Hybrid Picking

A hybrid-picking tutorial by veteran guitarist Jeff Carlisi from 38 Special.

Hi I am Jeff Carlisi, founding member and the lead guitarist for 38 Special for over 23 years. I like to talk to you about something that's very important to me and that's really how you can develop your technique as a musician to create a signature sound that's uniquely yours. During the summer, we do a rock-and-roll camp for kids call Camp Jam and I always tell these kids to not go through life with musical blinders on. And by that what I mean is listen to everything, listen all kinds of music; you don't have to like it all but listen to it because you will pick up elements and bit and pieces of this sound, this approach, this technique, that you will kind of cook up in your chilly, your own stew and make it yours. So with that being said, when I was growing up, I was influenced of course by the Beatles and the Stones and the Soul movement of the 60s; and of course Jimi Hendrix, and Cream and the Heavy Blues. All the way through Queen and Brian May and you name it. The list goes on and on and on. But one of the things I did listen to, one of the styles of music was country music, but specifically the first guy to really grab my ear in the late 60s was a guy name Jerry Reed. And Jerry Reed is probably to some of you known as, "Hey! Wasn't that the truck driver in Smokey and the Bandit?" Yes, he was but he was but Jerry Reed was also and still is one of the greatest guitar players who had ever play, and Chet Atkins had tremendous respect for him and many people do. And I really like listening to Jerry Reed. The other song that was actually a hit song in the 60s on Popular Radio called Amos Moses. It's kind of a funny song and it was this sloppy kind of riff, that kind of picking, and -- so I played that song and really start to get into Jerry Reed and realize that the way he played; he played a finger-style technique but almost what he called claw picking. And he had this one song called the Claw which was one of my favorite songs and I still play it today. It basically was an instrumental one. That's the idea of it. It was just really cool and it's a guitar player song. Jerry, of course, use thumb pick and use his fingers and his nails to play, and very good at it. That's how I started playing and that style was listening to Jerry Reed and using my fingers and a few years later, I took up paddle steel so of course you were on the steel picks and the thumb pick, and I played paddle steel for two or three years. And then you revert back to guitar but a lot of those skills and those techniques again I put into my guitar playing. So again, there are lot of 38 special songs where I use that style of playing and this is a song called Somebody Like You and it started of --. And again you can play it with the pick but it's more legato, it's not sharp, it's not crisp as opposed to -- the song fantasy grow another song where I am using that technique. So my point is from listening to country music, from listening to Jerry Reed, from listening to lot of these players, Chet Atkins included. You pick up on a technique that you apply to the kind of music what you are doing and that makes unique and a little distinctive. Even simpler things caught up in new, there is some picking patterns or in the solo link with, I let the people ask me about Hold On Loosely. Just using the finger caught up a new. So those types of things have become second nature for me. So that being said, if you are interested, if you want to explore that style of playing and you can really use it to your advantage in so many different styles of music and anything that you are writing. There is a great exercise. I don't know why I picked this up. It's been around for a while but it's an A major scale basically. But you can play it using open strings. So you are talking about A, B, C#, D and E, then back down. So if you play on the D string, you can play the A level on the 7th fret, if you D string, your B note, it can be open, open B, your C#, it can be on your G string, your D on your G string and your E on your high E string. So you can play it using a finger-style technique. I will do it with just the pick first. See it's very difficult to execute that way, just because you do in the sequence but when you do it with your fingers, it makes it very, very easy. That's the right hand what it's doing, so pull off here. You do that for about a month. If you want to change to a minor key you go -- Very little movement here with the left hand. It's just the matter of timing but it's a great exercise for your right hand. You can start out slow. You want to use the thumb pick, how about it, try that or you can just hold the regular guitar pick with your thumb and forefinger and use and don't bite your nails. So give that a try and happy hunting and see you next time. Hi! I am Jeff Carlisi and I am back with you to kind of take a part, Hold On Loosely and give you the road-map on how the song was put together. The intro starts on the 7th fret. We are just basically using the one and the five, the B note and the F#.