Techniques that you just cannot master for love or money...

Parralax view

Parralax view

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o_O I've been on a Tommy Emanuel kick recently. I go through those, Johnny A. , Los Straitjackets. etc.. Right now, I cannot master and probably won't, Tommy's technique of chime harmonics. Oh, I can do a Billy Gibbons all day long, but the pointer finger mute while ringing the strings with pick and fingers is just escaping me.

I've watched Danny Gatton do it, I couldn't. I've Watched Andy Mckee do it, I couldn't, and now specifically the chimes he uses on "Somewhere over the rainbow" just kill me in frustration, not that I can play any other part of his version, I cannot, but I want to be able to put this trick in my bag, and it's not happening. Practice is one thing, not getting it is another....
 
So the trick is to have a chord shape fingered out (ha) and then pluck out the harmonics with yer pickin' hand while following the chord shape above the 12th fret.
 
The trick is easy - executing it is hard. I can never build up a steady rhythm w/any kind of speed, let alone with the kind of speed TE gets. And even when I do get that technique down well enough to use a version of it in a song, as soon as I click on the red button, I tighten up and lose the ability to play it.

Part of my issue is I have acrylic nails on my picking hand, and I generally keep them a little longer for picking, which makes it harder to do things like this.

For those of you who haven't seen it...

 
I was just gonna say something I thought was helpful, and then I clicked on Alan's link... I'm a fackin' idiot. I don't know anything about anything ever. Tommy's a master.
 
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I am afraid T.E. is somewhere over the rainbow. Best to pretend he doesn't exist and concentrate on just being human.
 
Every detail of that arrangement and performance is incredible.

Whether I'd want to play that song over and over, even if I had the chops, is another matter entirely.
 
AMAZING!!! I can't do that technique to save my life.
Using Atomics suggestion I was able to fart out some nondescript crappy sounding harmonics off the top strings but nothing decent out of the wound ones.
Those are the kind of vids that make we want to sell my amp and only use headphones so nobody can hear how fumble fingers I am.
 
What kills is that he is not professionally trained. ALL of it has come through sweat and figuring it out...That's just innate skill on a completely different level. Keeping an audience that enthralled is a gift few have...
 
TE is a consummate showman, and he has the skills to back it up. His Beatles medley is the stuff of legend. I'd heard the comments about Chet Atkins sounding like two guitar players, and I saw him play two songs at the same time, but when TE plays "Daytripper", it's hard to fathom that it's just one guy. It doesn't sound like two parts woven together, it sounds like two independent guitar players.

The first time I saw TE, he said that people asked him about playing finger style. He said the most important part - and demonstrated what he was saying - was to get that rock-solid steady bass going and to maintain it. Then he said, "And then you just move your other fingers really fast."
 
sergiodeblanc said:
I was just gonna say something I thought was helpful, and then I clicked on Alan's link... I'm a fackin' idiot. I don't know anything about anything ever. Tommy's a master.
Click to expand...
This.

Me: Josh Martin's "Glitch Tapping" and/or Tosin Abasi's Thumping -- I can recognize most techniques and mentally slow them down (or actually slow them down on YouTube), but there's a threshold I don't foresee myself ever crossing, and it's this. I am deliberately not posting a link because you will cry. If you won't get depressed watching someone who is orders of magnitude better than you, then and only then google them.
 
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I saw Tosin Abasi show his thumb technique on a video. He uses both the top AND bottom of the edge of his thumb. His thumb looks a bit deformed from his playing, which is to be expected. That's something I'll never learn, would probably never use, but sure seems it would be a versatile thing to know how to do.
 
While not possible on some prs's, I learned a new strat trick that I'm working on. Using the 5 way as a wah. You have to turn the middle tone down all the way to mud, and then just play and rock the switch. Damn if it doesn't sound like a wah, a badly played one in my case just yet, but it's a cool trick. I do worry about someone going over board and breaking off the switch, but it's a difficult trick but sounds very cool.
 
Watching TE perform always reminds me of my place in the musical hierarchy.
 
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