Hey guys,

As a noob I'm paying close attention to getting scalpel picking right, but am sort of confused how it can work when the direction of the stroke is in-line with the plane of the pick (at roughly 30 degrees to the string). In the new video BASICS_1A_Picking_Technique.mp4, Pebber shows it very clearly, but when I do it his way the sound is really soft and dull, and is also scratchy on the wound strings. It seems like there's no release or "snap" to set the string vibrating.

Then as I looked closer, I began wondering: to get that snap off the string, do I need a pointed pick (like Pebber's Dawa, Jazz IIIs, et.al.) to make it work cleanly? I'm using the blunt-tipped Dunlop MaxGrip picks, and that blunt nose just rides over the string without getting a clean release. (Using wrist-picking holding the MaxGrip pick at the same angle to the strings but using a stroke angle roughly 90 degrees to the strings, the sound sounds much better cleaner.)

I'm assuming (but I not 100% clear as to why) that scalpel picking is superior to wrist picking, but doing some searching on other forums it appears that this topic is somewhat controversial. I'm hoping someone could explain the long-term benefits to me?

BTW, when Pebber gets up to full speed, it's really hard to see his thumb motion and stroke direction, so it "looks" a lot like wrist picking, but I'm assuming this is an artifact of the frame rate of the video.

Thanks in advance!

Peter

I use Dunlop picks as well, 1.25mm, and I love them. I find that I have to back off of 30 degrees slightly or I get a lot of pick scrape noise.

Scalpel picking has really upped my game. I find that when I'm not concentrating I play much more cleanly and have far better muting control.

Sarod picking is still a challenge because I haven't worked on it that much.

Wrist picking was always really uncomfortably stiff to me, so I never worked on it at all. I got way too tense and hated it. So Pebber's method works excellent for me.

That said, he says himself all the time that he just feels strongly this is the best way since he's tried every damned method for about 40 years or so. If we find it doesn't work best for us and we can be much better using another technique he'd never stop us.

Thanks Pebber, that's MUCH clearer than BASICS_1A_Picking_Technique.mp4, and makes a lot of sense.

Unless you say differently, I'm going to assume the sweep angle and pick angle are the same for strumming across groups of strings as for single string picking.

Cheers,

Peter