAKER_02: I see, you know, like I wonder, you know, which which can not which can be an okay thing, I think.
13:51
SPEAKER_02: I mean, if you look at Tim Stafford, he's kind of it's kind of like I mean, he talks about it being like from playing banjo, you know, kind of planting on the plate guard.
14:00
SPEAKER_02: And it's I don't think he's missing something artistically.
14:04
SPEAKER_00: Um no, he it's like literally we just mean like missing a certain technique, right?
14:09
SPEAKER_00: Or something, right?
14:10
SPEAKER_00: Like that, just like like in the most literal sense, right?
14:13
SPEAKER_00: Just limits you.
14:14
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
14:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
14:16
SPEAKER_02: Because, you know, it doesn't it doesn't necessarily behoove Tim Stafford to um be able to play all techniques all the time.
14:23
SPEAKER_02: Like he's making his art his way, obviously.
14:25
SPEAKER_02: So, you know, we don't say this to make a point about what people should be doing, but just that like for instance, as I'm making this decision, um you know, it's like part of it is just trying to figure out where you where you land.
14:36
SPEAKER_02: Because I guess whatever technique you choose, it's gonna somewhat limit uh your ability to do other things.
14:42
SPEAKER_02: But um but yeah, I mean, I I feel I feel like I just came across that I come across that consistently, and now maybe this is me finding out that I can do a little bit of both, is you know, I would learn one thing, and it was very clear that the closed hand helped so much more to do that, like playing the single note version of building low ground.
14:58
SPEAKER_02: But I kept coming back to um there's this great video of Brian Sutton playing You Are My Sunshine for Fredboard Journal, you know, uh and he plays it in I think three keys, C, G, and D, right?
15:10
SPEAKER_02: Just like all right in a row.
15:11
SPEAKER_02: And um it's pretty simple, but it's just like really beautiful, open, strummy, kind of elegant, whatever.
15:18
SPEAKER_02: And it was like I learned it and it sounded okay.
15:22
SPEAKER_02: Uh, and then I started doing the closed hand thing, and it's just like lost any of the magic.
15:27
SPEAKER_02: Like, not that I could play it like Brian, but I wasn't I felt like I was never going to play it close to like Brian with that thing.
15:33
SPEAKER_02: So if I, you know, it was like it and it because it's really just the way it starts, you know.
15:37
SPEAKER_02: Uh you know, it's like really this kind of strummy thing.
15:50
SPEAKER_02: If I do that with a closed hand, I I feel like I get like no open ringing notes.
15:59
SPEAKER_02: You know, like that was kind of exaggerating it, but I I'm so effectively muting the strings I'm not playing.
16:05
SPEAKER_02: Whatever it is, you know, so again, it's like Jake Workman doesn't have this problem, um, David Greer doesn't have this problem.
16:11
SPEAKER_02: Like, it's not this is not a fundamental issue, but it's definitely me coming up against is this a a long-term problem for me, uh, where I need to practice this this way until it's better?
16:24
SPEAKER_02: Or is there this easier solution where I can do a little bit of both or something?
16:27
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
16:27
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
16:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
16:29
SPEAKER_00: Um man, I don't know if you were asking me my opinion, but that's got my mind cranking on some stuff.
16:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because like I I I like uh everything that you're noticing is like stuff that took me years to notice.
16:43
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
16:44
SPEAKER_00: Like I feel like I had little glimpses into these things early on.
16:48
SPEAKER_00: The the the bring bringing the fingers in from planting and going palm was like the the biggest thing, uh, you know, like upward kind of curve.
16:59
SPEAKER_00: Kind of like you're talking about, it's like, oh my god, like once now that this doesn't feel awkward anymore, the single note playing is just like, wow, my hand can go anywhere, you know?
17:07
SPEAKER_00: Um yeah.
17:09
SPEAKER_00: Um but but like you're saying, there are certain instances where it's like now you're running up against like an articulation issue with this technique.
17:17
SPEAKER_00: It's like so, so does it behoove me, like maybe I'm just reframing what you're saying, like does it behoove me to like experiment with the other direction a little bit to see if it can compensate for some of that, right?
17:30
SPEAKER_00: Um because it's like this master player who we all love and respect sounds the way I want to sound on this thing, and he does that thing, you know what I mean?
17:40
SPEAKER_00: Right.
17:40
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, right.
17:41
SPEAKER_00: So it's like just do what he does.
17:44
SPEAKER_00: It's like those are that those are natural questions to like ask oneself.
17:48
SPEAKER_00: And I think there is a uh as someone who like, and I and I say this with like literally all the love in my heart for Brian Sutton, I I didn't model my whole technique like my right hand after Brian's, but I love it.
18:02
SPEAKER_00: And I go for his articulation and phrasing with the one that I did land on, you know what I mean, to kind of see so it's almost like I guess what what I'm what I'm steering toward is like don't don't give up the experiment of like trying to get the closed hand to sound like that other one, I think, because there's some value in that.
18:24
SPEAKER_00: But I also, as you saw, like the fingers come out now for me, you know.
18:30
SPEAKER_00: Sure, yeah, yeah.
18:31
SPEAKER_02: There's a there's a time when it when it happens, yeah, yeah, yeah.
18:34
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, the it seems like you know, trying to trying to zoom out as much as possible sometimes and also to recognize that like okay, the way Brian does it is a result of a very long career, um doing this since he was a little kid, right?
18:52
SPEAKER_02: Which is a very different experience than I've had.
18:53
SPEAKER_02: So so you just kind of have this base level of comfort with the instrument that's gonna be different.
18:58
SPEAKER_02: And although I'm sure he spent time um uh uh kind of obsessing over his technique, I assume he's played he's spent a lot more time playing with people and playing gigs than he has at this point than he ever had just like sitting in the practice room uh you know, obsessing over things.
19:18
SPEAKER_02: And then when I talk to you about this stuff, it's kind of a similar thing where like y you do obsess about these things and you have in the past, but it's it's also um it's after a certain amount of time of like uh proven experimentation in the field, right?
19:36
SPEAKER_02: So I also want to like just examine the fact that like most of what I do on the guitar at the moment is sitting in the practice room obsessing, and it doesn't actually necessarily give me the data I need to like see what see where this is all gonna go.
19:51
SPEAKER_02: Because if I'm like, well this worked really great today, and then the next thing really worked the next day, and then what if I try this?
19:56
SPEAKER_02: It's like you know, I I have to uh I have to pretend that I'm too busy to do that, I think, because I'm not too busy to do that, but that's might be my downfall is kind of obsessing over the details without saying like I'm gonna forget about this for six months and and just play stuff, you know.
20:14
SPEAKER_00: Can I say you just hit a problem and a mental block that I think over 80% of my students deal with?
20:24
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
20:25
SPEAKER_00: Where you're just like you're you're the uh like decision friction, you know what I mean?
20:31
SPEAKER_00: You've got so many choices to make where you're just like you know, short circuiting or whatever, you're like, oh my god, do I do it this way?
20:38
SPEAKER_00: Do I do it that way?
20:40
SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm you know, and and I hear this, like I like I literally have students in my in my um my my pool right now, like my studio, that are are just like, Hayes, I'm 75 years old.
20:52
SPEAKER_00: I don't have time to do it this way, you know, or I don't have time to do it that way.
20:57
SPEAKER_00: Um, and while one, like obviously, yeah, I don't I can't empathize with what it's gonna be like to in another 30 years or whatever for me to, you know, to like to like grapple with that.
21:09
SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, too, part of what you just described, there there is no shortcut through like really any of these things, you know what I mean?
21:21
SPEAKER_00: So it's like if you want to discover can a closed right hand sound like Brian Sutton on those open strings, by God, you're gonna have to do that for a year, maybe two.
21:31
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
21:33
SPEAKER_00: Like that that's that's like uh just a fact of it.
21:37
SPEAKER_00: And and now, does that mean like you know, there's gonna be like just like hours and hours of like, you know, uh of like painful struggle in the practice?
21:49
SPEAKER_00: Like, maybe not.
21:51
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you it just like naturally grows as you're like learning the tunes that you want to have fun with and take to your jam set.
21:58
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
21:58
SPEAKER_00: Like you don't have to put that much.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Much pressure on yourself, I don't think, in terms of especially when you are grasp grasping a new technique, because once you can remove that pressure, like for a guy like you, you are gonna get this inside of a year.
22:11
SPEAKER_00: And then next year you can be like, well, maybe okay, let's let's see what that other side of the spectrum was now.
22:16
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
22:17
SPEAKER_00: Now that I've kind of seen some quantifiable progress in this area, and I I think that's the thing.
22:23
SPEAKER_00: We don't know what your anyone's timeline is gonna be.
22:25
SPEAKER_00: So you you have to do it essentially as as long enough to see some results, whatever that means.
22:31
SPEAKER_00: And I know that sounds nebulous and crappy, but hey, bro, that's that's it's the world we're living in.
22:37
SPEAKER_00: That's that's neurology, that's uh music, that's everything, you know.
22:43
SPEAKER_02: Oh I wish I had a timeline.
22:46
SPEAKER_02: I know, I know.
22:47
SPEAKER_02: And it's you one thing I I try to remember, I find this way easier to s to notice the effects of this when I there are times when I uh just care less about practicing or about whatever.
23:00
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes it's it's been times when I'm just like when I've had a lot of touring go on on or something like that, where it's like that's the amount of playing I'm doing, and I don't think about the practicing or whatever.
23:10
SPEAKER_02: I find it easier to notice the things that change over a long period of time and appreciate that like, oh, this thing is easier now.
23:18
SPEAKER_02: Um I'm playing more comfortably on stage, whatever it is, like those things change over time, and you you can only see them in the big picture, right?
23:26
SPEAKER_02: The the catch 22 is when I'm really excited about practicing.
23:31
SPEAKER_02: And and then I'm like, oh, here's this, here's this thing that I can hear Brian doing and I see the way he's doing it, why can't I make it sound that way?
23:39
SPEAKER_02: Or whatever it is, and and expecting results the same day, right?
23:45
SPEAKER_02: Like being like, oh, I can figure this out today, right?
23:49
SPEAKER_02: And if I can't, then I don't fundamentally understand it, which is really fundamentally misunderstanding how any of this stuff works, is which is like you don't really get to just like I'll take one order of Brian Sutton's entire artistic, you know, catalog.
24:05
SPEAKER_02: Um you know, so it's like that's the that's the hard part is being so obsessed, uh, and then and then allowing yourself to just do the work and not think about how it's going, right?
24:18
SPEAKER_02: Like not you don't need a receipt for how the day went and are like um which is hard to do.
24:24
SPEAKER_02: I have a really hard time with that sometimes.
24:26
SPEAKER_02: But the times when I'm like having a great time and feel like great, I'm excited to practice tomorrow is when I was just working on it and not really worrying about you know, of course you gotta see a little bit, you know.
24:36
SPEAKER_02: Am I if if you're playing with a metronome and it's a complete mess, like yeah, you gotta find a metronome setting that works and you have like there's certain aspects, right?
24:44
SPEAKER_02: But not the fundamental, like, okay, as a result of that hour of practice, am I making good art right now?
24:50
SPEAKER_02: It's like yeah, exactly.
24:52
SPEAKER_00: Bebop, I've mastered it, you know.
24:54
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
24:54
SPEAKER_02: Like, yeah, like that's just not a reasonable question to ask yourself that day.
24:58
SPEAKER_02: Um maybe ever, but yeah, it's it's uh so that can be that can be a real challenge.
25:04
SPEAKER_02: Um and I think you're right.
25:05
SPEAKER_02: I think you're right that um uh it's gonna take some time and it's it's a worthy experiment.
25:13
SPEAKER_02: It's okay if uh taking a year of that doesn't pay off as like I made the right choice.
25:19
SPEAKER_02: That's not what the point of the experiment is.
25:20
SPEAKER_02: The experiment, you know, it takes a year to find out the answer, and the answer might be yeah, go back to the other thing.
25:26
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
25:26
SPEAKER_02: Which is fine.
25:27
SPEAKER_02: That's great, you know.
25:28
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
25:29
SPEAKER_00: And and in the process, you you look you did learn something valuable.
25:32
SPEAKER_00: Exploring another technique is never gonna make uh your other one like bad or something, you know what I mean?
25:37
SPEAKER_00: Like you're you're yeah.
25:39
SPEAKER_00: So so I think you're you're on the right kind of train of thought here.
25:44
SPEAKER_00: I uh for anyone out there that may be relating to this, by the way, if you're if you like say that you for some reason haven't been practicing or haven't been able to practice or something like that, um, just putting a mark on the board, like Eli's talking about, you know what I mean?
26:00
SPEAKER_00: Just like getting something on the board consistently every day and worrying more about getting something on the board every day than what happens after a year of getting something on the board every day.
26:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, yeah, it's a it's a it's a like scope and a focus issue.
26:16
SPEAKER_00: And you sometimes you have to you have to look that far ahead to like at least set the goal, right?
26:22
SPEAKER_00: But then at a certain point, and I'm terrible about this.
26:25
SPEAKER_00: We've talked about this.
26:26
SPEAKER_00: We're took it, we're like two ADHD bros and all that kind of stuff, you know what I mean?
26:30
SPEAKER_00: Like, like the actual step by step to of a process to to achieve a complex skill set like that can be really daunting, you know.
26:39
SPEAKER_00: So for me, what I've had to do is find um ways to just like make that uh make that the pleasurable part.
26:48
SPEAKER_00: And I know that sounds weird, but it's like what joy can I find in that individual step that I'm taking every day, you know?
26:55
SPEAKER_00: Um, I think you could probably give some answers for what you've been ex exploring lately for that.
27:00
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
27:01
SPEAKER_00: It's like what what what is a thing that you in this technique could like focus on every day that actually is like a pleasurable thing as opposed to like a uh opportunity for self-judgment.
27:12
SPEAKER_00: Right, right, yeah.
27:13
SPEAKER_02: And there's plenty of opportunities, but uh yeah, you don't always have to take them.
27:17
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean I've been um it's funny before I left on this trip, I was uh I was practicing a couple solos that I transcribed that all had slightly different stuff going on in them.
27:28
SPEAKER_02: And I had kind of had this, you know, it was uh this Justin Moses Temperance Real thing, uh Jake Workman, Big Soyota, and Sean Richardson playing um Black Mountain Rag.
27:41
SPEAKER_02: There's this Instagram clip of him playing it, and it's got some wild stuff in there, and it's like it's awesome.
27:46
SPEAKER_02: So these three solos, and I was just playing them back to back to back, very slowly with a metronome, right?
27:51
SPEAKER_02: So it'd be kind of like nothing too monotonous, going one to the next, whatever it was.
27:57
SPEAKER_02: And the process of transcribing it was great and learning was great, and like I just find it so fun to play those slowly with a metronome and like kind of zoom in on little moments where I'm speeding up or slowing down, whatever it is, like not things where it's like, okay, uh this doesn't uh I can't play at speed or it doesn't have enough drive, whatever.
28:18
SPEAKER_02: Like those things, that's obvious, those are those opportunities for you know.
28:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, it's like what what can we do?
28:26
SPEAKER_00: Not can't we do, you know what I mean?
28:29
SPEAKER_00: Exactly, yeah.
28:30
SPEAKER_02: And so when I'm spending the time on the stuff I can do, which is like make sure I'm playing the note that I mean to play, uh find places where I can relax a little more, whatever.
28:38
SPEAKER_02: It's like that is my favorite, favorite thing to do.
28:41
SPEAKER_02: Um and then uh, you know, and then you turn on the camera and you're like, and here's me perfectly executing anything at all.
28:50
SPEAKER_02: And it's like, okay, well that's obviously a horrible idea.
28:53
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
28:54
SPEAKER_02: Um but uh but yeah, there's there's plenty of stuff like that, and and I find it the faster I can stop doing the things that are are making me bummed out and just go learn something, um, is like cool.
29:08
SPEAKER_02: I just turn you just turn off the switch.
29:10
SPEAKER_02: I just don't care anymore because I'm just excited about learning this thing, right?
29:13
SPEAKER_02: So that's the that's the that's the thing I wish I was better at.
29:17
SPEAKER_02: And not playing guitar, um, switching to a more productive and fun thing to practice, right?
29:23
SPEAKER_02: I don't need to be good at guitar, I just need to stop suffering, you know?
29:28
SPEAKER_00: Bro, I can't like so check this.
29:31
SPEAKER_00: This is where I'm gonna take the opportunity to leverage us back into that conversation about economy picking.
29:36
SPEAKER_02: Yes, I yes, yeah.
29:38
SPEAKER_00: Because every everything you just described is are I went through like a whole thing like you're describing over there, and at the end of it, I was like, no, I've been avoiding economy picking since I was a teenager because I'm scared of it.
29:52
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
29:53
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, I sit down and I suck at it, and I'm like doing the self-judgment thing, and I didn't find my my mark on the board, you know what I mean?
30:01
SPEAKER_00: I just didn't like you, yeah.
30:02
SPEAKER_00: Once again, I sat down once and I tried to sweet pick, and I was like, well, didn't get it in three hours, so like I'm never gonna be able to sweet pick, and then I didn't, you know, it's like, yeah, yeah.
30:12
SPEAKER_02: Um so like when some when that happens, don't you love that it's it's you it's one, I don't know if you have this, but it's one of two things.
30:19
SPEAKER_02: One is, well, I guess I I just suck and I can't do this thing.
30:23
SPEAKER_02: But then there's an even more sinister one that's like embarrassing to even admit that's like I'm I think I'm probably too good for this.
30:30
SPEAKER_02: It's actually that probably actually just like too smart to do something like this.
30:33
SPEAKER_02: What I play is actually too sophisticated to include this dumb technique, you know.
30:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I already chose alternate picking.
30:40
SPEAKER_00: That's the best one because all of my favorite guitar players use it.
30:43
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
30:44
SPEAKER_02: Exactly, exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah.
30:46
SPEAKER_02: Which which really it's like, you know.
30:48
SPEAKER_02: I luckily I've gotten better at um that those moments don't last very long because I I uh you know, yeah.
30:55
SPEAKER_00: Well be careful uh peeling back those onion layers right there, man.
30:59
SPEAKER_00: We might be getting at some deeper truths about the universe, you know what I mean?
31:03
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
31:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
31:04
SPEAKER_02: Which neither of us are qualified or afford to understand those sort of things.
31:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
31:10
SPEAKER_02: Uh anyway, anyway, yeah.
31:11
SPEAKER_02: Tell tell me about your uh your your economy picking journey here.
31:15
SPEAKER_00: So I think it it was exactly like we talked about, you know, I had um I had stumbled across some players that I really enjoyed who I had seen using this kind of stuff, you know.
31:28
SPEAKER_00: Um, namely uh Yosho Stefan on Facebook all the time.
31:33
SPEAKER_00: His his like gypsy guitar academy videos come up, and I'm just like, God, that guy's one of the best people to ever touch a guitar ever.
31:40
SPEAKER_00: Um and and then I started getting fed Brad Davis videos.
31:44
SPEAKER_00: Are you familiar with Brad Davis?
31:45
SPEAKER_00: Do you know, do you know Brad?
31:46
SPEAKER_02: Only because I watched like one video where he's showing the economy picking thing.
31:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the leather jacket video?
31:54
SPEAKER_00: The one like yes, dude, like this is like the video.
31:57
SPEAKER_00: I remember seeing that back in like high school, you know.
32:00
SPEAKER_00: Um so Brad, he's from Texas, was Sharon Gilchrist's teacher.
32:05
SPEAKER_00: Like Sharon told me that.
32:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like you know, Brad and his brother apparently like you know taught her uh when she was young, which I was like, that's why she's so good.
32:13
SPEAKER_00: No.
32:14
SPEAKER_00: Right.
32:15
SPEAKER_00: Um But but Brad is is like an amazing technician, he's got this like double down up technique, is what he calls it.
32:22
SPEAKER_00: Um so it's essentially the same cross or pattern as cross-picking, like the shuffler style.
32:29
SPEAKER_00: But instead of three strings, we've got two.
32:34
unknown: Right.
32:35
SPEAKER_00: And what that allows you to do is um lean into pick slanting.
32:38
SPEAKER_00: So you can notice on that one that I'm supplinated, which is not what I naturally do.
32:45
SPEAKER_00: We had a whole conversation about this, right?
32:47
SPEAKER_00: It's like the pronation is kind of our thing.
32:49
SPEAKER_00: So I was like, all right, it's time.
32:51
SPEAKER_00: I love Yosho, I love Brad, they point their hands this way, I need to figure it out, you know.
32:57
SPEAKER_00: Um, so I did I found the leather jacket video again, and I was like, I'm really just gonna do that technique for a week.
33:04
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna sit down every day, and for like some amount of time, you know, I found this.
33:09
SPEAKER_00: One of my one of my students brought bought this over, and I was like, I had like such a flashback, you know, to like you know, like high school with my little Korg MA30 metronome.
33:19
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
33:22
SPEAKER_00: It's a comforting sound.
33:23
SPEAKER_00: Um It really, wow, that's actually quite a nostalgic.
33:26
SPEAKER_00: That was the yeah, man, that was the one right there.
33:29
SPEAKER_00: That was the sound, yeah.
33:30
SPEAKER_00: And uh uh she also brought me the matching guitar tuner.
33:33
SPEAKER_00: Um of course, of course.
33:35
SPEAKER_02: Both of which I believe had the uh the input, so you could either play it through your amp or you could tune with your you could plug in with your electric guitar right there, bro.
33:44
SPEAKER_00: Oh my god.
33:46
SPEAKER_00: So so yeah, I I busted out the Korgs.
33:48
SPEAKER_00: No joke, I busted out the Brad Davis leather jacket video in my Korg metronome, and it was bro, it was 2004 all over again, you know what I'm saying?
33:58
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, this is the this is like the bluegrass version of like you know, you find the Ingve Malmstein VHS tape and you go to what is the guitar guitar institute or whatever the oh yeah, exactly or something.
34:12
SPEAKER_02: This is like the flat LA equivalent.
34:16
SPEAKER_00: No, you said it, dude.
34:17
SPEAKER_00: Like yeah, if it was 1986, like that was the thing, you know what I mean.
34:21
SPEAKER_00: But exactly.
34:22
SPEAKER_00: No, you're you're right, man.
34:23
SPEAKER_00: So so literally, I I got my 2004 on and and I did that video because I didn't even take that that exercise that seriously back in the day.
34:31
SPEAKER_00: I was a teenager and I was like, okay, whatever, big deal, you know what I mean.
34:36
SPEAKER_00: Yep, yeah.
34:36
SPEAKER_00: But then I was like, now knowing what I know as an adult person, it's like this guy managed to take this is the thing he's harping on.
34:44
SPEAKER_00: And when you watch him play, it sounds eight trillion times more complex and better than that.
34:50
SPEAKER_00: But if he says that this is the cell that he explored that was then able to like, you know, create this like beautiful organism, I think like it's probably worth some study.
35:02
SPEAKER_00: So it took a week of the down, down up pattern like that.
35:10
SPEAKER_00: And now I've got it pretty good.
35:11
SPEAKER_00: You know, this is four weeks in with the pattern.
35:18
SPEAKER_00: Um, so after I got the pattern good for about a week, you know what I mean, and could do that kind of consistently, I was like, well, I see him doing all sorts of double stops with it.
35:26
SPEAKER_00: We're on two strings, so like, uh, you know, so just practicing double stop scales.
35:38
SPEAKER_00: That became a whole week thing.
35:40
SPEAKER_00: Then then I was like, well, Bepe Gambetta does this thing where he like lifts his fingers off, you know.
35:45
SPEAKER_00: Uh so like oh, that's cool.
35:56
SPEAKER_00: So stuff like that.
35:58
SPEAKER_00: That was phase three.
35:59
SPEAKER_00: And then phase four, it was like I started watching more Brad Davis videos, and I was like, bro, this guy, he's managed to take that double down up technique, and instead of thinking about it as static two-note groupings like double stops right there.
36:13
SPEAKER_00: Well, we're on two strings, so it's natural to think about just like two things to do in the left hand.
36:18
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
36:18
SPEAKER_00: He turns it into a melodic thing.
36:24
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
36:25
SPEAKER_00: You know?
36:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
36:30
SPEAKER_00: That kind of thing, you know?
36:31
SPEAKER_02: Well, can you do, can you get linear?
36:33
SPEAKER_02: I guess you can.
36:35
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
36:36
SPEAKER_00: So I wrote, I wrote one lick in an A tube that I think sort of does that.
36:42
SPEAKER_00: Let me see if I can do this.
36:45
SPEAKER_00: Uh nope.
36:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there you go.
36:55
SPEAKER_00: Right, yeah?
37:02
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
37:04
SPEAKER_02: Which, which at the point where, I mean, uh, it's not that that's not playable uh alternate picking, but it's like it's it's way.
37:14
SPEAKER_02: I mean, this is the thing with economy picking for for you know, there's a bunch of different versions of it.
37:18
SPEAKER_02: It's like the how smooth it is and how kind of effortless it can be is uh is kind of the benefit.
37:23
SPEAKER_02: So something like that, you're gonna be able to really kind of like just rip rather than.
37:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and and the the emphasis that it puts on certain notes, right?
37:30
SPEAKER_00: Because you're sure yeah, you're doing rest strokes.
37:33
SPEAKER_00: So like uh Brad's deal is like he's he's like push harder on the second note because that's the one that he for some reason I think felt gets weak.
37:40
SPEAKER_00: And I noticed that I have a tendency, if I if I make a mistake, I do this.
37:45
SPEAKER_00: I strump through instead of I do you know, like a str so I think that's why.
37:52
SPEAKER_00: So it's and with that, if you if you're just naturally doing that in your right hand, that means that right that note's gonna get more emphasis.
38:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
38:14
SPEAKER_02: Well, I wonder also if that helps with the um, you know, because those the the two down in a row, if the second note is the it sounds like the downbeat in that example, in some ways to me that makes it feel the amount the the limited amount of that kind of stuff I've done feels easier to hit that if if the second note is the downbeat.
38:37
SPEAKER_02: For some reason it makes that first downstroke, which is actually the and yeah, actually makes it feel easier for some reason than if you had to to um have it's that first downstroke be the downbeat.
38:49
SPEAKER_02: I don't know why, but for some reason that feels feels more comfortable.
38:52
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
38:52
SPEAKER_00: I did an exercise on Instagram the other day that confused the heck out of everyone, but I love it.
38:57
SPEAKER_00: Um where I was sitting with my little cord here, and what was the um so the the object of the exercise was to um do exactly what we're talking about here and just kind of target getting a clean downbeat execution of these things, you know?
39:17
SPEAKER_00: So I was a little slower than that.
39:19
SPEAKER_00: Let's go to that.
39:21
SPEAKER_00: So it was like uh I was just doing dead strings.
39:26
SPEAKER_00: D string, maybe, you know.
39:35
SPEAKER_00: Then I went to triplets just to get uh after I got warmed up and then there it is, you know, eventually and then so that's where I max out.
40:03
SPEAKER_00: But that's the one where I'm going dot dot dot dot.
40:09
SPEAKER_02: Oh sure, sure, sure, sure, yeah.
40:16
SPEAKER_00: Right?
40:17
SPEAKER_00: So uh essentially I I would just do the metronome where it's like two, three, four, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, one, two, et cetera.
40:32
SPEAKER_00: So um, cool.
40:33
SPEAKER_00: Just dropping it in on a beat to exactly like you're saying.
40:36
SPEAKER_00: It's like I noticed almost immediately that that downbeat rest stroke was just like it's so hard like to hit the the target, right?
40:46
SPEAKER_02: On the on the yeah, right, right.
40:48
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and that's when it becomes so easy to just strum through the whole three strings, you know, whatever.
40:53
SPEAKER_02: You're just like, yeah, screw this.
40:54
SPEAKER_02: I'm going back to alternate picking.
40:56
SPEAKER_02: Oh, that's great.
40:57
SPEAKER_02: It does remind me of, I mean, uh this isn't quite the same, but it is, there's there's an extent.
41:01
SPEAKER_02: I mean, certainly the the double down thing, similar to um some of the Tony Rice uh rhythm stuff.
41:07
SPEAKER_02: And um I'm trying to remember, I think it was a Wyatt that it was that video of Wyatt doing um some rhythm stuff, uh, which is which is still so great.
41:17
SPEAKER_02: I wonder if I even remember it, but there was there was a moment where he does a G run where it's like uh That's what it is.
41:29
SPEAKER_02: Well one, two, three Whatever it is, so it's it's on the down, it's on the upbeat that he starts it, but it is a downstroke.
41:38
SPEAKER_02: So one, two, two, three.
41:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah!
41:44
SPEAKER_02: And so it's yeah, exactly.
41:47
SPEAKER_02: Down.
41:50
SPEAKER_02: I guess it's just four downstrokes in a row, and it's two kind of economy, it's two economy things, right?
42:00
SPEAKER_00: Now I see it.
42:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
42:04
SPEAKER_00: Wow, that's so awkward, dude.
42:06
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that crazy?
42:07
SPEAKER_02: Isn't that weird?
42:08
SPEAKER_02: And and in that example, um, I I did in one of my practice logs, like uh playing through the entire example.
42:14
SPEAKER_02: I don't remember it now because I kind of gave up on it a little bit because I was like, I need to be able to strum first.
42:21
SPEAKER_02: Um but but almost all of his uh patterns that he plays on that, other than the one that's just like uh he does the C just on the downbeat.
42:32
SPEAKER_02: Every other one of his double, triple, quadruple down is starting on an offbeat.
42:37
SPEAKER_02: Um and they're crazy.
42:39
SPEAKER_02: But that especially that um God, yeah.
42:43
SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, I took a couple like a week on it and I could barely get in a very slow example or something like that.
42:48
SPEAKER_02: But it's a similar thing where it's like um it's it's the the using gravity a little bit, obviously, in that in that instance, but um but it's uh it's it's like almost like can you can you give it the the power it needs to go through the next string, to drive through the next string without it being so heavy that it either continues to strum or you get stuck on the next one.
43:12
SPEAKER_02: Because in the example you're talking about, you actually need to you're not stopping at any point.
43:16
SPEAKER_02: This isn't like one you know, whatever.
43:20
SPEAKER_02: It's it's a it's quite a uh agile movement.
43:23
SPEAKER_02: So in some ways it's similar, but in what what you're what you're talking about is actually kind of its own thing.
43:29
SPEAKER_02: It's different.
43:29
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's different than the than what flat picking restroke stuff usually is, you know.
43:34
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
43:35
SPEAKER_00: I I think that's why, you know, you're you're you're you're kind of getting to the reason why Brad's playing immediately stuck out to me when I heard it.
43:44
SPEAKER_00: You know, this way I was like, holy smokes, I've never heard any flat picking like this before.
43:48
SPEAKER_00: Um and and to kind of like I guess like bring it full circle, you know, if we're talking about this process and if and if the whole point of this conversation is like We've been out of practice, or we've been avoiding things, you know, in the practice room for like all of these various neurological or psychological reasons or whatever.
44:10
SPEAKER_00: Like my process was essentially hear something cool I like, and then literally do one thing that could fill the space of about four seconds consistently for a week until that the just like the gravity of that one exercise plus the gravity of my excitement about this player's playing eventually combined to lead to a more complex system of practice.
44:37
SPEAKER_00: That that will lead you to stuff that you just want to do.
44:41
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
44:42
SPEAKER_00: I heard you say that in all the stuff that you were just describing, you know what I mean, in terms of the transcriptions and things like that.
44:48
SPEAKER_00: Like you who practices transcriptions that way?
44:51
SPEAKER_00: Who sits down and plays them slow with a metronome three in a row like that from three different guys?
44:55
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
44:55
SPEAKER_00: And in like so, like, you know, we find our own little ways, uh, if we can just get out of the the negative mindset thing and allow the kind of like inspiration stuff to kind of like steer.
45:08
SPEAKER_00: You gotta let that be the driver, you know?
45:11
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
45:12
SPEAKER_02: And and it yeah, you just stop less frequently when that's happening.
45:17
SPEAKER_02: You don't yeah, you just are like, I'm I I'm not done working on this.
45:20
SPEAKER_02: I'm too busy to to kind of take a look at what I've built.
45:23
SPEAKER_02: You know, it's like there's that's the and that's the craft part when people talk about like we're we're trying to be creative and we're trying to, you know, make art to to whatever extent we're gonna consider uh uh what we're doing to be art, but it's like the craft is like you just show up and you dig a hole and then you say, that was the hole I dug today, and you come back the next day and you like dig another hole.
45:44
SPEAKER_02: Like it's it's just there's kind of a utility aspect to the work that um uh if you can trust it, then it's great, right?
45:54
SPEAKER_02: You just kind of have to trust that it's that it's doing what it's supposed to.
45:57
SPEAKER_02: Or even not, you even don't uh maybe you don't even need to trust it because it's such an enjoyable experience to do the work.
46:04
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
46:05
SPEAKER_02: The thing is, like I'm actually I have these goals, right?
46:07
SPEAKER_02: I I have these fantasies of where I want this to go, but I don't actually I'm not actually sure that that that's like artistically important to have that goal and meet it necessarily.
46:19
SPEAKER_02: What I will say is it is it's so ingrained in us to um to have these kind of like goals or fantasies of what our art or our uh craft is gonna do.
46:33
SPEAKER_02: I just notice it in myself that if I really look at it, it actually is much more about like the business of music or like gigs that I'll get or opportunities that actually aren't the music itself, right?
46:45
SPEAKER_02: Like if I really think about it when I kind of daydream about my musical goals, they really are actually more like uh like social, uh financial, you know, like they're not actually about like just the pure fundamental joy of playing music necessarily.
47:03
SPEAKER_02: I'm lucky enough that I do have experiences where it is just the pure fundamental joy of music making music.
47:08
SPEAKER_02: But when I'm kind of like, oh, if I could when I've got that Tony Rice rhythm stuff figured out, it's like, well, that's I'm kind of imagining like a jam that I'll be in where I'll feel like I'm I don't know if I'm showing off or whatever, or maybe like I'll get a like that happens, but at no point is the the work that I'm doing like truly for that purpose.
47:29
SPEAKER_02: Like the the practice, the practice is for this like goal I can't even imagine, right?
47:34
SPEAKER_02: Of just like uh just the the joy of it, right?
47:38
SPEAKER_02: But I don't need a goal for that.
47:39
SPEAKER_02: I don't need to like land somewhere in a year for that work to have been worth it.
47:44
SPEAKER_02: So um so I try to look at those those goals or I just I kind of think of them as as fantasies, honestly.
47:50
SPEAKER_02: Like I kind of think of them that way where it's just like yeah, that's a that's an indication that I like a certain thing and uh and and I'm kind of working in that direction, but it's not because certainly reaching that goal isn't going to be satisfying because then you move on to the next one, right?
48:04
SPEAKER_02: So so why you know I'm not when people when people talk about like motivation or like achieving their dreams or their goals, and then you kind of have like, you know, you've got like quotes up on your wall of like never give up, and you know, like whatever the thing is, like it's the it's the hustle uh culture thing that was really popular a while ago, or like you see all these like entrepreneurs, you know, that are just like they go to the gym every day as their like morning routine is like the cold plunge and all this stuff.
48:36
SPEAKER_02: It's like that's the whole thing.
48:38
SPEAKER_02: I totally get it, and I've been in and out of all that stuff as a means to like live a healthy life, but those people are our business people, and their business is marketing their lifestyle, even if their business is like crypto or real estate or selling courses, their business is also marketing those lifestyles, and so I think people get I I have been caught up at certain times by like a motivation lifestyle thing where I'm like because then I'll really practice a lot and achieve my blah blah blah.
49:11
SPEAKER_02: It's like, no, that's how you become like crypto bro guitar whatever, like whatever that imaginary person is, it's like that's what that leads to.
49:19
SPEAKER_02: It doesn't actually lead to what I perceive to be like artistic fulfillment.
49:24
SPEAKER_02: So I say all that to mean what I said like probably 10 minutes ago.
49:27
SPEAKER_02: It's just like just focusing on the the joy of of working on it, you know, um, and it'll take you where it's gonna take you, right?
49:32
SPEAKER_02: And it's taken us to places we've are really lucky to have been, right?
49:36
SPEAKER_02: Like all the camps and gigs and friends we've made and everything.
49:40
SPEAKER_02: It's like I didn't put the I didn't put that up on my like mood board of like I want to go to a festival where I meet somebody for the first time and they become a lifelong best friend.
49:49
SPEAKER_02: I was like, I probably should have, but I didn't, you know, it's like, but that happened.
49:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I I I love what you're saying.
49:56
SPEAKER_00: There's this I my brain is dumb, so it has to reduce everything down to like cliches or you know, simple concepts that I've thought about before.
50:03
SPEAKER_00: But like I think all of what you're saying relates back to this really corny phrase that I think really does like like hold like have some truth to it.
50:12
SPEAKER_00: Those things exist for a reason.
50:13
SPEAKER_00: This whole like uh um shoot for the moon and and if you fail, you'll at least land among the stars kind of thing.
50:22
SPEAKER_00: Yes, but it's like poster in my library and like literally, right?
50:26
SPEAKER_00: Like in, you know, we all had that.
50:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it was like a cat with like a star, you know, or something.
50:32
SPEAKER_00: Um but but I think there's something valuable in that the connecting these things that we're talking about here, because it's like the the idea is to set that thing out in front of you and shoot for it.
50:44
SPEAKER_00: But all of these things that you're talking about here are just like incidental like benefits that that come about as a result of the fact that you just set a goal.
50:53
SPEAKER_00: You may never play rhythm like Tony Rice, but guess what?
50:56
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna play better rhythm guitar, and then you know, uh Lincoln Myers is gonna like, you know, give you the old nod and a thumbs up at the jam or whatever.
51:05
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
51:06
SPEAKER_00: And then that like then it that's what we're in it for.
51:08
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
51:09
SPEAKER_00: It's yeah, it's not so that I can go on the internet and sell my course about Tony Rice rhythm and how that's gonna improve your lifestyle, even though I probably will try to do that to you at some point to everyone listening to this.
51:20
SPEAKER_02: But that's separate from your personal artistic identity.
51:23
SPEAKER_02: That's that's your business, which is fine.
51:26
SPEAKER_02: But let's not pretend that that's you know, you know, because I think, yeah, exactly.
51:30
SPEAKER_02: I think I think people sometimes get wrapped up in what in watching what professionals do and assuming that that's what the height of art is or or creativity, right?
51:41
SPEAKER_02: And what they're watching professionals do, most of the time when you're watching a professional musician play or do anything, you're watching them make money.
51:49
SPEAKER_02: You you are actually very rarely seeing a professional when they're not making money, right?
51:55
SPEAKER_02: Because that's when they're on TV, that's when they're on YouTube, it's when they're on stage.
51:59
SPEAKER_02: It's like that's when they're available to you, is when they're making money.
52:02
SPEAKER_02: So everything you watch them do is making money.
52:04
SPEAKER_02: And that means that the way that they're doing it may in some way be to maximize the amount of money that they're making.
52:13
SPEAKER_02: What you might see them practice when they're not making money, the music they play with their friends when they're not making money, like all those things you don't necessarily have access to.
52:20
SPEAKER_02: So you can't assume that like study what the sp what the pros do.
52:25
SPEAKER_02: It's like you have to be careful what that means because like if you think about like what does Carl Minor do, well, he plays literally everything you can imagine on guitar because he has to for his job playing on a million different records.
52:39
SPEAKER_02: That's got 12 sessions today, you know, right?
52:42
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
52:43
SPEAKER_02: Playing a 12 different thing, you know?
52:45
SPEAKER_02: And it's like, so when you feel like what do the pros do?
52:47
SPEAKER_02: It's like, well, the pros have a job that requires a lot of different skills that almost nobody would reasonably have unless they were getting paid to do it.
52:57
SPEAKER_02: So you kind of have to like really take it with a grain of salt, like what you watch people do and whether or not that's you know, which which can be all the way from like things you practice.
53:06
SPEAKER_02: It can be, should I post stuff online?
53:08
SPEAKER_02: It's like, well, do you ever hope to make money by playing guitar solos online?
53:13
SPEAKER_02: It's like, well, if not, then don't waste your time, like unless it's fun for you.
53:16
SPEAKER_00: You know, like I was gonna say the fun factor has to be present for all of it, right?
53:21
SPEAKER_00: Like the yeah, does posting videos like connect you with your friends?
53:25
SPEAKER_00: And like, you know, social media, we've talked about this before, like, like bluegrass in some ways can be insulated from these things a little better than other types of music or or industries because you can just like you can go see a professional bluegrass band play at your local theater, but then you can go to the local jam down the street and then see how it's actually done, not yes, under financial you know, restraint or whatever, right?
53:51
SPEAKER_00: So like so I think we are lucky in that way that we've got that.
53:56
SPEAKER_00: But um, but I I I've everything that you say, man, I resonate with so much.
54:00
SPEAKER_00: Like, don't judge yourself to the standard of your hero.
54:04
SPEAKER_00: Like, look at what you actually want to do with this and and then get more practical with it that way.
54:09
SPEAKER_00: Like, because that's how all of us started.
54:12
SPEAKER_00: Most of us started, I guess I should say.
54:14
SPEAKER_00: Like, we started because we loved it.
54:16
SPEAKER_00: We had, you know, a community of people in some various way, shape, or form that that we could use this skill with and engage with socially and have fun with and do all that kind of stuff.
54:28
SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, eventually our nefarious 18-year-old little minds were like, we could make tens of dollars if we dedicated our lives to this, you know.
54:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, someday we could have the premier podcast on flat picking guitar.
54:44
SPEAKER_02: Which is it is worth mentioning that we have the premier flat picking podcast.
54:49
SPEAKER_02: I have a growing YouTube channel, and here I am hanging out with with uh you know one of the finest flat pickers.
54:56
SPEAKER_02: You don't have to be particularly good at flat picking to do any of those things.
55:00
SPEAKER_02: I'm proof that that's actually not what being a professional is.
55:02
SPEAKER_02: I'm doing this professionally.
55:04
SPEAKER_02: I'm doing it professionally.
55:05
SPEAKER_02: It doesn't mean I'm good at it.
55:06
SPEAKER_02: So those are two very different things.
55:08
SPEAKER_02: You know, I'm I'm working on it, but but you know, please keep keep a distinction there because uh, you know, I'm an entertainer.
55:16
SPEAKER_02: I'm not a I love it, dude.
55:19
SPEAKER_02: But uh yeah, it is it's it's interesting though, because it I try to remember that when I think about well, think about you know, the further back you go, the less you see um some of these guitar players, especially um kind of being responsible for a huge amount of like techniques and tunes and whatever it is, like you know, as we become it becomes easier to find information and whatever you know, you can have a little bit of Lester Flat and Carter Stanley and Tony rhythm, right?
55:48
SPEAKER_02: You can kind of have enough resources to find some of that, but it's like you know, you asked Lester Flat to play Carter Stanley style rhythm, it's like, well, why would he have?
55:57
SPEAKER_02: Why would he have wanted to?
55:58
SPEAKER_02: Why would he know how to do that?
56:00
SPEAKER_02: He was like his whole self, right?
56:03
SPEAKER_02: So you also like I find it also very inspiring to look at at people whose like musical output I really respect, and not necessarily to study it, but just to say, like, that's just what they did, right?
56:14
SPEAKER_02: Like that was that was their music.
56:15
SPEAKER_02: And so um, you know, I'm in a I'm in a position now where I'm I'm studying, like I'll just tell you, I'm studying a bunch of different guitar players and different solos, and like it has a bunch of techniques, and it's I would be j you know, due to the people I hang out with and the musicians I play with, it's like yeah, you might be in a position to play a bunch of different tunes a bunch of different ways and styles and whatever.
56:36
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, I am I am in that world, truly.
56:39
SPEAKER_02: But um but I I do like the idea of of not necessarily being responsible for it, right?
56:46
SPEAKER_02: It's not it's not because you're you're supposed to, um necessarily, uh so much as like you you feel drawn to it.
56:53
SPEAKER_02: Um to bring it back to um to some playing stuff because I'm I can sense myself going around the same cul-de-sac for the third time.
57:02
SPEAKER_02: Um it's funny the the uh I I have one remnant of economy picking left in my uh my my toolbox.
57:12
SPEAKER_02: I wouldn't say toolbox because I I'm I don't need it and I wish it would go away.
57:16
SPEAKER_02: Um but but the way that I used to do any economy picking stuff, I had this good this book, people might remember if they were into like metal back in the day.
57:23
SPEAKER_02: It was called the Guitar Grim Grimoire.
57:26
SPEAKER_02: Yes, dude.
57:28
SPEAKER_00: The big black book with like a pentagram on it, and it's got every scale in it ever.
57:33
SPEAKER_02: You know, it's got every scale and a bunch of different patterns, and it's all these like three note per string, right?
57:39
SPEAKER_02: And then it gives you the it gives you all the different, you know, permutations of how you can do that.
57:45
SPEAKER_02: And and truly, that's probably the way I learned the fretboard.
57:49
SPEAKER_02: That's the first way I knew how to play basically an any key all over the fretboard with a couple different shapes or something like that.
57:56
SPEAKER_02: So huge, amazing resource, but at some point in it, it I think it recommends um economy picking, uh uh kind of discussed as like uh if you play a downstroke for a string crossing, you continue to the next string with the downstroke.
58:13
SPEAKER_02: So if I'm gonna do three notes per string, one, two, three, downstroke, the next note will also be downstroke.
58:25
SPEAKER_02: Ah, yes.
58:26
SPEAKER_02: And because you're because you're organizing it as three notes per string, you will always have that.
58:35
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
58:37
SPEAKER_00: Wow, that feels like I would have never been able to do that two weeks ago.
58:43
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, right.
58:44
SPEAKER_02: You exactly.
58:44
SPEAKER_02: You've kind of primed yourself to, yeah, yeah.
58:46
SPEAKER_02: Well, be careful because because uh I might have to go dig that book back out again, dude.
58:51
SPEAKER_02: It's an it's it's a cool thing, and it totally makes sense if you listen to a lot of like the shredder, like that's it's it's faster.
58:57
SPEAKER_02: It just is, it's just uh easier and faster and whatever.
58:59
SPEAKER_02: And you can do, and it's the same in reverse.
59:04
SPEAKER_02: You know, so you see if you start that with uh down upstroke, that string crossing is is an upstroke.
59:15
SPEAKER_00: Wow, dude.
59:16
SPEAKER_00: Okay, we're getting into like I I'm like I'm sensing some Paul Gilbert videos are gonna be in my future or something like that, you know?
59:23
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you're gonna be putting uh how many blue chips can you fit on a power drill, you know?
59:28
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, uh and um and I stuck with that.
59:33
SPEAKER_02: Like I was like, cool, well, I guess that's how you play guitar.
59:36
SPEAKER_02: And for years I would practice with the metronome scales exactly like that.
59:40
SPEAKER_02: And uh, and even when I started playing jazz, I just kept doing it because that was just how I played.
59:45
SPEAKER_02: So no matter what I was playing, that was kind of the vibe.
59:47
SPEAKER_02: And even then I started to to kind of question.
59:49
SPEAKER_02: I was like, I don't know if this is like that it messes with your timing a little bit, like it's not it's not necessarily even, or even if it's even, it's kind of like you know, the same way you're gonna hear Clarence White do a bunch of downstrokes.
1:00:04
SPEAKER_02: It sounds different if you switch it to alternate picking, right?
1:00:06
SPEAKER_02: Like it just sounds different.
1:00:08
SPEAKER_02: It's not bad, but it sounds best when you're shredding, you know what I mean?
1:00:12
SPEAKER_00: Like, yeah, exactly.
1:00:13
SPEAKER_00: No, I remember Petrucci talking about some of that stuff where he would start a phrase on an upstroke, and he's like, You need to be ambivictrous, I think he said in a video, you know?
1:00:22
SPEAKER_00: And I'm I'm like, Yeah.
1:00:26
SPEAKER_02: With with nomenclature like that, he should be a bluegrass musician.
1:00:30
SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, it's uh, you know, it's like and even then I like I would ask people, I was like, is this all right?
1:00:35
SPEAKER_02: And it was a little bit like I just didn't feel like the timing, I wasn't gonna uh the time feel, the phrasing wasn't happening the way I wanted to, so I started to kind of phase it out around the time I stopped playing guitar, basically.
1:00:45
SPEAKER_02: So I never really eradicated that.
1:00:47
SPEAKER_02: So so there's some stuff that I'll play.
1:00:49
SPEAKER_02: I'm trying to think if I can like I saw it there, yeah.
1:00:54
SPEAKER_02: There's there's some sweep stuff where like, especially if I get in these in certain positions on the neck where I'm familiar with where where there's some like kind of language that I'm I saw it like twice there, yeah.
1:01:08
SPEAKER_02: And some of those are like you can see, you know, Brian does you like there's Brian does that kind of thing.
1:01:16
SPEAKER_00: I do I do that one all the time.
1:01:17
SPEAKER_00: Which is cool.
1:01:18
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that that makes a lot of sense because that because it doesn't interrupt your down up, right?
1:01:22
SPEAKER_02: The problem with the economy thing is it interrupts where the downbeat happens, and that's a real that can be a real problem um if you can't resolve it.
1:01:30
SPEAKER_02: But there are a couple places where that still comes up and it's and it's fine.
1:01:35
SPEAKER_02: I think I uh it's in uh few enough places that I kind of have ways to escape it, but every time it happens, I kind of notice I'm like, eh, it's I would kind of prefer not to have that happen.
1:01:46
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
1:01:47
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:01:48
SPEAKER_02: But um yeah, and it's you know, and it's really it's just the uh the upstroke one for some reason.
1:01:53
SPEAKER_02: Uh I wonder if I can.
1:01:57
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I guess it is just it's a lot of the arpeggios end up being that.
1:02:03
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:02:04
SPEAKER_02: So it'd be like up, it'd be down, up, up.
1:02:09
SPEAKER_02: Oh.
1:02:12
SPEAKER_02: Which I guess, you know, I kind of make up for it because it usually would have a slide or a hammer on soon enough after.
1:02:20
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:02:21
SPEAKER_02: And then I'm and then I'm back on track, right?
1:02:23
SPEAKER_02: So so it's like it's not currently ruining anything for me, but uh but I'm glad that I at least did some of that work before I quit guitar for a while because it it stuck.
1:02:34
SPEAKER_02: Because otherwise, I mean that was a it was so challenging to to then get into trying to have somewhat strict alternate picking, which obviously makes such a huge difference to have your downstrokes be on the downbeat just as a phrasing thing.
1:02:49
SPEAKER_02: Like messing with that too much can be such a um doesn't doesn't feel like a project worth I don't think people should be ambictrous, is what I'm saying.
1:03:00
SPEAKER_02: I guess.
1:03:00
SPEAKER_02: You know, like don't don't worry about doing a ton of uh starting up downbeat upstroke.
1:03:10
SPEAKER_00: I can't even do it for like two minutes.
1:03:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:03:13
SPEAKER_00: Um I'm I'm with you on that one.
1:03:15
SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, so we're saying if you are looking for that one tiny habit to latch on to to jumpstart your practice over the next week, don't make it.
1:03:26
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
1:03:27
SPEAKER_02: Maybe skip the guitar grimoire for now.
1:03:30
SPEAKER_02: You know, in the yeah, I will say the three note per string shapes maybe are not the most conducive to glucose phrasing at the moment.
1:03:38
SPEAKER_00: So funny is like you're we're explaining this from two different ends because like I in college I committed to alternate picking, I committed to doing it all that way, and I got rid of all the rock metal stuff.
1:03:50
SPEAKER_00: And then now I'm just uh like three years ago, I was like, oh, those three note per string scales fit that like pronation and suppanation technique a little better.
1:03:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:03:59
SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, and then you know, two years later I'm talking about economy picking, so it's uh it's all full circle moment, you know.
1:04:06
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna lose you to uh yeah, the dreading podcast.
1:04:11
SPEAKER_00: What is with Africa?
1:04:12
SPEAKER_02: With the Tor G3 or something like that.
1:04:15
SPEAKER_02: Yes, G3.
1:04:16
SPEAKER_02: I went to one of those shows back in the day, but it you're gonna be you're gonna be on that tour.
1:04:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, what is that?
1:04:20
SPEAKER_00: It's uh Steve Vai, uh Joe Satriani, and John Petrucci, or Petrucci.
1:04:26
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:04:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:04:27
SPEAKER_02: Although I think I saw one, the one I saw did not have Steve Vai.
1:04:32
SPEAKER_02: You can kind of tell.
1:04:33
SPEAKER_02: I'm sure none of these guys are gonna catch wind of this, but you can kind of tell who's like a little too busy for the G3 tour when like Steve Vai's like not got better stuff.
1:04:41
SPEAKER_00: Sorry, guys, yeah.
1:04:42
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and they get some other shredders like, yeah, you can shred.
1:04:45
SPEAKER_02: I've never heard of you.
1:04:46
SPEAKER_02: Did you like you were like filled in for white snake at some point or something?
1:04:49
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
1:04:50
SPEAKER_00: Some of that happened, I think, at one point.
1:04:52
SPEAKER_00: Oh man, yeah.
1:04:53
SPEAKER_00: I was gonna say they didn't get Vivian Campbell, did they?
1:04:55
SPEAKER_00: Okay, we're gonna start talking about metal guitar players, and we can't do that.
1:04:58
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's as good as the tail end of this uh this episode.
1:05:02
SPEAKER_02: This game.
1:05:04
SPEAKER_02: Oh my god.
1:05:05
SPEAKER_02: Well, I this is probably as good a time as ever uh for veering into uh more electrified territory to let you know that you've been listening to the flat picking podcast and you're about to not be anymore.
1:05:19
SPEAKER_02: Um go ahead and uh God, you'd think I'd remember I was gonna I was gonna do the plug for you.
1:05:26
SPEAKER_02: Haze guitar.club.
1:05:29
SPEAKER_00: Oh, nope, haze griffin.club.
1:05:32
SPEAKER_00: You got it, man.
1:05:32
SPEAKER_00: HayesGriffin.club.
1:05:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so just the name.club.
1:05:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:05:35
SPEAKER_00: But guitar club throws you off because that's the title.
1:05:39
SPEAKER_02: Right.
1:05:40
SPEAKER_00: Right, right, right, right, right, right.
1:05:41
SPEAKER_00: This is a little bit of confusion on my part.
1:05:43
SPEAKER_00: I need to talk with a branding expert here.
1:05:47
SPEAKER_00: All the other Hayes Griffins are really muddy and they are, man.
1:05:50
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's guitar clubs.
1:05:52
SPEAKER_00: I had to buy.net.club.
1:05:54
SPEAKER_00: No.
1:05:55
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
1:05:57
SPEAKER_02: Well, check out check out Hayes there.
1:05:59
SPEAKER_02: There'll be a link in the description.
1:06:01
SPEAKER_02: And check out me at the other link in the description that you'll find my YouTube channel, and uh, you can watch me as I take three gigantic steps backwards after not playing for two weeks.
1:06:12
SPEAKER_02: I still need to I haven't recorded a practice log in like a month.
1:06:16
SPEAKER_02: So we'll see where that goes.
1:06:18
SPEAKER_00: Um I'm excited to see the first one, bro.
1:06:21
SPEAKER_00: You got this.
1:06:22
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:06:23
SPEAKER_02: Well time to get to work on that.
1:06:26
SPEAKER_02: So that'll do it for this episode of the Flat Picking Podcast, folks.
1:06:30
SPEAKER_02: Thanks for listening and watching, and we'll see you next time.