Tomo Fujita Guitar Wisdom

Oh my gosh you are right, lol… sorry, I did just REWATCH the R37 lesson. I will try again…ha ha whoops.

I guess I was made to create.

Tomo - I’ve been thinking a lot about your recommendation to strum at the same depth from the 6th string to the first because it was not something I had previously been focusing on.
My focus has been more on holding my pick as loosely as possible and allowing the pick to move freely across the strings.
When practicing R37 swing I must continually adjust the position of the pick between my thumb and first finger and often wind up dropping the pick.
With the pick constantly moving and changing position between my fingers AND with trying to use a wide arm swing (from high to low) it makes it very difficult to strum all the strings at the same depth. (With the wide arm swing I often have no idea what depth the pick is going to hit the low E string 😆)
I’m guessing the only way to get better at strumming at the same depth across all strings is to concentrate on it and practice it slowly BUT if you have any tips on how to improve this technique it would be greatly helpful as I am struggling to get it right.
As always thank you for all of your personalized help and support.

Thank you Rich for sharing your experience with R 3 7 Swing Groove. Good job! How to hold a pick super loosely is so difficult to do. I have 10 picks on the table so that I can just grab another pick while I am practicing this technique.

Yes! That's correct. The pick is constantly moving between two fingers and your fingers move the pick back! It is super difficult to control. That's why it takes for a long time.

It is so important to use same depth and your picking control can control everything. Let me think about this. Thanks for sharing.

Tomo

You're very welcome! Don't worry! You can think about your thumb position and movement.

Tomo

This is very helpful.
Thank you Tomo.
I certainly have NOT been strumming that deeply before so I will practice that for a while and maybe make another video in a month or two.
I guess I won’t practice this exercise on my PRS guitar anymore because I don’t want to scratch the paint job on the top bout and there is no pick guard on the bottom.
I remember you made a video once using an old Gibson acoustic guitar and you could see the scratch marks in the exact direction that you practice R37 swing.
So it’s a good thing I have my old G&L strat because I don’t mind scratching the paint job (or the pick guard) on that guitar.
Thanks again for the video.
Maybe you’ll have to do a video series demonstrating how different speakers affect your guitar tone.
It’s something I’ve never experimented with. (changing the stock speaker that comes with the amp).

My pleasure Rich! So happy to hear that it was very helpful!

Do what you can do. Please keep working this technique. Okay. Speaker tone lesson. I can do that with my Musicmaster Bass amps.

Tomo

Always. But my picks don't look like that - I think you are practicing a lot more than me!

Thank you Clay. Please keep your pace. Don't compare is the word of wisdom.
Eiji

I like your R37 swing Chris.
Eiji

Good job Chris! Nice tempo. I like that tempo very much.
You can even go slower. When you practice R 3 7 Swing Groove, better not to have reverb effect. So you can hear a lot of details.

When you play 6th string root, listen carefully "5th string"
I hear more that 6th string, 4th string and 3rd string.
Muting is very hard.

Please keep working!

Tomo

Nice job Chris.
I like that little blues lick at the end 😃

Tons of improvement Chris - way to keep at it!

Thank you very much for your kind reply, Tomo! I really appreciate your detailed explanation. Yes, I’m trying to imitate you in my practice. Thanks to your explanation, I feel more confident in my observations of your swings. Thank you again!