Raking

[Loraine]

Hi @stevieblues – I liked Tony’s example of physically rolling the wrist and letting the fingers ‘rake’ across the strings. You could also slow it way down and play each string separately, and then start increasing the speed in small increments until you’re fast enough that you’re actually raking the strings.

[jumpinjeff]

Loraine nailed it with picking up on the wrist roll. This is not plucking the individual string with each finger as much as it is thinking of it as one pluck but staggered, one wrist rolling motion. Took me about ten hours when I was first introduce to the technique to get that fluid staccato sound.

[Carol-3M-Stillhand]

@stevieblues give this exercise a try:

Plant your fretting fingers where they need to be (chord formation or whatever notes you are wanting to play)

Place your picking fingers on the strings. Start with your thumb on D string, index on G string, middle on B string, and ring on high e string. If you have nails, make sure the nails are on the strings and ready to pluck.

Practice plucking all 4 strings at once till you get one good solid chord.

Now pretend your picking hand “wants to stay there” and you have to “peel it off” starting with the D string, then the G, then the B and then the e. So you’re not plucking all 4 strings at once, just peeling your hand off the strings in one rolling motion.

[jumpinjeff]

Oooh Ahhh, I like that description of peeling. Peel the fingers as you (micro) roll the wrist. @Carol-3M-Stillhand you are a light in the fog.

[N-lightMike]

Wow, I was hoping to help @stevieblues , but @Loraine already said what I would have said. And then @jumpinjeff beat me to giving further explanation.

But the real cherry on top is what @Carol-3M-Stillhand said. I hadn’t heard that one. I’m doing pretty well with my rake now, but it always helps to understand it more clearly.

So thanks for asking the question so that we all got Carol’s great insight.

Beyond that, I can only share my own progress on the rake. The first time I saw the rake, it took quite a bit of time and effort to get the correct sound even after I heard the part about rolling my wrist. And after I made the rake sound, I couldn’t reproduce it but once every 5 or 10 tries. Then, every time the lesson came around, I was able to do the rake a little easier and smoother and more consistently. Now, after being here 32 months, I was able, just this week, to make the rake sound right off the bat and do it every time. So, the same answer is the same as always: “practice and time”.

Keep up the good work, Stevie. Keep practicing, keep participating in the community and keep having fun.

MG 😀