00:00Have some discipline, because through discipline comes freedom. So get that discipline, and
00:05then bring a bit of chaos in. How's it going? My name is John Butler, and I'm here to show
00:15you some plucking patterns and some guitar techniques that I do. So I'm going to try
00:21to kind of separate what I do, because it all kind of ends up melting into one. First
00:28we'll just do kind of a version of a hammer-on. So it's not very right-handy,
00:33but it's very left-handy. So sometimes if I'm playing something like Ocean, for example...
01:03I always like to start with my thumb, just so I have more room as I sweep through the
01:08strings. And I find that to be, I don't know, useful in amongst whatever I'm doing. It could
01:16be in minor. It could be...
01:34So going straight into the second technique is, once you've got hammer-ons and levers,
01:39and them together is like almost everything I kind of do, really. It's just...
01:45And then...
01:46So the same is that you can do the hammer-ons, kind of like...
01:50Then you can do levers...
01:53And then open tuning, this particular one, C, G, C, G, C, E, it's in B, but...
01:59Yeah, you can just kind of rip right through those kind of bastardized scales.
02:09And I kind of like it. I like the rhythm of it. I like the kind of...
02:13I flow it.
02:37So that's two I've kind of showed you. Then the next thing would be...
02:40This is kind of... It's kind of a hammer-on, but with a plucking pattern. So you're going...
02:50And then you can kind of also like slide into this. You go...
03:13Yeah, and so all that together, you know...
03:24Three techniques. Number four, I guess, is one that a lot of you probably will know.
03:29And I'd say most of you might know how to do it better than me, but it's fun.
03:34Yeah. And it's called double thumbing. Some people call it hybrid thumbing. I don't know.
03:41The people I've been inspired by who have really good...
03:44A really strong thumb when they're doing it is people like Mississippi John Hurt, G Love, and...
03:51A fantastic, fantastic double thumb player, Steve Piglam.
03:57He's from the Northwest of Western Australia in the Kimberleys.
04:01And he has the strongest... His thumb is like a locomotive. It just holds.
04:06Holds the whole thing down. And basically, it's just this.
04:16E string, D string. You can do it without...
04:19I mean, for many years I did it without.
04:25But now I like to do it with a pick.
04:27And so this song is like one of mine called Faith.
04:31And I think what's nice, once you kind of get this guy going, what I suggest to do is...
04:41When you hit the D string, try to use your index finger at the same time as you go...
04:47And what you want to try to do, it took me ages to learn.
04:50I sat in this van outside my house so I didn't annoy all my roommates until 3 o'clock in
04:58the morning.
04:58It was just like, I can't do it! It just bent my mind.
05:01And then I showed my partner and she got it in like 5 minutes.
05:04So it says more about me than anything.
05:07So I try to go...
05:08Then you go with the index finger.
05:10The next one you go...
05:12Middle finger.
05:13The B string.
05:14And the next one...
05:16Ring finger.
05:17So you're gonna go...
05:22Now that's not really the technique, but it's just...
05:25It's a way to get you there.
05:26And then what you want to end up doing is something like this.
05:29friends suit me.
05:43I'm gonna go...
05:47I am ready Medicino...
05:49I'm ready.
05:50I'm ready...
05:51loo, personalized Pent Grammar.
05:56Locating my part, if you are ready.
05:56low.
05:58Let's do the 16ONG待って...
05:58Then we're ready, DIF with the 10 filling...
05:58我們 next time to do a half.
06:13So that pattern would be something like this, so we're going to go and we're going to hit
06:20the middle finger on the A string, or B string, sorry. And I'm going to go, I'm going to go,
06:35I've never slowed this down, sorry. And sometimes, you know, and sometimes I might go, instead
06:47of going with my middle finger, I might go, or I might go, so it can be on that bum,
06:55bum,
06:56I'll go, I'll be bum, bum, or bum, bum, depending on what I'm doing. And then, you know, some
07:00people can really keep it going and be really ornate here, like, say, Tommy Emanuel and stuff,
07:05it's just outstanding. I tend to go in and out depending on the riffs I'm playing, so
07:09you know, if I'm going, I'm going. So I'm not doing it every time, because the riff wanted
07:22me to do something else. So yeah, that's double thumbing, and there's lovely things you can
07:34do with it. I'll tune to tuning in and show you something you can do with it right back
07:39with more double thumbing. Back, I don't know, a technique for double thumbing part two. That
07:46last tuning was Dad Fad with a sharp F, so basically D major. This is one of my favorite
07:53tunings. It's a G tuning from the A string down, G, D, G, B, D, but instead of having a
08:01D here,
08:03I have a C, and that means that I just get, like, all the three major chords of blues and
08:08country. You know, the... And then you can do C, and then the D, and C. If I can do
08:27that
08:27all without, so I can do riffs at the same time... C, D, C. So yeah, you can change all
08:44the chords and be doing melodies the whole time, which I love. For double thumbing, we'll
08:49ignore this string right now, the low E, and we're only going to concentrate double thumbing
08:54now from the A to the G down. And what I want to show you is this, because there's this
09:02beautiful
09:03double stop you can do in this tuning. This is a major scale. And I use it in almost every
09:20song. You'll find I just kind of constantly do circles with all those riffs and kind of
09:26just invert them all the time and make new songs out of them, because I'm kind of simple
09:32that way. But this is a nice way to use that double thumbing. And I'm going to, instead of
09:37going, separating the strings with the double, you know, having one string, a gap string, and
09:43then, you know, usually double thumbing the strings, they're one apart. They have one in between.
09:51So this one, instead of doing that, I'm going to go just for the A and the D string, double
09:57thumbing there. And I'm going to do that double stop chord at the same time. So I'm going to
10:01go. And how I showed you, boom, and then on the second hit, you can go. And I would just
10:16practice that for a while. But, you know, most of you will probably be already able to do
10:22that and then you can start kind of going. What I love about it is once you kind of get
10:31that, this is a song called Spring to Come, which is on Flesh and Blood, an album of mine.
10:41And then, then you can bring that C in. G. That A string down. Then I'm going to go to
10:52low E again. And then, then we can try to get some riffs in there.
11:22I'm going to pick. And then, then I'm going to go to the
11:41interval. If the Festival goes back to the row on time, you know that you can
12:00If you can get that pattern and then stop thinking about it and then just start doing
12:06different shapes.
12:16And then if you want to get those riffs, the riff is just like, it's really simple and all
12:24you're trying to do is make it dance in between the double thumbing and I look at a lot of
12:29guitars as a very rhythmic and percussive instrument so I'm always just like, I'm looking at this
12:39dance between both hands so I'm like, I want to keep that going and then I'm just looking
12:49where these guys can fit in.
13:03And sometimes the best way is once you kind of just get the basic technique down that,
13:08you know, have some discipline, because through discipline comes freedom, so get that discipline
13:13and then bring a bit of chaos in and just see what happens over here because that's just
13:19a happy accident for me.
13:23It's just a happy accident, I was like, oh, that just feels like what my fingers want to
13:27do there and I'm not like going, oh, I want to go there on the semi crotchet and then I
13:30want to go down here, like I don't, I would not be able to do that.
13:34So that's double thumbing the way that I do it.
13:37Second last technique, technique number five is chicken picking.
13:40Something I came across in Byron Bay, east coast of Australia, after a gig one night.
13:47This guy named Dave showed me this sick pattern and it's really simple but so powerful.
13:53So powerful and I use it in so many songs and it's my favorite go-to.
13:59So essentially, I'm in, let's go to standard tuning.
14:06Chicken picking.
14:09Chicken picking.
14:09Good to do with the thumb pick, but don't need to.
14:12And it's quite simple and very effective.
14:15It is a hammer-on.
14:18Let's start somewhere else here.
14:21We'll start on the G string here.
14:25So all you're going to do is thumb down once and then middle finger and index finger.
14:33Middle finger first and index finger second and you're just going to do this.
14:42Essentially, it's like a reverse roll.
14:43I think it's like a banjo kind of thing.
14:46You can do a forward roll which would be hammer-on and then index middle finger.
14:55Or the other way, reverse.
14:59I gravitate towards the middle finger then index finger.
15:04But what I love about it is it just gets that really rolling kind of, like it's a gallop.
15:09And it's just so much fun.
15:15And then you can slide into it.
15:21And then you can start tingling the other strings.
15:35And so, yeah, so essentially it's just, that's all it really is.
15:43And then you can kind of start sliding.
15:44You start leading with your thumb a little bit at times, so it's not always exactly the same.
15:59So this would be the technique that I'd use for running to keep up on still searching my instrumental album.
16:32Do you chords with it?
16:47Do you chords with it?
16:50Do you.
16:50Chicken picking is so much fun so like, so, for those of you, who might know my song Sungky Tonight
16:56or something.
16:57That's all chicken picking that's just.
17:03But I'm skankin' in-between so I'm just going and then.
17:35Chicken picking is sickening picking.
17:38The last one will be little embellishments you can do.
17:47I like to often sweep into notes.
18:20Yeah, sweeping, I mean that's all hammers and levers.
18:41That's literally almost every technique I've showed you all in one, like the sweep, hammer,
18:49lever and hammer and then that chicken knee at the very end.
19:09I don't really know much flat picking.
19:15I tend to use it like a drumming thing again.
19:19I wish I could do what Billy Strings does or something like that.
19:25I just do a lot of hammer and levers off when I'm doing it.
19:44That's kind of like my version of flat picking.
19:45I mean once again it's just like this kind of a...
19:57There's six techniques of how to play a guitar in some kind of weird bastard way by me.
20:04Take care.
20:05Lots of love.
20:06That's like that.
20:09That's good.
20:10That's good.
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