Cliffs of Dover Hybrid Picking Lick¶
This is the famous “pedal tone” lick at the start of the Cliffs of Dover. I found it useful to decompose the technique to separate components and tackle those indpendently, before putting everything together. Below is one way to approach it, see if it works for you.
Here’s the tab, transposed down a bit. All downstrokes are with the pick, all upstrokes are with a finger of the picking hand:
Overall approach¶
Break it down¶
When I initially practiced the lick, it was too much to take on; however, as I worked on it, I gradually discovered the different components that I could break it down to (i.e. I could Simplify it), and where possible I used Hands Separate practice.
I worked on these components one at a time in succession until each was mastered. I didn’t try to work on each in parallel – for me, that would have been too much. I also knew that it would take a while for each motion to “bake in” to my mind and body, and so keeping the parts small and digestible helped me gradually conquer the whole thing.
20-minute chunks¶
For each different part, I stuck with the 20-minute practice session described in Practicing Repertoire. It takes time to acquire new motions, for example when working on new techniques, so keeping the sessions short and experimental let me find what worked, and gave my brain and body time to adapt. I moved on to the next technique when the current one felt natural at the start of any practice session.
The components¶
When either the fretting hand or picking hand becomes tense, that tension can propagate throughout the body, and trip you up. When all the components work well separately, they can be gradually combined.
Fretting hand¶
If you subtract picking, the fretting hand needs to effortlessly and evenly bounce across the strings:
I practiced this seemingly-easy lick in short bursts, ensuring everything was relaxed and efficient.
Picking hand¶
Eric talks about a “bounce” technique for his picking hand. If you take out the fretting hand, e.g. just lay the hand across the strings, you end up with a bunch of downstrokes:
With a few short sessions, I found that my picking hand seemed to find the required motion very naturally, and it did happen to have a bouncy yet controlled feeling.
Trills¶
With the fretting and picking hands nice and loose, you have a good foundation to actually start working on the hybrid picking. Starting first with a single trill:
I first worked on single trills (just a few notes), and gradually extended it until I could play a few quickly and easily, as a single unit. Both hands felt energized.
Trill and jump¶
When the trills were good, add the jump to the next string. This is (finally) the kernel of the entire lick:
Combining everything¶
At this point, all things felt clean and easy, but when I tried to string the entire lick together it still fell apart! My mind could handle one trill-and-jump unit, but for some reason stringing many together created tension somewhere.
To work through this, I used Tempo Variations. I had the basic motions down cold, so I played short sections of the lick at half speed, and then longer sections at full speed:
The benefits of this approach are described in Tempo Variations:
Playing fast helps you find the right motions for you, but can also cause you to rapidly accumulate tension everywhere as you try to “push yourself”. Playing slow lets you observe your body and playing, and lets you locate and release tension; however, it might not contribute to your progress if the motions you make aren’t approximately the same as when you play fast, and if you can’t apply what you learn while playing slow to your fast playing. Combining the two lets you rapidly refine both.
Adjusting the tempo helps keep your mind engaged, so you don’t practice on autopilot.
I also moved around to different starting points in the lick, trying different rhythms:
When these all worked, I quickly got to the full lick.
Final thoughts¶
Since this lick is completely different from anything that I usually play, all the motions were new. I spent a long time initially just trying to practice it at various speeds, but didn’t make progress as I was doing too much. By breaking it down, and getting comfortable with each atomic unit of the technique, I could carry that forward as I gradually added new ideas.