It's my first time here! OK, I' starting to learn chicken picking, and I'm having some problems with right hand mechanics. As exercise, I got a tab from Buckethead's acoustic 'What kind of nation'. Does someone use chicken picking and have some tips for me?

Pebber made a great video full of great ideas for chicken/hybrid picking:



I liked very much mentioning "Dust in the wind" of Kansas since it was my first song I've translated from fingerpicking into chicken picking even I was more into original since it's harder to play than in "travis picking" style which Pebber nailed in that Elvis' song in the video.

I'm not much into Buckethead, but since you've mentioned him, he has a "lesson" video on youtube...



...where in Figure 2 he plays chicken picking lick/exercise that I believe he learned from Pebber. It's constructed of two whole tone scales that alternates from one to another in intervals of an octave and a half tone, and produces effect of an alternating chromatic in octaves. Buckethead here uses approach of downstroke with pick and upstroke with middle finger.



Great chicken picking exercise and usable lick.

My question to Pebber(since you've mentioned Malaguena in that vid and flamenco in general comes to my mind)

Alongside with "Asturias" which would also be great for chicken or hybrid, whatever term anybody likes to use... I've never used my pinky much for plucking the notes wherever it involved multiple plucking on the same string. So, for example if I would playing "Alhambra"(Recuerdos de la Alhambra), my pattern would be: pick downstroke-ring finger-middle finger-pick upstroke or in classical fashion: P-a-m-P

Should I go: P-k-a-m - P-k-a-m?

Or another example, similar but slightly different situation in Vivaldi's fast theme from the first movement of 4 seasons first movement from summer, "Allegro non molto" in my case it would go pick downstroke-middle finger upstroke-pick down,pick up, pick down-middle up-pick down-middle up or in classical fashion P-m-P-P-P-m-P-m or probably easier if it would describe directions of the pick: D-m-D-U-D-m-D-m.

My question is, should I try to play these type of melodies, including multiple notes on the same string, including my pinky also? How it works for you in this type of situations? I know it's cool for travis and single note per string ideas, but what on the same string multiple notes, since pinky is shorter than the other two fingers involved...

Zitat von Debilius

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So, for example if I would playing "Alhambra"(Recuerdos de la Alhambra), my pattern would be: pick downstroke-ring finger-middle finger-pick upstroke or in classical fashion: P-a-m-P

Should I go: P-k-a-m - P-k-a-m?

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For Recuerdos, you preferably need 4 "digits"... It is played using the classical tremolo picking technique which is:

P-A-M-I--P-A-M-I..etc..

If I was trying to play that with a pick.. I'd use my pinky like this:

Pck-pnky-A-M--Pck-pnky-A-M- etc..

Brent Mason, only uses his Middle and Ring finger to pick notes on the same string.. most often middle. But for any type of tremolo picking, I'd go with using all 3 fingers.

Yeah man, I know the classical fingerstyle pattern for Alhambra, but to pull it off with pick+fingers it's more comfortable for me to go pick-downstroke, ring-finger, middle-finger, and than pick-upstroke or P-a-m-P... I tried your suggestion too(P-k-a-m), but it's more harder than fingerstyle pattern since pinky is shorter than other two fingers involved, and in fingerstyle pattern three similar size fingers are involved above(below) the thumb that makes easier a lot to play that piece that way. If I was using thumb pick like Blayze or Brent Mason too, I would use thumbpick and ring, middle and index fingers to play it, pretty the same as classical pattern. But, it's great challenge with pattern you suggested, and it gets better and better after working on getting used to that. Besides this two patterns, I've tried it also with involving just alternating between pick and middle finger, and it's simpler but also a challenge for tempo, but it's cool exercise since pick must travel across three different strings, and alternating between the pick and middle finger occurs on the same string doing tremolo... and yes, it's great exercise for alternate picking alone. I've tried to incorporate pinky in my chicken picking pattern for "Dust in the wind", but hell, I got used to play that without pinky and screwed it everytime when I go to throw in pinky on high E string on Am and Dm7, so I guess I'll go with my standard pattern on that one because it seems more logical, and it's exactly the same on whole song. But classical tremolo with pick and pinky-ring-middle is something I should try along time ago. Thanx man.