Jimmy Herring Discussion

[BRayStrat]

Over the past few years, I've been altering my techniques to become a better guitarist, to just become a more effeicent guitarist and get those Herring like chops that'll forever elude me...My latest adjustment is the floating hand technique, as opposed to resting my picking hand on the guitar. I started running scale exercises with a floating pick hand, and I feel with a litle practice I can make strides in my playing...

Here's something I stole from another site:

http://www.ibreathemusic.com/article/72/1

The floating hand

K... now, get ready for the "floating hand"...

Get ready for a tale of suspense... and horror...
See Eric Lugosi and Vincent Vandenberg in...
"The Floating Hand From Hell"....
(insert cheesy violin sounds and manic laughter)

Sorry, had to throw that one in.

Now, to cut to the chase, a lot of people actually are "anchoring". That means, they are resting their hand on the bridge of their guitar, or they press the fingertips of some of their r.h.-fingers onto the body of the guitar / pickguard, or they even anchor their r.h.-pinkie to the volume knob.

In my opinion, I think this might be fine for some players, but I actually recommend trying to "float the hand", meaning that the hand is OFF the guitar (you MIGHT slightly touch the bridge, but in general, try to avoid contact, and if you touch it with your palm, don't rest it there).

In the beginning, I did just that, resting my r.h. palm onto the bridge. I thought that it gave me more stability and control.

Well, imagine my surprise when I saw PG play up-close, and he "floated his hand". So I tried it (I like to try stuff to see whether it works for me... if it doesn't I just leave it alone), and after a few days of getting used to it (it felt AWKWARD in the beginning), I noticed how much easier it made playing, i.e. the fast stuff.

I just relaxed my wrist and moved the hand from the wrist. All of a sudden I noticed an increase of speed as well as more... sound options. All of a sudden it was easy to really whack the strings, to get a tone out of it.

It just felt more loose, more relaxed, simply easier. Also, once I stopped touching the bridge I noticed that it was easier to "aim". Meaning that, even when playing the "PG-lick" at high-speed, I wasn't hitting the G-string accidentally anymore, which had driven me insane before.

With my hand floating it didn't happen anymore, and also, I increased speed and accuracy really fast.

I'd recommend to try this approach... it might work well for you. Give it some time to get used to it. If you think it doesn't work, just forget about it
_________________
"There's a lot of different forms of communication, but music is absolutely the purest one, man.
There's nothing that could ever be bad about playing music."
- Duane Allman

[GrantMe]

after reading your thread i decided to see what i did when i play....funny enough i seem to do both depending on what sound im try to get i guess maybe thats just a natural evolution without me ever having thought about it but mostly..wich i assume is very wrong in some folks eyes... is that i lay my hand over all the strings except the ones im playing on at the moment ...lol...oh well.

[ARUjeff]

i tend to rest my forearm on the guitar and have my wrist float with my pinky sometimes lightly resting on the pickguard....when i play fast though i seem to use a combo of wrist movement and elbow movement with a floating hand...my pinky grazes the pickguard when i begin to play anywhere from 150 bpm and up. Play clean and try the floating hand...i gave it a month and it seemed to work out well...with speed and accuracy....DEFINATLEY USE A METRONOME

[gsbe]

Jimmy is definitely a technician when it comes to picking. He seems to favor the classic jazz up-down picking on every 8th or 16th depending on the tempo. A lot of players, including Jimmy, move their wrist in a figure eight pattern simulating a longer pull-push move from the entire forearm.

[smv929]

Interesting you describe it as a figure 8 movement. Thanks for that description. I've been using the floating hand for a while, but still trying to achive Herring-like abilities (never will be at his level but I'm always getting better with it). I noticed on one of the recent Code Talkers Dvd torrents, that Herring was doing something like that.

I initially using a palm-resting-on-the-bridge technique where the thumb and first finger knuckle joints did most of the movement. I'm able to pick scales very fast and with solid connections that way, but it's not very ergonomic. Plus, it's hare to pick pentatonic blues-like licks (Steve Ray or even much the Herring pentanoic licks -- like two notes on a string) which is why I started the floating hand technique years ago.

To become more accurate, it seems I've found this to help (please comment on anything that might help):
1. Angling the pick so the side strikes the string. It seems either side of the pick helps. Sometimes one side seems better for descending or ascending, but it also depends on my mental state at the time. Not sure about this.
2. When you're wrist is floating, as you know, you achieve speed with the fast moving up-and-down of the wrist or in a figure 8 or whatever. But I think you have to combine moving the thumb/first finger joints as well for fine-accuracy.

I know this may sound silly to discuss this. Many guitarist don't have to think about this to achieve greatness, but they are the lucky ones. If anyone can comment that might help us striving to get better, please do.

[gsbe]

There is a pretty amazing video of the ARU rhythm section giving a clinic in Atlanta in the mid-90s where Jimmy discusses some of his technique and scales. I have a copy on DVD which is on loan to a friend currently. I will try to digitize this video in the future and put it on YouTube or Google Video for everyone to review.

Its a long video where they mostly just play but there are sections where each of the three members discuss their technique and angle on music. I found it to be a fascinating video and one that I've tried to return to a number of times since I got it.

There are a few magazine articles about Jimmy from Guitar Player and the others but none really get to the heart of his technique like this video. I'll do my best to get it up on the web in the next....year.

[smv929]

I'm looking forward to the video. Please do post it. I've seen a clinic with Oteil and Alfonso ? (forgot the name), both on bass. Jimmy was off stage but there. Perhaps it was the same thing. Anyway, please do post that even if it's next year. thanks!

[gsbe]

Probably will be sometime early next year when I get a chance to post that...but its a good one. I'm sure you'll enjoy it. Cheers!