Roots Archives Forum

What is the style of guitar playing in reggae called when the guitar player palm-mutes the strings and plays a bouncy and often hyper melody over the rhythm? It's in a ton of reggae tunes I've heard but here is a very blatant example due to Studio One's slapdash yet ingenious mixing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEXB083x0ac

Thanks!

Greeting blackbeltjones, it is often reffered to as "pick guitar" but my good bredren Tony Chin calls it "percolatin". There are many JA masters of this technique but it was really introduced by the great Lynn Tait!

Picking guitar is a spicy ingredient to reggae music. I also like when basslines are picked. It all needs some steady rehearsing:-))
Listen to some Ernest Ranglin stuff....

Thanks for the help! Simply known as "pick guitar" eh? Very interesting!

I've definitely noticed that style of guitar playing mirroring the bassline but I've never heard a reggae bassist use a pick. I thought Ernest Ranglin had a stand up bassist?

Also, check for the great Hux Brown who played some wicked percolating pick guitar that sounded like rubber bands. He took over that chair when Lyn Tait left the island! So many great ones but those are two of the pioneers of that technique. It's also interesting to note that when Lyn Tait first started using that technique on the Rock Steady recordings, he said he was trying to immitate the steel drums which was his original instrument when he was growing up in Trinidad! Funny how a Trinidadian is the originator of an integral part of Jamaican musicto this very day!

damp or mute to most guitarists as far as I know.
But you know there's two guitarists on that track, right?
Ranglin, played all the way through from the late 50s up to the present day...I think he's still going strong.
Not my favourite guitarist by any means though...the stuff I know, mostly Studio ne with him playing, some of it amazing, some of it dog rough - he's got his style and if the groove didn't suit it often sounded stiff or something. Well that's just me...

Apparently when the mute/damp/pick is playing the same line as the bass it is called 'unison' which i don't feel comfortable with as a name - but as a sound it can be magical. Especially if they go a likka bit in and out of riddim with each other. Best not to do too much of it. And the doubling of the picking is a really nice rhythmic and melodic effect.

Excellent choice of track by the way!

thanks all very interesting, i was wondering what it was called..

I always heard it called around musicians as "picking".

I think Lyn Tait was the master but it was used before Rock Steady in Jazz and Pop music, even instrumental Rock&Roll and african styles.

a favourite example of this picking is for me Mighty Rudo's "Just Cool"

In 60's Surf music it is sometimes referred to as 'ric-a-tic' as exemplified by Dick Dale (ne Monsour) whose family originates in Lebanon. The 'picking' technique goes way back in Lebanese and other middle eastern music - and lots of other folk music for that matter. Where you find stringed instruments, you will find the technique in some form.