Last night I went to see Doc Watson in concert, which was really great. He’s 84 now, but boy can he play and sing. He was amazing to watch–I had a very good view of his hands–because he was obviously doing some very difficult and wild things, but a lot of what he was doing was hidden. His left had was all over the frets, but with his right you could really only see what his thumb was up to. The thumb would pick out the lower notes, and then you could tell that his fingers were doing a whole lot of work on the melody and such. But I don’t know anything about guitar, so I didn’t know what it was he was doing. I felt kind of dumb!
The guy who was accompanying him talked a bit about how Watson invented flat-picking as a young man, which has influenced pretty much all guitar playing since then. So could somebody explain to me just what this flat-picking is and why it’s so neat? I looked up a little bit, but it wasn’t all that helpful.
I got nuthin’, but I thought I’d respond just to empathize with your lonely little thread. Bluegrass doesn’t seem to get many dopers excited for some reason. I went to the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in Golden Gate Park over the weekend and Doc Watson played, but there were 5 different stages with a ridiculous wealth of great bands. I didn’t know who Doc Watson is so I didn’t see him (upon looking at the schedule, I see that he was playing at the same time as one of my favorite bands, Dave Alvin and the Guilty Men, so I wouldn’t have seen him anyway), but I’ll keep my ear peeled for him. Here’s my thread on the festival in case you are interested.
Not a huge Bluegrass fan, but since I was born and raised in southern Kentucky, it was all around me. However, I too had the pleasure of seeing Doc Watson perform about fifteen years ago in Jefferson City, Tennessee.
I have no clue about how one plays a musical instrument, though. So, no answer there.
From what you describe, he wasn’t flat picking, he was finger picking. Flat picking would involve holding the pick between the thumb and the first finger.
I often continue to use my other fingers even when using a pick, so it is possible he was using different methods at different times and even switching back and forth. Sometimes, when I know what a given guitar playing is doing it can be hard to put the physical movements together with the technique they’re using.
Basically, flat picking is simply playing melody and lead lines (i.e. single notes) with a pick (plectrum) rather than with bare fingers. In a similar genre I guess you might compare the Carter Family and the “Carter Scratch” where the lead and the melody lines were played almost simultaneously. (Maybelle played using finger picks on each finger which many people associate with the banjo.)
Most of the guitar solos and lead lines you hear in contemporary music is likely played with a pick (Mark Knopfler’s leads being a notable exception) but a lot of Les Paul’s early recordings use the “country” style of flat picking.
I’d say the major benefit is a brighter, sharper tone and legato melodies and leads.
If I understand the question, and I may not, you ask “what is flat picking” and how is it different?
In bluegrass, guitar was primarily finger picked, as one might a banjo, or strummed with the thumb. If you watch video of Lester Flatt, for example, you see he used a thumb pick, not a flat pick. His style is frequently called “Carter style” in honor of the Carter family. A thumb pick is curved and formed to fit around your thumb, finger picks fit over your finger tips. A good example of someone who used a thumb and finger picks on a guitar is Flatt’s partner Earl Scruggs. Scruggs was such a pioneering genius on the banjo that his incredible work, incorporating that same style on the guitar, is frequently overlooked. A flat pick is merely a triangular (usually) shaped piece of plastic that is grasped between the thumb and first two fingers. Flat picks are almost exclusively the preference in rock, blues, etc. They weren’t widely used in bluegrass until Watson popularized the use. Each method, thumb pick, thumb and finger or flat pick, brings a distinctive tone and sound.