Chicken picking
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Chicken pickin' is a lead guitar style or technique used in country music where the plucked strings are pulled outward by the fingers of the dominant hand and the note played immediately dampened by decreasing the pressure of the other hand's finger on the fret. (Burrows 1995, p.60)
For example, the following, with a bend between the grace and last notes (ibid): 
[edit] Source
- Burrows, Terry (1995). Play Country Guitar. Dorling Kindersley Limited, London. ISBN 0-7894-0190-8.
"Chicken picking" term is also used as a synonyme for "Hybrid picking", which is a guitar-playing technique that involves picking with a pick and fingers at the same time. It therefore allows guitar players who use a pick (plectrum) to perform music which would normally require fingerstyle playing. It also facilitates wide string leaps (e.g. from the fifth string to the first string, etc) which might otherwise be quite difficult. The technique is not incredibly widespread in most genres of guitar playing (though notable exceptions exist, see below), but is most often employed by country/bluegrass flatpickers who play music which occasionally demands fingerstyle passages.
