Hybrid Right Hand Technique for Jazz Guitar

Video Transcript

"Hello! My name is Dustin, and I am going to talk about the hybrid right hand technique. Playing with the pick has its advantages, you can play fast runs with well separated notes, each having a clear pronounced attack… but it has many disadvantages, it makes playing lines of large interval skips, at a high speed, a little bit awkward… and it makes walking bass lines with chord comps a little bit awkward, not natural as well…Now playing with all five fingers has many advantages over the pick style; you can play the walking bass lines with the chord comps… you can play the interval lines with the interval skips at high speeds… you can play arpeggiated chord lines… and you could play percussive thumb strokes...the one disadvantage is that it becomes very challenging to play the runs up and down the fret board as fast and as well articulated as you can with the pick… Many players can do this; it just takes a long time to develop, I personally do not have that skill or developed; and many jazz players have the same problem, so they have developed the hybrid picking technique, which incorporates the holding of the pick with the thumb and the index finger and the use of your middle finger, ring and pinky fingers for other things. This technique allows you to still play the fast runs with the well articulated notes… the walking bass lines with the chord comps… the large interval skips at high speeds… you can play the arpeggiated chord lines… so go ahead and try each of these techniques and see which one frees you up the most. "