Raking

Dragging the pick across several adjacent strings so that they sound in quick succession as a rhythmic or percussive effect.

A rake is a controlled muffled sweep, usually used to lead into a chord or a target note, and it sounds more like a scrape than a chord. Players rake with the fret hand relaxed so the raked strings are damped into a percussion sound, then hit the final destination string cleanly. It is common in blues, rock and country as a way of filling a beat or adding bite at the front of a phrase without changing the harmony.

Example: A blues turnaround that begins with a quick scrape up the bottom strings before landing on the top note is built from a rake.

Raking

See also