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Topic: Pick Blocking,,,,, |
Sonny Jenkins
From:
Texas Masonic Retirement Center,,,Arlington Tx
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Posted 14 May 2012 6:14 am |
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I'm wondering if pick blocking is a "newer" generation thing? I know when I went to Jeff Newmans school in the early 80s he did NOT advocate it. I'm wondering "who", of the earlier generation pickers, pick blocked,,,Emmons?,,,Chalker?,,,Reece?,,Green?,,Tom Morrel?,,,
No doubt people like Paul Franklin and Joe Wright have shown the advantages,,,but who of the "older" generation never,,or seldom used it? |
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chris ivey
From:
california (deceased)
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Posted 14 May 2012 10:36 am
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i'm pretty sure that most older good players just played the steel. they didn't think, necessarily, what specific technique in the modern boutique steel terminology they were intentionally trying to use. they played so that the instrument sounded good, notes didn't run into each other and the tone was clear and pretty. they figured out by practicing, how to make this work for them.
picking all the little sub-techniques apart is a little anal and everyone seems to be obsessively over concerned.
relax! feel out your instrument. become one with it on a personal level.enjoy.....don't sress. |
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Mike Kowalik
From:
San Antonio,Texas
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Posted 14 May 2012 11:07 am
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| Sonny....not really sure how to categorize Hal Rugg as far as older or newer geneartion....but I remember reading some time back that when Hal was exposed to pick blocking he essentially taught himself to play over again as he abandoned palm blocking in favor of pick blocking. |
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Donny Hinson
From:
Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.
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Posted 14 May 2012 2:28 pm
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| Quote: |
| ...I went to Jeff Newmans school in the early 80s he did NOT advocate it. |
Boy, there's a lot of stuff that Jeff didn't do or advocate, but that doesn't mean that those things weren't good or useful techniques. Each player has his own "bag of tricks", and that's why you should never copy or pattern yourself after just one player.
Anyhow, pick blocking likely goes back at least 50 years. Although it's not new, it has gained more popularity in the past couple of decades, probably because it works so well on faster stuff.  |
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Dave Grafe
From:
Hudson River Valley NY
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Posted 14 May 2012 3:59 pm
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| Quote: |
| i'm pretty sure that most older good players just played the steel. |
I'm not at all in the class of pickers that you refer to, Sonny, but I do know that when I started playing with pedals in the early 1970's I had been playing stringed instruments for some years already and had never heard of 'pick blocking' or any other specific method. No matter that, as the pick-blocking method, sans the monicker, is the more-or-less 'approved' way to control pizzicato notes when playing the classical bass, which I had already done for some time. It has only been with my exposure to this forum that the term and the discussion have come to my notice.
One of the mental advantages of playing an instrument in the early days of its development is that there is no 'right' or 'wrong' to it at all, only what you can do to pruduce pleasing results for the listener to absorb. When I first heard about Jeff Newman and his aversion to using the picking fingers to stop ringing strings I had a brief moment of panic, that I had been doing it all wrong for thirty-five years. The renewed focus DID result in some careful self-analysis and practice points but it was only after listening to the playback of some recent recordings that I was satisfied that my life-long 'parts-blocking' technique, i.e. using any and all body parts parts available to cntrol the instrument, was adequate for my needs at this time.
Last edited by Dave Grafe on 14 May 2012 4:20 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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Bill Terry
From:
Bastrop, TX
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Posted 14 May 2012 4:05 pm
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| Quote: |
| i'm pretty sure that most older good players just played the steel. |
You might say the same thing about the endless tuning discussions.
_________________
Lost Pines Studio
"I'm nuts about bolts" |
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Ray Anderson
From:
Jenkins, Kentucky USA
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Posted 14 May 2012 5:24 pm
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| I'm with Dave on this one, You can look for ways to try and shorcut tone and technique..........but the truth of the matter is nothing replaces experience and time behind the instrument. As far as blocking: there are times that I do and times that I just let ring, depends on how I feel and the mood that I'm in. If I'm pleased everyone else has to be JMHO. Have fun with it, I do. I have seen people play Piano by form and no feeling in it whatsoever,personally I'd rather hear somebody yodel. Just don't want to get to that point where there's no fun in it. |
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John Shadid
From:
Oklahoma City, OK
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Posted 14 May 2012 6:37 pm
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I studied classical guitar for many years through high school, college, and beyond. I would literally spend hours practicing the same 3 note runs by Segovia making sure that all the fingers worked in harmony, e.g. preparing the thumb as the middle finger plucked. Having spent so much time with this, when I started playing steel guitar, intuitively I knew how to "pick block" yet I had no prior knowledge of this technique or have any experience with palm blocking. Not to sound conceited, but if it was good enough for Segovia, it was probably good enough for Emmons!
Not to sound close-minded, I do still put in half an hour to improve my palm block almost every time I sit down to play. Like the others mentioned, each has its own applications... and sometimes I want to sound like those older players!
_________________
Johnny Up PSG Lessons @
http://www.youtube.com/user/johnnyupok |
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John Shadid
From:
Oklahoma City, OK
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Posted 14 May 2012 6:56 pm
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I studied classical guitar for many years through high school, college, and beyond. I would literally spend hours practicing the same 3 note runs by Segovia making sure that all the fingers worked in harmony, e.g. preparing the thumb as the middle finger plucked. Having spent so much time with this, when I started playing steel guitar, intuitively I knew how to "pick block" yet I had no prior knowledge of this technique or have any experience with palm blocking. Not to sound conceited, but if it was good enough for Segovia, it was probably good enough for Emmons!
Not to sound close-minded, I do still put in half an hour to improve my palm block almost every time I sit down to play. Like the others mentioned, each has its own applications... and sometimes I want to sound like those older players!
_________________
Johnny Up PSG Lessons @
http://www.youtube.com/user/johnnyupok |
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Bud Angelotti
From:
Larryville, NJ, USA
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Posted 14 May 2012 7:48 pm
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This video was posted under another topic by Dave from England.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPvv1wOXeac
Look how this guy blocks and notice how he never even glances at his picking hand. Interesting. |
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Joe Rogers
From:
Lake Charles, LA USA
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Posted 14 May 2012 8:05 pm
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Sonny, I went to Jeff's school in the early 80's. At the time, Jeff did not advocate anything but muting, but I truly believe that was only because he most likely didn't understand the concept or mechanics of pick blocking at the time. Why do I say that? Because I experienced the exact same reaction from both Jeff and Herb Remington who sold me my first Pro guitar.
I never had anyone show me how to block when I started. Heck I didn't even know what blocking was then. Nevertheless I naturally gravitated toward pick blocking. Next time I saw Herb, he said, "You're playing all wrong, you need to turn your hand like this." I went home and after an hour of trying, went back to my way of playing. Keep in mind at this point I still didn't know "my way of playing" was pick blocking.
A year or so later I went to Jeff's school. He looked at my hand and said, "You're playing all wrong, you need to turn your hand like this." So I spent the next 3 years learning how to play pretty ballads knowing I would never have any speed due the awkwardness (that never left me) of this muting technique that I now played.
Fast forward a few years, I stop in Herb's shop again and he says, "Joe, you gotta hear this new guy in town named Tom Bath. Plays a technique called pick blocking. Joe if you could learn this, it will triple your speed." I went to hear Tom at the club, met him during a break, and scheduled a time for him to show me how to play this technique. It was after a few days of re-learning that I realized this was the technique I had started out playing. Not only that, it was twice as hard to re-learn it since my mind was now programmed NOT to play like that. And yes, it did triple my speed.
Back when Herb told me my technique was wrong, I asked him why I couldn't block the way I was blocking. He said, "Well.....you will get too much pick noise doing it like that". Herb didn't fully understand the mechanics of the technique back then, but later came to see it as viable through Tom. I feel the same thing happened with Jeff. He and Paul later taught a speed picking seminar and they BOTH agreed that if you can learn BOTH muting AND pick blocking, you are way ahead of the pack. My personal perception is that it is extremely difficult to do this because I truly feel one's brain is hard wired for either one or the other. Not that it cannot be done, but it is a rare and gifted individual who can do both techniques equally well. There are certain speed licks that lend themselves well to pick blocking that are extremely difficult to execute with a muting technique...and vice versa. Again, not impossible, but not accomplished without difficulty.
Again, this is only MY opinion based on the experience of having one technique hammered into me and another technique that flowed 100% naturally.
Joe Rogers |
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Billy Tonnesen
From:
R.I.P., Buena Park, California
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Posted 14 May 2012 9:23 pm
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I never heard of "Palm" or "Pick Blocking" until I joined the Forum.
When I learned Steel Guitar there was music that indicated to play the passage in what was called "staccato". This meant you had to cut the note off and not let it ring by whatever means it took with your hands. I don't know how you could cut a note off with the "Palm" of your Hand.
_________________
Sacramento Western Swing Society Hall of Fame, 1992 |
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Sonny Jenkins
From:
Texas Masonic Retirement Center,,,Arlington Tx
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Posted 15 May 2012 11:45 am
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Hey Joe,,,I appreciate your input on this,,,and though I'm not nearly in the same class of player as you are,,,,my experience has been very similar,,,and yes,,I think Jeff finally did come around to seeing the advantages of pick blocking. I am recently starting to work on pick blocking,,,it's tough getting that "1st knuckle to flatten" out a little, after all these years of getting it to "point" up,,,LOL.
Billy,,,maybe we should ask Emmons if it's possible to cut a note off with the palm of your hand? |
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John Billings
From:
Ohio, USA
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Posted 15 May 2012 4:20 pm
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| Interesting! I started finger-picking on a 5-string in 58 or 59. Was playing Travis/Watson style 6-string by 61. Didn't start pedal steel until about 71. I never look at my right hand. Everything there is completely automatic. I both palm and pick block. Never made an effort to learn either. I am completely unaware of what I'm doing with that hand. It just happens. I zone out. |
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Bent Romnes
From:
London,Ontario, Canada
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Posted 16 May 2012 1:49 am
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Pickblocking is old...older than palm blocking IMHO. I feel that Lloyd Green is the instigator of palm blocking in his early "chicken pickin" style where the note is chopped off cleanly and again IMHO more concisely as compared to pickblocking where I can hear how one note more or less slides into the other without that choppy sound of a cut-off note.
It is however hard to detect exactly what Lloyd does since he has such a unique right hand style.
Norm Hamlett once told me that he learned pickblocking from Vance Terry back in the mid 50's. So it's at least that old.
_________________
BenRom Pedal Steel Guitars
https://www.facebook.com/groups/212050572323614/ |
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Tim Tyner
From:
Ayden, North Carolina U.S.A
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Posted 16 May 2012 6:41 am
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| Would love to hear David Hartley's take on this.I've never heard any cleaner blocking than his. |
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Bo Legg
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Posted 16 May 2012 7:05 am
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There is a lot bar hand stuff going on in pick blocking that just doesn't come naturally.
For instance the thumb on the strings in front of the bar and finger on the strings extending past the end of the bar.
Ascending you push the bar forward blocking with the thumb and descending you pull back on the bar blocking with the fingers.
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Donny Hinson
From:
Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.
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Posted 16 May 2012 7:45 am
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Good drawing...except that my own fingers don't extend beyond the end of the bar, and I don't arch my index finger on top of the bar. (It kinda just lays there and does it's thing.) The mechanics are different for many players because they have differing physiology, and tend to do what works well for them. Long fingers, short fingers, fat hands, skinny hands; they can all adapt to what's comfortable and what works best for them!  |
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Niels Andrews
From:
Salinas, California, USA
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Posted 16 May 2012 1:20 pm
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I like that, Look how this guy blocks! Good one!
_________________
Die with Memories. Not Dreams.
Good Stuff like Zum S-12, Wolfe Resoport
MSA SS-12, Telonics Combo. |
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Bill Howard
From:
Indiana, USA
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Posted 17 May 2012 12:39 pm Pick Blocking
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First of all I started playing a pedal steel in 1979
a preachers wife called wanting to sell one so she could buy an orange velour/smoked glass dinette set.
I had no money but I did have a NEW Dinette identical to the one she wanted:).
The steel was a little fender sho bud made,had SB volume pedal,winnies book.a SB Pack a seat,bars and picks:). I had been playing lead many years and didn't have a clue about pick blocking. One of Scottys Former teachers told me I was not "Palm Blocking",then I saw him many yrs later, so called pick blocking. So I was Pick blocking in the 80's before it was called pick blocking. I didnt do it because another famous steel player did it. It was just the way I learned to stop unwanted string noise. It amazes me the amount of guys who run to and fro doing this and that only because someone else did. I do my own thing and get my OWN sound the way I know to get it:). I have a 40 dollar sabine tuner,sorry dont see spending 2 hundred because
someone else did and it has a leg clamp... so do ash trays ..I dont smoke anymore but if I did I would NOT spend 200 bucks on an ASH tray because it has a 99 cent leg clamp. I went to a Jam last year a man had a Bag FULL of Amps and effects, He wanted me to play thru it,I did then... I hooked up to My old Nashville 400 with a dan Echo delay, guys standing around thought my Amp sounded better than his 4 thousand dollar one... and Old Nashville and ANALOG delay..go figure.. I guess Mike Johnson and Jim L on tru Country like Nashvilles for a REASON also?.
I bet some new players can prove them WRONG:). |
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Stuart Legg
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Posted 19 May 2012 9:55 am
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Why would anyone want a Nashville 112 which is lighter but still not light and will let you down if you need some serious volume.
A Nashville 400 sounds better and will give you all the volume you need.
Back to pick blocking. What is the problem with learning all you can from others, using and adapting what you need, learning from their mistakes.
It is a long mistake ridden process trying to reinvent the wheel ever time you want to learn something. |
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Bob Hoffnar
From:
Austin, Tx
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Posted 19 May 2012 12:02 pm
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Somebody else might know this for sure but it really sounds like Joaquin Murphey pick blocked at least some of the time. There is a clarity and finesse to some of his single string work that sounds like pick blocking to me.
From working with Buddy Charleton and a fair number of other players from the first generation I found that they knew exactly what they were doing and studied the why and the how of it obsessively. As the instrument has progressed newer players have given names to the things that they have learned so now we are able to talk about them. Breaking things down in to small bits is a basic way to learn anything. If you want to play at a professional level you need to put some real thoughtful and focused work into it. Would you tell a guy who wants to build a house to "just build it" and stop with all those fancy concepts like foundation and building materials ?
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Bob |
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Franklin
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Posted 19 May 2012 1:55 pm
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| Donny Hinson wrote: |
| Good drawing...except that my own fingers don't extend beyond the end of the bar, and I don't arch my index finger on top of the bar. (It kinda just lays there and does it's thing.) The mechanics are different for many players because they have differing physiology, and tend to do what works well for them. Long fingers, short fingers, fat hands, skinny hands; they can all adapt to what's comfortable and what works best for them! |
I'm with Donnie, that's not my bar hand........My left thumb does not mute strings....In fact nothing on the left hand mutes unless I want to imitate a marimba. Which is the sound Weldon brought to the table on "When The Next Teardrop Falls".
Paul |
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Brad Malone
From:
Pennsylvania, USA
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Posted 23 May 2012 5:24 pm
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I'm wondering if pick blocking is a "newer" generation thing? I know when I went to Jeff Newmans school in the early 80s he did NOT advocate it. I'm wondering "who", of the earlier generation pickers, pick blocked,,,<<
Sonny, you are correct, I remember receiving the Pedal-Rod Newletter that JN mailed to his list and he stated that Pick Blocking was noisy and he advocated sticking to Palm blocking. Jeff had done quite a bit of recording and was in the center of the Pedal Steel Guitar world..plus being an excellent teacher..makes one wonder why he thought the way he did..surely he was not isolated from the pickers that used the pick blocking method..everyone knows that the best Steel pickers in the world are in and around the Nashville area |
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Mike Wheeler
From:
Delaware, Ohio, USA
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Posted 24 May 2012 7:24 am
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Back when I started playing steel, in the early 70s, Winnie's book was all I had. All I knew was that I wanted to learn how to play like BE...I was totally blown away with his playing and sound. I studied anything I could get (which wasn't much) regarding Buddy's playing. I watched him live do his thing and was dumbfounded with how well he did what he did. But, I focused on his hands to learn what magic was going on. He'd play a blazing fast run, his fingers just a blur, but his hand was so relaxed!!...and it didn't bounce up and down!! That baffled me, until I figured it out.
In the course of learning right hand technique, I copied Buddy...which was mostly palm blocking. The interesting thing I found out, was that he didn't always lift and lower his hand to block single note runs. He utilized the little gap at the right edge of his palm where the skin creases below the pinky finger...and he would slide his hand up and down across the strings so as to only allow the played strings to sound. It's a terrific technique and works amazingly well. To me, THAT'S palm blocking.
There's a LOT more to palm blocking than bouncing the hand up and down. But it seems that, to some, that's all it is. And I don't think anyone would say Buddy couldn't play fast. 
The big advantage to pick blocking, IMHO, is the ability to stop a note and instantly play the next one...no gap in between them. It's a great effect and sounds very good. That's very hard to do, if not impossible, when palm blocking.
I don't think combining both styles is all that hard. But it does require a lot of study to fully learn each style. Then you just have to figure out which one to use at any given moment. 
The challenges just never end!!
Anyway, just my 2 cents.
_________________
Best regards,
Mike |
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