Touch — Post-Prog-Metal

Touch (19)

Rest stroke (apoyando) The finger or pick follows through and comes to rest against the next string, using arm weight rather than muscular tension.

a fat, forceful, cutting attack where each note is struck with the full weight of the hand rather than plucked lightly

Free stroke (tirando) The finger clears the adjacent string entirely, allowing faster succession and letting strings ring together.

a lighter, brighter attack where notes ring into each other rather than being struck individually

Picado Flamenco's rest-stroke single-note run, alternating index and middle fingers.

fast single-note runs played fingerstyle with a hard rest-stroke attack, alternating two fingers, percussive and driving

Alzapúa The thumb alone acts as a plectrum, striking single notes and raked multi-string strokes in rapid alternation.

the thumb used like a plectrum, alternating between single bass notes and raked downward strokes across several strings

Rasgueado (rasgueo, rajeo) A strum where the fingers fire individually in rapid succession using the nail side, not the flesh. The stroke direction convention inverts between fingers and thumb.

a rolling strum where the fingers fan out one after another rather than sweeping as a block, giving a dense continuous rattle rather than a single chord hit

Golpe A percussive tap on the guitar's tap plate, usually with the ring finger, often struck simultaneously with a string stroke.

sharp percussive taps on the body of the guitar marking the accents, played at the same time as the chords

La pompe (the pump) Two downstrokes per cycle, the first driven from the elbow and the second adding a wrist whip; chords are released almost immediately after striking.

a clipped, percussive, drum-like rhythm guitar that chunks rather than rings, with each chord choked off the instant it is struck

Hybrid picking (pick and fingers) A flatpick held while the bare fingers pluck simultaneously, allowing non-adjacent strings to sound together.

a pick and bare fingers used together so widely separated strings are struck at once, giving sudden wide interval jumps

Chicken pickin' (snap picking) The finger hooks under a string, pulls it away from the fretboard and releases so it snaps back against the frets, immediately choked by palm muting.

strings snapped hard against the frets and instantly muted, producing a sharp percussive cluck rather than a sustained note

Travis picking (alternating bass) The thumb runs a continuous, largely autonomous alternating bass on the low strings while the fingers pick independent syncopated melody above.

a steady alternating bass played by the thumb, completely independent of a syncopated melody picked above it, as though two players

Batida (bossa right hand) The thumb holds a steady on-the-beat bass while the fingers place the chord deliberately early or late against it.

a steady bass pulse with the chords landing slightly off it, anticipated or delayed, never squarely on the beat

Palm muting The picking-hand heel rests near the bridge, shortening decay and reducing the number of partials that ring.

notes choked short and percussive with almost no sustain, tight and dry rather than ringing

Left-hand muting (ghost notes) Fretting fingers rest across strings without pressing, producing pitchless rhythmic clicks.

dead pitchless clicks between the notes, adding rhythm without adding harmony

Raking Muted strings are dragged across before the target note lands, producing a percussive scrape into the attack.

a scraped percussive lead-in dragged across muted strings immediately before each accented note

Tremolo picking One note or chord picked continuously at high speed, blurring the individual attacks into a texture.

a single note picked so rapidly it becomes a continuous shimmering wall rather than distinct notes

Flamenco tremolo (p-i-a-m-i) A five-note pattern — thumb bass note then four treble notes — as against classical tremolo's four.

a sustained melody note repeated in rapid five-note groups over a separate thumb bass line, sounding continuous

Sweep picking A single continuous pick direction across consecutive strings, each note fretted and released so they do not overlap.

arpeggios played in one continuous sweeping motion, fluid and unbroken rather than individually picked

Economy picking Alternate picking that switches to a sweep whenever crossing to a new string in the same direction.

fast runs that flow across strings without the stutter of strict alternate picking

Thumb-independent bass Open-tuned strings place the tonic and dominant on unfretted strings so the thumb can run bass patterns freely underneath moving melody.

one guitarist covering bass, chords and melody at once, with a rolling bass that never stops under the tune