Hey,
I've been practicing scalpel picking for a month now, and feel like I'm making good progress. Following Pebber's advice, I've kept my wrist still and used only finger motion. I'm presuming now is the time to branch out and introduce some wrist motion. I guess the normal thing to do would be to combine scalpel with sarod.
However, I saw one of Pebber's videos the other day that said it's not really practical to combine sarod with right-hand string damping. I like to play with a lot of gain, so I need the string damping both to control noise and as a stylistic effect. What would folk recommend as a technique that can accomodate this and be used in combination with scalpel?
Thanks!
Cliff

The best advice I can give you at this point of your playing is to practice each...Sarod and scalpel......separately until you have command of them on there own. It took me seven years to get a blend for my own balance with the technique. Its a very VERY VERY powerful technique under your belt but is also a very VERY delicate technique to learn. Its ALL about balance and you must practice each separately until you think you may have the idea...then shoot us a video before you blend. VERY important!

Look at the Sarod thread on here....that should give a general idea about the blend.

As far as noise control...daming/muting.....I am/was getting there with Sarod. Its a bit tricky, at least for me. My balance gets thrown off but have made some progress. No conclusions yet.....

Thanks for the advice :).
While I can feel the scalpel coming together, I'm also aware that it'll take a *lot* more practice before it's a solid technique for me.
Learning sarod concerns me a little. I've tried very briefly a couple of times, and it feels very unnatural. More importantly, if after seven years you're still not sure if sarod is the right technique for damping/muting, and you have way more technical facility than me, maybe this isn't the right approach for me to take.

Thats rather a give up before you start approach Cliff
Tried it briefly.. give it at least a a year
I would say you could pick any way you like and if you work hard enough it will be usable BUT!
A lot of ways seem unstable and to much tension.
Its the way Pebber teaches and while i may not have a perfect sarod movement it's something like it.
It just feels so comfortable and you can fast pick endlessly.
Also muting is possible all the exercise you do, also do them all muted and bobs yer uncle.

That's not quite what I was intending to say.
The fact that it feels unnatural isn't a sufficient reason not to try it, for sure. Scalpel picking didn't feel natural at first either. The 'tried it briefly' comment was only intending to give context to the fact that, so far, it does indeed feel unnatural.
The point I was driving at was that Pebber himself said the technique doesn't work with damping (I'll try and dig up the precise video if you like), and FRaKh said he feels like he's still trying to adopt the technique to work with damping. I'm happy to put the time in if this is the right approach, but only if it's going to get me to where I want to be.

The seven years comes into play because my thumb was near broken and I had to completely learn a new angle for picking. Plus I modified my hybrid 4 times before finding the sweet spot. Im happy!

The dampening/muting I never practiced it before someone on here brought it up....and dang...I just didnt practice it. Sooooo....i am fixing it now. Thats all.

Remember....it takes at least 2 years to decide on a technique on whether or not to change it....or to hell with it....lol. But the point is...it takes a while to practice in order to get a good understanding of it.

My opinion....

SAROD will launch you over the top.

Dont give up....it will improve.

Cool. Thanks for the clarification and the encouragement. I'll definitely give it a good go :).

Good way is to start with fleshy part of hand behind the bridge and slowly bring it forward till the fleshy part is touching the string at the bridge,

Are you talking specifically in terms of sarod, or generally about palm muting? Either way, a video would be much appreciated :).

I will pop a video up will be good for myself to see if i am still using sarod (type) technique while muting..

Pebber - truly, I don't expect instant gratification (of course, I'd be happy if it could be achieved). I just didn't want to spend a long amount of time on a technique that might not be suitable for me. Since it is indeed difficult to learn, it's going to take a good amount of practice before I can tell whether it's going to be 'right'.
Anyway, thanks for confirming that sarod can be used with damping. For now, I'm trying sarod with a floating wrist so I can (hopefully) get that down. Once I'm confident I know what it should feel like, I'll try to introduce the damping.