Picking hard vs soft

[7starshadowashes]

Hello I’m getting back into shredding and playing around with my picking technique trying to get better. I’m noticing good improvement when I pick hard. It gives me more feedback and makes whether or not I’m playing cleanly less ambiguous. what’s everyone’s input here ? did you start picking harder or softer or stayed the same in order to nail shred lines ? My brother picks softer and always gives me shit thinking I’m just being clumsy on the instrument but I show him people like Jason Richardson who picks really hard. I can pick soft if I want I just think picking hard is better for long term progress and metal sound.

 

[budda]

You’re talking dynamics - learn to do both well.

 

[7starshadowashes]

You’re talking dynamics - learn to do both well.

very helpful thanks !

 

[OmegaSlayer]

Hello I’m getting back into shredding and playing around with my picking technique trying to get better. I’m noticing good improvement when I pick hard. It gives me more feedback and makes whether or not I’m playing cleanly less ambiguous. what’s everyone’s input here ? did you start picking harder or softer or stayed the same in order to nail shred lines ? My brother picks softer and always gives me shit thinking I’m just being clumsy on the instrument but I show him people like Jason Richardson who picks really hard. I can pick soft if I want I just think picking hard is better for long term progress and metal sound.

Be conscious and deliberate with your picking
Use accents practicing different subdivision...even 1/5, even if you won't ever use them
Flip the alternate from down up to up down and accent on the upstroke (which is hard)
Then try to accent the 2nd, or 3rd or 4th note of a group of 4 notes
And practice on acoustic or nylon, controlling from very quiet to very loud
Do these kind of things...it won't seems so, but they'll help a lot building speed, because you build awareness of your picking motion

Side note...generaly speaking, picking hard won't make you play faster as you'll probably tense up...so, my suggestion is to pick at the "volume/strength" that won't make you tense up

 

[High Plains Drifter]

I don't shred but at least for me doing solo stuff, I used to come in hard which as noted above created more tension in my picking hand and at times clumsiness or at least inability to control the overall flow from note to note. Picking lighter allowed me to focus on precision and consistency. I'll add that I used to use 1.5 mm picks but eventually went to a super light .50 mm pick with an increase in volume and that also helped... so experimenting around with different plectrum gauges might help as well.

 

[Mboogie7]

Pick hard for the Chonk, pick soft for the shredded solos.

 

[Fenriswolf]

Side note...generaly speaking, picking hard won't make you play faster as you'll probably tense up...so, my suggestion is to pick at the "volume/strength" that won't make you tense up

That's a thing that held me up for a long time. Especially when I was first learning guitar, there's some stuff that sounds good when you hit the strings as hard as a drunk stepdad. But as far as leads go, I usually just pick hard to emphasize the beat (like on the 1 and 3), or if you need to emphasize a part between runs in your lead.

 

[OmegaSlayer]

That's a thing that held me up for a long time. Especially when I was first learning guitar, there's some stuff that sounds good when you hit the strings as hard as a drunk stepdad. But as far as leads go, I usually just pick hard to emphasize the beat (like on the 1 and 3), or if you need to emphasize a part between runs in your lead.