Rock guitar technique — legato, economy picking, hybrid picking, and how to develop them seriously over time — is the focus of this second session with Luca Mantovanelli. Luca came to advanced technique relatively late, built most of it himself through experimentation, and has some genuinely useful things to say about what actually works and what doesn’t.
What you’ll get out of this lesson: An honest, experience-based look at how a working guitarist develops high-level technique — the practice habits, the left-hand mechanics, the right-hand choices, and the mindset that gets results without injury. Tabs coming soon.
How Luca developed his technique — and when he started
Luca didn’t begin practising technique seriously until around 10 years before this session. Before that he was playing a range of instruments and playing the guitar, but not systematically working on the mechanics. The catalyst was discovering Greg Howe’s legato technique and realising that if he wanted to play at that level, casual playing wasn’t going to get him there. Crucially, he created most of his own exercises rather than learning them from teachers or books — he knew the scales and built patterns from them himself. Tom Quayle’s influence came later and shaped his approach significantly. The lesson here isn’t that self-teaching is the only route; it’s that understanding why an exercise exists makes it far more productive than just running someone else’s drills.
Two kinds of legato — clean and dirty
Luca distinguishes between two distinct modes of legato playing. The first he calls clean, or not-dirty, legato — precisely timed 16th-note lines where every note sits exactly in the grid, with consistent dynamics throughout. This requires meticulous practice with a metronome, playing slowly and evenly, then stepping the tempo up gradually. The second is what he calls dirty legato — a flowing, unquantised line where he starts when he wants and finishes when he wants, stretching and compressing the rhythm freely. These are genuinely different skills: the clean version demands rhythmic discipline; the dirty version demands the freedom to let go of the grid entirely. Interestingly, spending years perfecting the clean version made the dirty version harder to access — a reminder that the habits you build through deliberate practice become deeply ingrained.
I practiced legato stuff on the acoustic guitar, and that was wrong. I discovered then that was very wrong. And that’s why I didn’t play guitar for three weeks. Because acoustic guitar and electric guitar are two different instruments, like classical guitar. We have three guitars, but totally different in terms of technique.
Left-hand mechanics — thumb position and wrist angle
Luca is comfortable playing with both the thumb behind the neck and the thumb over the top, and this flexibility came naturally rather than through deliberate practice of each position. That said, he has a clear preference for the behind-the-neck position for legato work on the lower strings. The reason is biomechanical: when the wrist is dropped and the thumb is behind the neck, you can generate significantly more force with the fretting fingers. Bending the wrist too far reduces the power that the muscles in the forearm can transmit through the fingers — something you can test yourself by squeezing a finger with a straight wrist and then with a bent one. This means a position that feels comfortable might actually be limiting your legato strength without you realising it.
Right-hand approach — hybrid picking and natural development
Luca’s right-hand technique combines economy picking, hybrid picking, and legato, all working together. His hybrid picking developed completely naturally from years of playing fingerstyle before he picked up a plectrum — once he started using a pick, it was intuitive to continue using the other fingers alongside it. He didn’t deliberately practise hybrid picking as a technique; it emerged from his existing right-hand vocabulary. The same principle applies here as with the left hand: understanding the origin of a technique helps you develop it more purposefully. If you want to develop hybrid picking, spending time playing purely fingerstyle is a legitimate path to making it feel natural.
Injury prevention and practising sustainably
Luca had to stop playing for three weeks after overdoing legato practice on an acoustic guitar — a reminder that acoustic strings require significantly more force than electric strings, and that the two instruments place genuinely different physical demands on the hand. If you are experiencing strain or pain, the advice is simple: rest. Don’t push through it. Tendons and finger flexors recover, but only if you give them the chance to do so.
Taking it further: The third and fourth sessions in Luca’s residency go deeper into specific musical applications of these techniques — exploring how economy picking, hybrid picking, and legato combine within real musical phrases, and how his approach to fretboard visualisation from session one feeds directly into his technical practice. Watching all four sessions as a set gives the fullest picture of how these elements work together in a mature playing style.
Your homework: Spend 10 minutes this week practising clean legato lines — three-note-per-string patterns through a scale or mode you know — with a metronome at a tempo where every note sounds equally clear and loud. Pay attention to your wrist position and notice whether dropping the wrist increases or decreases the clarity of your hammer-ons. Note what you find and bring that observation to your next practice session.