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Anyone hybrid pick here?

You hold a pick in thumb and first finger, then finger pick with your second and third (and eventually fourth I imagine) finger. I've just started tonight and shit is hard. Any tips or exercises?

It's something I mess around with; I've got an insanely difficult guitar book called 'Masters of the Telecaster', and that's got some great hybrid picking things in.

Just try not to over-think it. I started doing it (albeit a bit cack-handedly) as a way to get around string skips. It may help if you start with a thumbpick then "progress" to hybrid picking.

Hybrid picking is one of the main parts of my playing style. The way I learnt how to hybrid pick is through playing through all of the Giuliani picking exercises - 10 a day until I had completed all 120 - but refingering the right hand to incorporate a pick. I use every free finger on my right hand in order to play big chords too. I have always played a bit of fingerstyle, but I wasn't very good. However after spending a couple of weeks focussing on the picking exercises I'm very confident at hybrid picking now.

Check out the exercises - I posted a thread with them a while ago.

If you need any help just shoot me a pm and I'll whip up a couple of youtube exercises.

Gabriel wrote:Hybrid picking is one of the main parts of my playing style. The way I learnt how to hybrid pick is through playing through all of the Giuliani picking exercises - 10 a day until I had completed all 120 - but refingering the right hand to incorporate a pick. I use every free finger on my right hand in order to play big chords too. I have always played a bit of fingerstyle, but I wasn't very good. However after spending a couple of weeks focussing on the picking exercises I'm very confident at hybrid picking now.

Check out the exercises - I posted a thread with them a while ago.

If you need any help just shoot me a pm and I'll whip up a couple of youtube exercises.

Gabriel - am definitely up for vids. Also regarding those exercise... embarrassingly, the lack of tab makes it too much for me, (and I used to be able to sight read music notation when i was a kid!)

Dave wrote:Gabriel - am definitely up for vids. Also regarding those exercise... embarrassingly, the lack of tab makes it too much for me, (and I used to be able to sight read music notation when i was a kid!)

I'll see if I can whip up something tomorrow. Also I could put the exercises in to tab, if I can't do it digitally I could probably do a few a day.

That would be ace! This is something I'm determined to crack for the 12 string and other jangles. The current ombination of thumb and bass strings just makes things sound muddy and farty.

Here we go, page 1 of the right hand studies in tab. Open both this and the original in order to get accurate right hand directions.

For the purpose of developing hybrid right hand studies, we will be taking these definitions of right hand symbols:

P - Pick
i - Middle finger
m - Ring finger
a - Pinky

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/86947283/120%2 ... %20pg1.pdf

Also there are only two chords for the entire studies so once you learn those shapes the notation is irrelevant as long as you understand which notes are to be picked. So in theory after learning page one with tab, all the notes will have been covered, so you should be able to get some notation under your belt too.

The best way to approach these exercises is with a steady metronome click - if you don't have one buy one. Otherwise for now use http://www.metronomeonline.com

Find a tempo you are comfortable and stick with it for all of the exercises. For me I found 80bpm particularly comfy as it is my sort of 'home' speed, I start all exercises at this tempo.

Amazing! I really appreciate this Gabriel, thank you.

Hmm I shall have a go at this tonight, thanks!

Admittedly it's taken me years to even be at the stage where I can play with my thumb, first and second fingers. I was hoping to only introduce my third finger with this. Adding the pinky as is going to be well 'ard. Might just adapt it for without pinky for now.

Here is a video lesson on the first 8 studies.

[youtube][/youtube]

If you need any more clarity on anything just let me know and I'll try to sort it out.

Awesome! Thanks for that. I'm having a go but I think I really need to work on my initial muscle memory in my 3rd and 4th finger cos I'm flapping all over the place. This is going to take TIME.

Just practiced first lesson both finger and hybrid. Love it.

Ace, glad you guys are digging this stuff. I've found hybrid picking an invaluable skill to learn as it's opened up a whole new approach to playing.

If you can find the time to spend 20-30 minutes a day working methodically through the exercises you will see some real progress. I recommend keeping a practice diary so you can see how you are progressing - this has been the most important part of my development over the past 3-4 months as I've been able to log every piece of work I've done.

My ring and little fingertips HURT today. I need to kill the nerves in them and build some muscle strength.

Do those gripmaster things actually work? I'm considering getting one.

Nice one Gabriel

George wrote:My ring and little fingertips HURT today. I need to kill the nerves in them and build some muscle strength.

Do those gripmaster things actually work? I'm considering getting one.

For your fingertips go and buy some surgical spirits, they'll help you build calluses really quickly. As to the gripmaster, I have no idea, when I was younger I used one but I have no idea if it actually really helped all that much.

Good stuff. I'll take a better look at this another day, its something I'd like to dabble with instead of my cack-handed fingerpicking style I developed through lack of patience and supervision.

Interesting thread.
I'm having trouble developing my pinky on my picking hand when playing hybrid style, and I've decided that if I get round to playing Carcassi's study number 7 really well, then I can truly say that I have a good handle on "pick plus three fingers" hybrid playing.
BTW, Carcassi's 25 classical guitar studies - in standard music notation - are freely available on the web, but I'm not sure if a tab version is also available for free.