bdeivert
Serious MM Forum Member
Posts: 33
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Post by bdeivert on Feb 24, 2024 10:28:10 GMT
Michael, your leftover pick drawer looks like mine at home... :-) I do like Snakehips does by dropping the pick in boiling water and then putting it on. I prefer playing without picks, but the volume for use in sensitive PA settings is good help. I love grabbing the bass E string with my thumb and flipping it up to get that snap, which you can't do with fingerpicks. I love the way Sam Chatmon plays and have used him a lot of inspiration on the use of the thumb. By the way, the advice on pastic on metal fingerpick modification was inspiring. I may try that!
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Post by Michael Messer on Feb 24, 2024 11:35:35 GMT
Michael, your leftover pick drawer looks like mine at home... :-) I do like Snakehips does by dropping the pick in boiling water and then putting it on. I prefer playing without picks, but the volume for use in sensitive PA settings is good help. I love grabbing the bass E string with my thumb and flipping it up to get that snap, which you can't do with fingerpicks. I love the way Sam Chatmon plays and have used him a lot of inspiration on the use of the thumb. By the way, the advice on pastic on metal fingerpick modification was inspiring. I may try that! We share a lot of things in common, even our drawers full of picks and other junk! I can and often do snap the bass string with my thumbpick. It is actually really easy, you just get the pick behind the string and twist your hand backwards. On resophonic guitars it is good to do it up towards the neck where the string is more pliable, less likely to damage the cone, especially on a Tricone. Shine On Michael
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Post by slide496 on Feb 24, 2024 12:34:51 GMT
I did get sculpey, the bakable clay to see if it was an aid to shaping, but other than making a mold around the outside which would record the length, width and angle of a pick already made to your specifications I did not think it would be useful. Additionally, the materials that I used are more visual artist specific so it would working with materials musician would not be familiar with or perhaps receptive to using.
I use a very thin layer of moleskin to line my dunlop thumbpick when it gets stretched out- that helps to keep it on, but I don't have a set idea of tone so that might be or not a useful idea...
H
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bdeivert
Serious MM Forum Member
Posts: 33
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Post by bdeivert on Feb 24, 2024 20:09:48 GMT
Michael, I will have to figure out that thumbpick trick you mention. One can teach an old dog new tricks. :-)
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Post by Michael Messer on Feb 24, 2024 20:17:47 GMT
Michael, I will have to figure out that thumbpick trick you mention. One can teach an old dog new tricks. :-) Bert, I'm sure I could video it for you. Shine On Michael
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bdeivert
Serious MM Forum Member
Posts: 33
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Post by bdeivert on Feb 26, 2024 10:12:31 GMT
Tried that out and understand what you mean Michael. I grab the string underneath and pull up when not using thumbpick, but with the thumbpick it is a similar movement but after the backwards rotation of the hand one PICKS upward, right?
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Post by Michael Messer on Feb 26, 2024 15:48:10 GMT
Tried that out and understand what you mean Michael. I grab the string underneath and pull up when not using thumbpick, but with the thumbpick it is a similar movement but after the backwards rotation of the hand one PICKS upward, right? Kind of, yes. Maybe I'll make a video later Shine On Michael
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Post by tomgiemza on Feb 26, 2024 16:59:43 GMT
Tried that out and understand what you mean Michael. I grab the string underneath and pull up when not using thumbpick, but with the thumbpick it is a similar movement but after the backwards rotation of the hand one PICKS upward, right? There's an example around 1:21
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Post by Michael Messer on Feb 26, 2024 18:08:29 GMT
I can't watch it, but I am sure you are right that he snaps the bottom E on that song. He had an extra slot by the bottom E string in the bridge saddle of his style 1 Tricone. It was cut quite a lot deeper than the main E string slot, so when he played pieces that required string snapping he would move the E into the extra slot which made it easier to snap the string and not do any damage to the cones.
Shine On Michael
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Post by tomgiemza on Feb 27, 2024 9:28:55 GMT
Lately, I've been practicing thumbpick snap, I wasn't aware that there is a danger of damaging cone! I always do it close to the fretboard and try not to use any more power than necessary. I do it on single cone. It's easy to do it out of context, but much harder in a song.
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Post by Michael Messer on Feb 27, 2024 9:36:58 GMT
Lately, I've been practicing thumbpick snap, I wasn't aware that there is a danger of damaging cone! I always do it close to the fretboard and try not to use any more power than necessary. I do it on single cone. It's easy to do it out of context, but much harder in a song. Tom, as long as you are thoughtful when you do it you won't damage anything. Brozman was playing a vintage Tricone and was very protective of their old cones, as am I with my old guitars. Snapping the bass string up close the the fretboard and doing it with care, is fine. In fact with a thumbpick it is a more gentle action than it is without a pick. It is a more precise and positive action. I have done it thousands of times on all of my guitars and haven't lost one yet! I do believe very strongly that if snapping the bass string is over-used it becomes annoying and unpleasant to the listeners ears. So don't do it too often. Shine On Michael
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Post by snakehips on Feb 27, 2024 10:21:41 GMT
Hi again !
On the moulding heated-up plastic fingerpicks onto your fingers, we had discussed briefly, humorously, that I need a cast model of my fingers, to wrap the heated-up plastic picks around and hold - until they cool down.
I was thinking about the practicalities of that more - and decided that it won't work as well as intended.
My fingers/thumbs are squishy !!! Wrapping heated-up fingerpicks around a solid cast (of whatever material) of "unsquished" fingers will create picks that are not tight enough on my fingers/thumb !
So, what I've realised is I just need a mould made of the INSIDE of my favourite picks (unstretched) - and mould the heated-up picks on that. They should (hopefully) end up the same shape as my favourite picks - AND feel snug on my fingers, just like my favourite ones !
Just need to try out that theory now !! Actually, I get on fine with Jim Dunlop Large thumbpicks - it's just the fingerpicks I need to work on - for my index & middle fingers.
I shall report back.
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Post by davetracey on Feb 27, 2024 11:19:25 GMT
I was a bit concerned reading that you could damage a cone by snapping the bass string too. I only started trying to do it about a month ago, after watching Martin from the Washboards Resonators demonstrating how he plays "Death Letter Blues" on youtube. Since then I have been snapping away, or trying to, gay abandon. Maybe a bit more circumspection and thought is required !
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Post by Michael Messer on Feb 27, 2024 13:46:52 GMT
I appear to have opened a can of worms here....
I have not seen Martyn doing that, so cannot comment. When Son House did string snapping in his later years, while it may have sounded and looked amazing, I don't think the various guitars he used would have appreciated that treatment. I certainly would not have lent him one of my vintage Nationals. An important thing to consider is that with Son House's extraordinary presence and charisma, coupled with a voice and delivery to die for, and his metre that is always dead on, his guitar playing doesn't really have to be accurate or even in tune, so that incredible right hand doing its thing is almost a performance in itself. You can see that he has pulled the string out of its slot. Listen to Son House on his earlier recordings (I mean earlier in his life, not earlier that day) before the alcohol had done its work on him, and his music is different - still powerful and raw, but also refined and controlled. Late Son House was and still is an amazing thing to behold and 50 or more years on from first hearing and it still moves me, but early Son House was a class act with everything under control.
So string snapping with gay abandon is not something I would advise on any resonator guitar. You can make it look that way, but it has to be controlled. Otherwise over time it will cause damage to the cone. Much safer and easier on a spider bridge guitar because the cone is inverted and the pressure is spread out through eight legs, so no amount of string snapping will move anything, and if it does you can tighten the screw in the centre.
This is an interesting thread, it is twisting and turning, but staying focussed on playing guitar.
Oh....I forgot to say that I know about the subject of string snapping destroying guitars because in my younger days I wrecked a cone or two doing just that!
And....another approach is to get a couple of spare Continental cones and replace them when they're wrecked.
Late Son House.... The Death Letter album, was of course one of the records that turned me on to wanting to play blues on National guitars - Death Letter and Preaching The Blues were the hits on that record.
Shine On Michael
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Post by tomgiemza on Feb 27, 2024 15:55:55 GMT
That's a great description of Son's style! One of my favourite songs of him is My Black Mama, very similar to Death Letter Blues, also with snapping, I think he played it on wooden guitar. There's also Charley Patton's snapping walkdown
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