The Art and Science of Picking for the Jazz Guitar
Contrary to popular opinion, picking is the most difficult technical skill on the jazz guitar. Since the fingering hand is visually impressive, most guitar players think more and work harder on the fingering hand than they do on the picking hand.
Let’s break down picking into its most basic components. There are only 2 pick strokes – a down pick and an up pick. This is a fact but it’s not too useful. What is useful however, is the fact that there are four picking pairs:
- 1) down – up
- 2) up – down