Is Prissy Fingerpicking a Turnoff?

Subject: RE: Is Prissy Fingerpicking a Turnoff?
From: theleveller
Date: 23 Jan 09 - 12:24 PM

Jayto, agree with you 100% on that.

Subject: RE: Is Prissy Fingerpicking a Turnoff?
From: Lowden Jameswright
Date: 23 Jan 09 - 12:25 PM

Agree Jayto comments 100% - 35 years ago on a teacher training course we were told " be creative; take risks; don't be afraid of looking foolish or wrong - just go for it.. and learn from the mistakes" - advice I took forward and applied to playing guitar/singing songs. Not sure what "prissy fingerpicking" is but if anyone told me I had a prissy style I'd hit 'em with a Bar Chord

Subject: RE: Is Prissy Fingerpicking a Turnoff?
From: GUEST,bankley
Date: 24 Jan 09 - 12:01 PM

it all depends on who the fingers are attached to....

I'm still amazed at how much can be expressed through the hands
(as opposed to some other body parts)

Subject: RE: Is Prissy Fingerpicking a Turnoff?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 24 Jan 09 - 01:14 PM

'I'm still amazed at how much can be expressed through the hands'

Like.........

Subject: RE: Is Prissy Fingerpicking a Turnoff?
From: bankley
Date: 24 Jan 09 - 01:38 PM

playing a musical instrument for starts..... use your imagination...

Subject: RE: Is Prissy Fingerpicking a Turnoff?
From: GUEST,Bob Ryszkiewicz
Date: 24 Jan 09 - 01:49 PM

Muah HA HA HA HA Hee HEE HEE.....Hot DAMN this thread is FUUUUUUNNNY!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yGB6d_3n58&feature=related

bob

Subject: RE: Is Prissy Fingerpicking a Turnoff?
From: GUEST,Bob Ryszkiewicz
Date: 24 Jan 09 - 02:47 PM

Another "Prissy Fingerpicker"....Jennifer Batten...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZBuzbe9xCo&NR=1

BR

Subject: RE: Is Prissy Fingerpicking a Turnoff?
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 24 Jan 09 - 04:29 PM

What really turns me off with fingerpicking is lack of feeling. I hear far to many focus on technique and strip it of all emotion. You remove the emotion from any music and it is a major turnoff to me. ……

I like to think that I put feeling and emotion into my songs but I am least likely to do that when I'm playing "strum, strum, strum … strum, strum, strum". Lack of feeling and emotion is a turnoff in any style, not just fingerpicking.

When I'm playing a song with a good bit of picking, I'm usually having fun – and if I'm enjoying myself then it's likely that the audience is too.


DC

Subject: RE: Is Prissy Fingerpicking a Turnoff?
From: Don Firth
Date: 24 Jan 09 - 04:58 PM

Lack of feeling" is a whole body-mind-emotion thing. I can't imaging someone singing with feeling and playing without it, or vice versa (?). If you understand a song and sing it with feeling, I don't see how your accompaniment can help but follow.

Now maybe this sounds like I'm contradicting what I just said, but I can imagine someone playing a complex accompaniment they're proud of with a lot verve and enthusiasm while giving the song itself short shrift. There are a number of folk singers around who put all their attention on their guitar accompaniments and seem to regard the song was merely something they have to do to justify their guitar work. In short, the song accompanies the guitar rather than the other way around.

I still don't get "prissy."

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Is Prissy Fingerpicking a Turnoff?
From: GUEST,M.Ted
Date: 24 Jan 09 - 05:56 PM

I think that the "prissy" business is/was just a pointed remark about the playing style of somebody who the original poster just didn't like very much.

The poster managed to turn it into an insult to about three quarters of the guitar and banjo pickers in both the UK and the US, and that was generalized into a slam that put all rest of the players in the world on the defensive. This because the orginal poster wasn't very clear about what he didn't like.

Such are the vagaries of language.

Subject: RE: Is Prissy Fingerpicking a Turnoff?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 24 Jan 09 - 06:42 PM

Such are the vagaries of language.

Yes. Word to the wise: if you can paraphrase your question as "why is X rubbish?", "has Y always been rubbish?" or "why do people like Z (even though it's rubbish)?", you might be better off putting that question to someone who you know agrees with you.

Subject: RE: Is Prissy Fingerpicking a Turnoff?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Jan 09 - 02:27 PM

I think that the "prissy" business is/was just a pointed remark about the playing style of somebody who the original poster just didn't like very much.

I think that's probably true. But what did it actually mean other than "I didn't like that"? We can speculate that it means various things - over pretty, fussy, lacking in emotion and mechanical have all turned up in the thread. But the word "prissy" doesn't really help pin down what was meant.

Subject: RE: Is Prissy Fingerpicking a Turnoff?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 25 Jan 09 - 03:31 PM

'I'm still amazed at how much can be expressed through the hands
(as opposed to some other body parts)


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Subject: RE: Is Prissy Fingerpicking a Turnoff?
From: weelittledrummer - PM
Date: 24 Jan 09 - 01:14 PM

'I'm still amazed at how much can be expressed through the hands'

Like.........


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Subject: RE: Is Prissy Fingerpicking a Turnoff?
From: bankley - PM
Date: 24 Jan 09 - 01:38 PM

playing a musical instrument for starts..... use your imagination... '

I was thinking more in terms of what I could express with my hands. On telly in the 1950's there was an artist from Hungary or somewhere who used to wiggle his hands about to music, and say it represented a scene from under the sea.

i couldn't express much with my hands - not just my hands. i couldn't even stop someone in the street and ask the way to the public toilet.

In fact when we were at school and you used to have to put your hand up to get the teacher's attention - I was generally ignored.

Subject: RE: Is Prissy Fingerpicking a Turnoff?
From: Tim Leaning
Date: 25 Jan 09 - 03:57 PM

Lots of wit and humor here and I have enjoyed reading through and the diversions to U tube to hear some lovely playing.
I still don't get what prissy finger picking is exactly or any of the other styles.
I guess to a relative beginner like me,you are all just Guitar playing gurus who i have been lucky enough to "meet"(?) online.
I have heard a few of you in real life and enjoyed your performance very much.
I will keep twiddlin' away on me guitar,and maybe one day someone will accuse me of having a "style"
That is the day I will think I maybe deserve to have an opinion in such erudite and skilled company.
Thank for the vids MR Fly,and the original songs Mr Drummer and the lovely reminiscences on musical times past Dougie.
Mudcat at its best is reading through a thread like this one and coming away wiht new thoughts and strange finger picking ideas.
Cheers all.

Subject: RE: Is Prissy Fingerpicking a Turnoff?
From: Jayto
Date: 25 Jan 09 - 07:13 PM

I have heard a bunch of musicians play but not feel. They don't let go onstage and every lick hit and note sung has been done by them a million times. Think back to the first time you dialed the number to your girlfriend/boyfriend/wife/husband. Think about how magical those numbers felt and how excited you were to hit them. Then think about how they feel or felt 15 yrs later. You probably remebr the sequence but not dialing it. Regardless how you feel about the person dialing the number becomes a memorized task that lost its magic somewhere along the lines. The notes of a song do the same thing whether we as musicians realize it or not. The crowd notices but we fail to see it. Just a thought. Compare the analogy however you see fit.
Cya
JT
and hey to my brothers Basnkley and Peace check the pics of my new baby on my myspace. She is a doll she gets it from my girlfriend lol.

Subject: RE: Is Prissy Fingerpicking a Turnoff?
From: GUEST,Bob Ryszkiewicz
Date: 25 Jan 09 - 08:09 PM

For Tim Leaning...I used to take paper and pencil with me to make drawings of the chords and moves the great players were doing. I could just catch a bit of this and that, maybe a chord or two. Those were the days WAAAY before what is available today as music instruction. The I saw Paul Geremia at our College, sat down, and when he began to play I wrote: "Forget it" on the paper. that was 1966...Hardly what you would call, "Prissy". Ditto "Spider John" Koerner. Dave Van Ronk, Bruce Cockburn, and hundreds of others...

Became friends with Paul and met Blues Great John Hammond Jr. here in Montreal and walked with him a bit during a break in one of his shows. I was trying to learn how to play lead lines and he told me, "just keep trying to play it, mistakes will come then you'll get it." Sounded weird just trying to follow somebody's hand motions, but he was right.

Also had the honor of playing with Jazz Great, George Benson, who told me to be able to sing what I can play, and play what I can sing...VITAL...Try it...

You'll find a treasure trove on YouTube, and you might want to search "Homespun Tapes" in New York for more great stuff...

All the best on your "Guitar Journey"
bob

Subject: RE: Is Prissy Fingerpicking a Turnoff?
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 26 Jan 09 - 02:36 AM

I take your point Jayto, but why pick on guitar pickers for this? The same applies to musicians of every style and every insrument.

DC

Subject: RE: Is Prissy Fingerpicking a Turnoff?
From: bankley
Date: 26 Jan 09 - 11:16 AM

it sure does....

why pick on the guitar ?    good one

Subject: RE: Is Prissy Fingerpicking a Turnoff?
From: Jayto
Date: 26 Jan 09 - 11:57 AM

Because Doug guitarists are all that matter lol jk. I guess by me being a guitarist they are all I really pay real attention to lol.

Subject: RE: Is Prissy Fingerpicking a Turnoff?
From: Don Firth
Date: 26 Jan 09 - 12:25 PM

Hurdy-gurdy, anybody?

Sorry. I'll leave now. . . . .

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Is Prissy Fingerpicking a Turnoff?
From: The Sandman
Date: 26 Jan 09 - 12:35 PM

here is some fingerpicking on the concertina.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4K4-2laAOkI&feature=channel_page

Subject: RE: Is Prissy Fingerpicking a Turnoff?
From: GUEST,Bob Ryszkiewicz
Date: 26 Jan 09 - 12:38 PM

Don: Had hurdy-gurdy last night for supper...
Tonight, I think I'll go with Tabla...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjjSZw4gr98&feature=PlayList&p=47563A953261122A&index=1
I watch Zakir a lot...TA-KI-TA, TA KA DI MI TA KI TA...Konikol...The only way to fly, try running some guitar lines with THAT...SERIOUS Fun!
bob

Subject: RE: Is Prissy Fingerpicking a Turnoff?
From: Jayto
Date: 26 Jan 09 - 03:03 PM

Man I want a Tabla bad!!! I have for a long time. If someone calls me a prissy Tabla player in Ky or Tn I wont get mad. I will just be impressed they knew what it was lol. Hurdy Gurdy's are cool as well. Like I said I guess I understand guitar playing better so I tend to judge guitarists harder. I play alot of different instruments but guitar is my main one and I know it better than any other. I want a sitar as well. The Tabla and Sitar are 2 instruments I have never had or fooled with but I have loved them for years now. I hope I am a prissy sitar/tabla player someday. I hope you all hear me and say "damn how pretentious!!" lol
cya
JT

Subject: RE: Is Prissy Fingerpicking a Turnoff?
From: bankley
Date: 26 Jan 09 - 03:09 PM

Hey Bob, there's a man down the street who speaks to me with his hands every chance he gets....
....well, with at least his middle finger..

Subject: RE: Is Prissy Fingerpicking a Turnoff?
From: GUEST,Bob Ryszkiewicz
Date: 26 Jan 09 - 03:38 PM

Banks: The "finger people" are everywhere, a pathetic bunch...But whatchagonnado? I just keep my thoughts on the good stuff...bob

Subject: RE: Is Prissy Fingerpicking a Turnoff?
From: Tim Leaning
Date: 26 Jan 09 - 04:21 PM

Bob Ryszkiewicz

Thank you for that mate.
The road leads up to the next plateau,then it levels out for a while
or I take ramble down a side street.
I get the feeling that I am following the steps of many and they are always just around the next bend.
Maybe a few of you taking the time to turn and wave back at us less able players is what keeps us going on the journey .
Destination ?
Not being able to play the guitar.
The proper way.

Subject: RE: Is Prissy Fingerpicking a Turnoff?
From: GUEST,Bob Ryszkiewicz
Date: 26 Jan 09 - 04:40 PM

Tim: KNOW THY BOARD! That must be written on some cave in Guitar Heaven. Do you know the names of EVERY NOTE on your fingerboard? Can you see them? Can you spell chords?

Play this game for 3 days. You are not allowed to play ANYTHING you already know for 3 days. But you MUST play the guitar. Search new chords, scales & rhythms. See what develops. No turning back to the past, everything new...Try it...

bob

Subject: RE: Is Prissy Fingerpicking a Turnoff?
From: Tim Leaning
Date: 26 Jan 09 - 04:46 PM

:~( Awwwww do I have to?

Subject: RE: Is Prissy Fingerpicking a Turnoff?
From: Tim Leaning
Date: 26 Jan 09 - 04:49 PM

Was gonna PM you Guest Bob.
Then realized the flaw in me plan.
I am getting seriously close to having to listen to some of the advice I keep askin me elders and betters for I think.
This weirdness about knowing what the bloody notes are keeps cropping up.
LOL

Subject: RE: Is Prissy Fingerpicking a Turnoff?
From: GUEST,Bob Ryszkiewicz
Date: 26 Jan 09 - 05:22 PM

Once you can spell a "C" Chord, CEGC, and you know your fingerboard, you are then able to find "C" in a number of places. Do that with other chords. Then you can link them together and you're able to play chord progressions all over the guitar...

Rhythms? Got a problem with that? Put the guitar down for a bit and listen to DRUMMERS. Hold your pick(or just your hand,) and tap along to what they're doing.

It's like going to the gym, no pain no gain. You have to conquer the psychological barrier and begin to study the FOUNDATIONS of music...

bob

Subject: RE: Is Prissy Fingerpicking a Turnoff?
From: Tim Leaning
Date: 26 Jan 09 - 05:27 PM

OK OK Ok
Grumble moan
I will do this for a weeks worth of practice.
I refuse to listen to drummers unless its a bodrhan!
Now wheres that guitar?

Subject: RE: Is Prissy Fingerpicking a Turnoff?
From: Rapparee
Date: 26 Jan 09 - 06:00 PM

Prissy Fingerpicking sounds like a young woman in some 18th Century comedy of manners.

Subject: RE: Is Prissy Fingerpicking a Turnoff?
From: Will Fly
Date: 26 Jan 09 - 06:06 PM

Like Lady Gay Spanker in Dion Boucicault's "London Assurance"...

Subject: RE: Is Prissy Fingerpicking a Turnoff?
From: GUEST,Bob Ryszkiewicz
Date: 26 Jan 09 - 06:30 PM

Just for fun...
http://www.youtube.com/user/stevevaihimself?blend=1
Am I on topic?
bob

Subject: RE: Is Prissy Fingerpicking a Turnoff?
From: GUEST,Bob Ryszkiewicz
Date: 26 Jan 09 - 06:47 PM

And Tim: NO Bodrhan! THAT you are familiar with....

DOUMBEK!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JxtLU34X3s
bob

Subject: RE: Is Prissy Fingerpicking a Turnoff?
From: bankley
Date: 26 Jan 09 - 06:53 PM

nah... he's using a flat pick and it ain't folk... pretty box tho..

ps... just kidding about the man down the street

and the only thing Django could write was his name

Subject: RE: Is Prissy Fingerpicking a Turnoff?
From: GUEST,Bob Ryszkiewicz
Date: 26 Jan 09 - 07:10 PM

Folk? It's all just music to yer boi over here...
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=222588098
bob

Subject: RE: Is Prissy Fingerpicking a Turnoff?
From: bankley
Date: 27 Jan 09 - 08:16 AM

I figured that would get you Bob..... and Yoakum.... ain't he related to L'il Abner ?

Subject: RE: Is Prissy Fingerpicking a Turnoff?
From: GUEST,Bob Ryszkiewicz
Date: 27 Jan 09 - 10:13 AM

Banks: Guys like Dwight, or let's use Dwight himself, should have been bigger stars. The guys got a great delivery, but that country twang keeps him pigeonholed. And, he has access to the best writers. Ya gotta wonder. Will the fingerpicker ever sleep with the Synth player? Too dangerous financially to REALLY get creative...Gotta feed the masses....
bob

Subject: RE: Is Prissy Fingerpicking a Turnoff?
From: GUEST,Bob Ryszkiewicz
Date: 27 Jan 09 - 10:37 AM

For all you 'Catters who haven't heard of Will Ray...
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=187872438
Shenandoah's for you Banks...

bob

Subject: RE: Is Prissy Fingerpicking a Turnoff?
From: M.Ted
Date: 27 Jan 09 - 03:01 PM

I never figured that Dwight Yoakum was ever pigeon-holed--the guy used to play in hardcore punk clubs, for God's sake! He's had a 30 odd hits on the country charts, where the twang helps--I don't figure that he'd be top 40 material, even without it--

Subject: RE: Is Prissy Fingerpicking a Turnoff?
From: GUEST,Bob Ryszkiewicz
Date: 27 Jan 09 - 03:32 PM

More Dwight...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jkx68VTJ33o&feature=related
BR

Subject: RE: Is Prissy Fingerpicking a Turnoff?
From: M.Ted
Date: 27 Jan 09 - 03:46 PM

Well, Bob, that's about all anyone could ever want. I was happy when the button accordion came in. The fiddle took it up a notch, and that guitar solo made me think I'd died and gone to heaven. Only one thing-- I wish't I was in the band--

Subject: RE: Is Prissy Fingerpicking a Turnoff?
From: GUEST,Bob Ryszkiewicz
Date: 27 Jan 09 - 03:52 PM

M. Ted: I think that's Flaco Jimenez on the squeezebox...All the boys playing just the right notes...Gotta Love it...bob

Subject: RE: Is Prissy Fingerpicking a Turnoff?
From: bankley
Date: 27 Jan 09 - 07:36 PM

yeah, Bob, I liked what he did with Buck Owens.... me being a big 'early' Buck fan...
and Billy Bob Thorton sured kicked his mean ass in Slingblade, and got an Oscar doing it...

so, good for the West Va. boys...

Subject: RE: Is Prissy Fingerpicking a Turnoff?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 27 Jan 09 - 08:12 PM

That's definitely Flaco, who first came to my attention when he toured with an especially excellent Ry Cooder Band.

Subject: RE: Is Prissy Fingerpicking a Turnoff?
From: GUEST,Bob Ryszkiewicz
Date: 27 Jan 09 - 08:34 PM

The ANTI-PRISS! Ry Cooder, with Flaco & other amazing guys... "Bop Til You Drop" is one of my all time faves...
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=l_kbGttueAY
SHO ta get ya FONKIFIED!

bob

p.s. "Down in Hollywood" Do yas think that could be interpreted in a multiplicity of ways? Like, "her sister wouldn't do me, but Holly Would"... And, DOWN, uh, no, can't go there. This is Mudcat...BR :0)

Subject: RE: Is Prissy Fingerpicking a Turnoff?
From: Ian Fyvie
Date: 27 Jan 09 - 08:39 PM

Most contributors seem to have an idea of what i meant by prissy, re fingerpicking.
To correct a few misconceptions....   

*prissy refers to a type/style of fingerpicking.

*I am NOT saying finger picking in itself is prissy.

*I was lucky enough to hear Will Fly play live - Will's picking is a good example of playing that is dynamic ie. not prissy. Many blues players are pretty dynamic - but many copyists are not. They seem to have turned blues into something quite sterile - something which happens often when the twee middle classes get hold of working class art?

*Guess what - those who seem to think I'm knocking fingerpicking coz I can't do it - I do several fingerpicking styles. How many of the nice-but-boring players do just the one pick: 'Prissy!'

Like Will and some other contributors I make the picking part of the song, not the looptape upon which many plonk the lyrics.

Lastly, the point of this thread was to ask if this bland pretty-but-twee stuff if putting off youngsters who turn up at folk nights who might like more energetic guitar styles. The wording may be a bit loaded but the point remains - however polite and inoffensive some think we should all be.

Ian Fyvie

Subject: RE: Is Prissy Fingerpicking a Turnoff?
From: GUEST,Bob Ryszkiewicz
Date: 27 Jan 09 - 08:57 PM

Thanks Ian...Best Wishes...bob

Subject: RE: Is Prissy Fingerpicking a Turnoff?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 27 Jan 09 - 09:36 PM

Prissy Fingerpicking a turnoff.......?

no godamnit! when she's wearing fishnet stockings and a mini skirt, that woman sets the red blood coursing through the intemperate regions as well as any woman.

In fact fact in Ohio, Prissy Figerpicking is a perverted sexual practice that is specifically named in several statutes. It was rumoured there was someone they lynched for doing it - but I think they were gonna lynch him anyway.