Kevin_Savo

It is not "learning the wrong technique" Its discovering new ones. If it hurts then stop. If not and you like it then keep doing it. Maybe even check it with a Physical therapist (Ive done it). See how to use the technique safely by doing different stretches. Many non textbook techniques can be practiced safely. Unfortunately some can not. I think a new sound is worth a visit to a physical therapist.

I don't know about this. I think teqnique should be unique to everyones playing. More than anything the way you hit the string is where you sound comes from. I think when you said "It's often seen as a dirty word,as if having a lot of technique turns you into a robot that just plays millions of mechanical notes with no emotion or sense of melody, and there is an almost romantic notion that the non-technical will produce better, more honest music." you misunderstood what that person is saying. What he might be saying is that he wants to figure out his own way to hitting the strings and is expressing that there is not only one way to tap, one way to slap, one way to pick, one way to use your fingers. All these "broad teqniques" have infinite way to approach them. For example when I started to play I was told not to bend my wrist and hit the string from overtop of the string. Instead I explored how hitting the string in different way produced different sounds. This doesn't mean not to have the ability to play fast or the ability to use different tequniques but that he is play fast with his own plethera of tequniqes he discovered and It doesn't mean your tequnique is going to give you pain in your tendins or carpol tunnel it just means its different. What if James Jamerson had trained him self to the perscribed tequnique? Motown woudn't be Motown. And if Larry Graham had not discovered slap? That would suck

Hey, my name is Kevin Savo. I am a fifteen year old musician from Woodcrest (just outside Philadelphia). I am in an original band called dynamic monotone. We have a hard to describe sound but the best I can do is say its Psychedelic! We have just almost finished recording a new album. I play a 1969-71 Gibson eb3 with two sidewinder humbuckers with high action(I love high action) and play through a Orange ad-200 with a 410 orange cab. Cheers, Kevin