Jimmy Herring Discussion

[smv929]

For anyone who doesn't know, hybrid picking is where you hold the pick as normal (with your thumb and first finger), but you incorporate your other fingers to pick notes as well. It's very helpful when a line you play involves a lot of string skipping.

Anyway, I've always thought Jimmy uses standard alternate picking, but am curious how he pulls off some insane out-there lines that involve string skipping.

I recently heard some guy do a Jimmy-like out-there line using hybrid picking and it sounded like Jimmy! This made me wonder if he actually uses hyrbrid picking for this type of line. My guess is Jimmy has the right hand ability to pull off string skipping with normal picking, but am curious. Anyone know for sure if he does hybrid picking.

The reason I ask is because I'm trying to emulate some of his techniques. It would help if I knew the technique he is using. If he's picking it, then I'm out of luck. If he's using Hybrid picking, I may have a chance at coming close.

Thanks from a struggling guitar player!

[Zambi]

He's always done it exclusively with a pick that I've seen. The only time I've seen him use his right-hand fingers is chording on jazz tunes to avoid a strumming sound (e.g., the verses of Basically Frightened, Jazz Bank, Shoeless Joe, etc.) and to do the windchime effect with harmonics (e.g., Time Is Free, etc.). (And to de-tune whilst playing, if you count that as right-hand "technique")

I've seen him many times do some really insane alt-string picking entirely with a pick.