Stop th dreaded pick slipping

Terry B

Humble student of the blues
I'm going to have to have some very good and convincing reasons before I'm about to set my playing back by four or five years to learn to need sticky gunk on my fingers to keep my pick from flying to parts unknown. When I try to force myself to use only thumb and index finger I can barely play ... and not for long before the pick goes flying. To play that way, I am not exaggerating, it would set me back by years. And for what? I am not going to pursue that without some STRONG and CONVINCING reasons.

This was almost 7 years ago now, and I'm not real clear on the reason. I had also recently taken up playing guitar again after a 30 year absence so I was like a beginner again. We all pick up various bad habits that if caught early are best corrected, but if not we compensate as best we can.
 

Beach Bill

Wannabe Guitar Picker
I picked up my old guitar a couple of years ago - after leaving it sit in a closet for the prior 25 years. I don't remember having pick-retention problems way back when - but I did experience some "flyaway" this time around.

I've gotten to like Fender Mediums and, yes, purple is my color of preference. :rolleyes: Anyway, I use an old soldering iron to melt some small, irregular grooves in my picks. It seems to work for me.

However, that may just be a placebo. I often get asked to play a couple of tunes when my wife and I hit a few local taverns - I get handed a guitar and whatever pick goes with it - and have not yet lost a pick in that scenario. YMMV.
 

Rancid Rumpboogie

Blues Mangler
Anchoring my fingers on the guitar to keep from using them on the pick is also a non-starter for me. Absolutely not. I couldn't hardly play a single lick if I did that because it essentially means that you can't use your wrist or your arm. I "anchor" my hand with the heel of my palm brushing lightly on the bridge ... very lightly so my wrist can still be in play with the heel of my palm just brushing the bridge. I have absolutely no problem doing that with a free-floating Strat trem.

I took another hard look at the way Gregor Hilden holds his pick. Thumb and index, with the pick almost behind the knuckle of his thumb and using the side of his index finger. The side of his index. This means he is using the entire area of the side of his index from the 1st knucke to the tip, positioned diagonally on the pick, nearly horizontal. When I tried emulating his style before, I missed that, and was trying to use just the tip of my index. I just tried again, using what I just now pointed out, and the difference is amazing. It actually works for me! It will take a while to perfect, but it works. I currently hold the pick directly behind the ball of my thumb (with both index and middle fingers). I can pretty easily slide the pick back along my thumb and transition to Gregor's grip ... doing so just isn't natural yet. I am going to work on it, probably a lot. It would give me a better grip on the pick when using my fingers to pluck strings, and probably for running my tremolo as well. Good reasons. See, a stubborn old dog can learn new tricks. :) Stubborn? Me? :ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:
 
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Terry B

Humble student of the blues
The anchoring your fingers to the pick guard thing, I believe, is just to keep them from wanting to go back to the pick until you get used to this.
 

jmin

Student Of The Blues
The anchoring your fingers to the pick guard thing, I believe, is just to keep them from wanting to go back to the pick until you get used to this.
Yes. I don't think anchoring is used for flat picking.
I saw a Tommy Emmanuel video where he was discussing his technique (finger picking) and he talked about "anchoring" and he said, "some do and some don't. But Chet Atkins DID and if it was good enough for Chet...."
 
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Crossroads

Thump the Bottom
I find anchoring the pinky when finger picking helpful, but when flat or hybrid picking it makes changing your pick attack and your palm muting much more difficult.

I just messed with anchor points and realized I don't anchor, but when palm muting bass strings I'll use my the sides of my fingers on the pick guard as the pivot to apply and release pressure on the palm mute.

Not sure if that is good technique or not, and didn't even realize I have been doing it.
 

JohnHurley

Rock and Roll
I dunno Gregor Hilden but the description of holding pick sounds fairly close to how i am trying to hold pick.

My first guitar teacher kind of beat me into that “grab more pick” i hear immediately when i pickup guitar.

Everyone has to find something that works for them but to me i cannot imagine using middle finger to help hold pick.

I posted a picture of picks in my current rotation the mojo grip ones are well worth giving a try.
 
My order of Wedgie (.40 and .50) and Dunlop (.38 and .46) extra light nylon picks came in, and I have these observations...

I'm looking for the ideal all purpose pick that I can use for both strumming chords and soloing. For the last year or two I've been using a .53 Snarling Dog Brain pick. Of all the picks I've tried, this one has been my favorite, but I still have pick turn issues with it while strumming full chords for the duration of a full song. I should mention that one main reason I don't strum well is because I just haven't done that much of it over my guitar playing carrier. I'm quite comfortable playing small chords or single note soloing (at least as far as pick control goes).

The Brain pick is a good quality nylon pick, combining a significantly grippy texture with smooth, well finished edges. .53 is the thinnest pick they offer. They're not terribly expensive, a dozen picks is around $12.

So the .53 Brain pick is what I'm comparing to.

The Dunlop .38 is insanely flimsy. It does totally cure my pick turning issues while strumming. However, it's *very* noisy flapping across the strings. Also, the extreme flexibility is seriously detrimental to single note playing. I don't consider this pick usable.

Interesting to note that the Dunlop .38 is significantly more flimsy feeling than the .40 Wedgie, even though they are only .02 apart.

The Dunlop .46 and the Wedgie .40 actually feel nearly identical in flex. The Wedgie picks have a bit of a concave shape where the thumb goes, and the texture is a bit more grippy than the Dunlop, which just has some raised lettering on it. Despite the differences in shape and texture, I don't notice much difference in feel between these two picks.

I can just start to notice some minor pick turning issues creeping in at this thickness, but it's much less bothersome than with the .53 Brain pick. They are somewhat less noisy when strummed than the thinnest pick, but still noticeably noisy compared to the Brain pick. I am comfortable playing solos using picks of this thickness.

I chose nylon because I read somewhere that material is quiet. But that doesn't seem to be the case with these really thin picks.

So in summary, I've determined that going to a thinner pick does help with my control issues. This kinda supports my recent speculation that I'm just hitting the strings too hard, letting the pick dig into the strings too deeply, and/or not rotating my hand enough for the upstroke.

The Dunlop .38 is just too flimsy, too noisy, and unusable for soloing.

The Dunlop .46 (or Wedgie .40) seems like a good compromise for me to move to right now, although I'd bet most folks would tend to find this thickness also way too thin for multi-purpose use. What I'm hoping is that by going to a thinner pick, I'll be able to have less of a fight with pick control, which may allow me to relax a bit, gradually improve my technique, and eventually be able to handle thicker picks more comfortably.
 

brent

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.
I'm a fan of just using a pick that's easier to keep still. My personal choice is the DAVA brand.

View attachment 6918

They have the added virtue of changing apparent thickness depending on how close to the tip you hold them.

Some folks here also swear by V-Picks, which are claimed to warm up and get grippier in use. YMMV.

I use these picks, myself. They are my favorite after trying multiple styles. I use the ones above for acoustic strumming and the jazz III size for electric. I however, just use my hand with no pick as often as I play with a pick. That's partly because I took a classical guitar course in college when I was still fairly new to the guitar and so I became comfortable with finger picking early on. I am as comfortable or even more so using just my hand to strum or pick the strings than I am a pick of any kind.
 

MarkDyson

Blues Hound Wannabe
Got a couple of Mojo mediums and will be putting them through their paces the next couple of weeks.
 

Thatman

Playin' for the fun of it.
Sound travels in our house and I worry about who's going to have to listen to the noise I'm making, this makes my hands perspire. The billy bonus is my pick sticks to my finger and thumb just fine. o_O

But don't worry if I lend you a pick, I disinfect everything once a year. :rolleyes:
 

JohnHurley

Rock and Roll
I use headphones. Nobody should be subjected to what I'm doing.

Yikes woo hoo!

Going back to some other posts ...

Yeah i like the dunlop 46s also for some songs ...

The mojo grips i am big fan of but i am using their thin ones which to me are medium. I should get a set of mojo mediums.
 

MarkDyson

Blues Hound Wannabe
The mojo grips i am big fan of but i am using their thin ones which to me are medium. I should get a set of mojo mediums.

I got a 3-pack each of the thins and the mediums to audition. At first blush the mediums feel better but I'll give the thins a go as well.
 

MarkDyson

Blues Hound Wannabe
So, the MojoGrip Mediums are in favor with me right now. I've been using them almost exclusively for about a week now and I'm a fan.

Biggest advantage over the DAVA GripTip? Those are designed to be able to shift your grip up and down to change the effective thickness; in practice I find my fingers migrating to the fat end and leaving too much pick exposed. Try as I might not to do that, I get lost in what I'm doing and, next time I notice, most of the pick is "hanging out."

The Mojos, thus far, don't seem to want to creep as much and I find my grip tends to be more what I'm wanting even when not thinking about it.
 

TerryMay

Blues Newbie
So, the MojoGrip Mediums are in favor with me right now. I've been using them almost exclusively for about a week now and I'm a fan.

Biggest advantage over the DAVA GripTip? Those are designed to be able to shift your grip up and down to change the effective thickness; in practice I find my fingers migrating to the fat end and leaving too much pick exposed. Try as I might not to do that, I get lost in what I'm doing and, next time I notice, most of the pick is "hanging out."

The Mojos, thus far, don't seem to want to creep as much and I find my grip tends to be more what I'm wanting even when not thinking about it.
Mark, your descriptive adj. Is right on "Creep" that it does.
 
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