picking trouble

Jersey Jack · 2008-03-10T17:16:26Z

I'm an acoustic flatpicker, and I primarily play chords to accompany my singing in old-timey mountain/cowboy songs. In these styles, of course, one wants a crisp, regular alternating bass, but I can't seem to develop this skill, as I keep picking the wrong strings!Because I normally play open chords, and because I have no difficulty with my fretting hand, the problem is not so much hitting bad notes as a very sloppy, irregular sound. I've tried again and again to work through this problem--I can play a D chord with alternating bass on the D and A strings for ten minutes straight, and at the end of this period my technique is a little better (say 85% picking the correct string), but when I come back to the guitar it's like no progress has been made. I'm back in my 60% range once again. Instead of a nice regular 1-5-1-5 bass, I produces something like this: 1-5-1-1-1-5-5-1-5-3-3-1, etc. Yuck! :evil: So what to do? I feel like an NBA player with a 60% free throw record! Does anyone have good exercizes for developing this alternating bass skill? Do any of you regularly ANCHOR your picking hand with your pinky on the pickguard? This seems to work a little, but I find it hard to maintain this position while strumming.Best,Jersey Jack

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Jersey Jack

(@jersey-jack)

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Topic starter 22/03/2008 2:23 pm

Thanks, Denny, this last suggestion actually helped quite a bit! I was in fact running wild on the strum, and holding back a bit really helped! :)

Best,
Jersey Jack

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