Thumbpicks - Love or Hate - Tips and Tricks

[kmckenna45]

I've struggled with using a thumbtack for finger style guitar for years. All the better players use them and recommend them - but I can never find one that's comfortable, and will stay on without moving.

What tips and tricks do you know about how to select a proper thumb pick, and maybe make it more comfortable?

I've found the Zooskie L-10 to be closest to useful for me. But it's too thick for strumming.


Also - the Herco thumbpick is the standard for having a thumbtack that can be used for strumming and/or picking. But - I haven't been able to find one that has flexibility for strumming while staying in play while finger picking.

Any recommendations?

[davidbeinct]

I wouldn’t say all the best players use a thumbpick. Most do. A couple who don’t (or didn’t) off the top of my head are Mississippi John Hurt and Adam Rafferty.
Having said that I still occasionally try one. The Fred Kelly speed pick is the one that feels most natural to me. I use the orange ones. I also cut off some of the pick extension.

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by kmckenna45

…Any recommendations?

Hi kmckenna…

Fred Kelly picks…

Biggest variety, and supplier of thousands of fingerstylists…

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=fred+kell...l_9kjxfoz4ve_e


Scan down the page (and focus on the Fred Kelly offerings). There are several models you might want to 'try' before you settle on one.

[mike o]

Yes. Fred Kelly Speed picks.

[rllink]

Originally Posted by kmckenna45

I've struggled with using a thumbtack for finger style guitar for years. All the better players use them and recommend them - but I can never find one that's comfortable, and will stay on without moving.

What tips and tricks do you know about how to select a proper thumb pick, and maybe make it more comfortable?

I've found the Zooskie L-10 to be closest to useful for me. But it's too thick for strumming.


Also - the Herco thumbpick is the standard for having a thumbtack that can be used for strumming and/or picking. But - I haven't been able to find one that has flexibility for strumming while staying in play while finger picking.

Any recommendations?

When I started playing banjo, in January, I was having trouble finding a thumb pick and finger picks that felt comfortable. A fellow I play with regularly finger picks guitar so I asked the same question. He gave me a Dunlop thumb pick and told me just to play it til it worked. I did that and it feels natural to me now. I did take it home when I first got it and held it in front of a space heater to loosen it up a bit because it was too tight. Sometimes it just takes a while.

[Mr. Jelly]

Try out different thumb picks. Find a style and size closest to what you desire. I use plastic thumb picks and modify them by putting the area where the bend is in boiling water. I hold them with tongs and have a glass of cold water handy. When the pick starts opening up, I put it in cold water to stop it. After several I try them on and rework the ones that need it.

[Robin, Wales]

Originally Posted by kmckenna45

I've struggled with using a thumbtack for finger style guitar for years. All the better players use them and recommend them - but I can never find one that's comfortable, and will stay on without moving.

What tips and tricks do you know about how to select a proper thumb pick, and maybe make it more comfortable?

I've found the Zooskie L-10 to be closest to useful for me. But it's too thick for strumming.


Also - the Herco thumbpick is the standard for having a thumbtack that can be used for strumming and/or picking. But - I haven't been able to find one that has flexibility for strumming while staying in play while finger picking.

Any recommendations?

I wonder if you have a playing concept a little bit off here?

I have been playing with a thumb pick for well over 20 years on guitar, banjo and dobro and never “strummed”. Downstrokes, yes, but not down, up, down, up strumming. If you watch the early country/bluegrass players then it was the same (Carter, Flatt, Munroe, Stanley) the thumb pick provides down strokes and the finger(s), usually with pick(s) on, the upstrokes.

Trying to “strum” with a thumb pick is, as you have found, not going to be easy.

Other thumb pick playing styles include Travis picking and fingerstyle – again, the thumb pick is used for downstrokes and the fingers for upstrokes. The Herco pick is a sort of hybrid thumb pick - but not that popular for "regular" thumb pick users.

[mawmow]

When I used to try some, I shortened the pick.
I rarely used such device and do not use any anymore.

[PineMarten]

I'm a regular thumbpick user, Fred Kelly Slick Picks in the heavy gauge/large size. I find if I play with the flesh of my thumb it's softer and less defined than I'd like, and changing my hand angle to use the thumbnail moves my fingers away from where I want them on steel string (even if that hand position works on classical).
But I don't play fully strummed parts with a thumbpick - if it's the occasional strum for accents I'll use a downstroke with my fingers, and much more than that I'll just use a flat pick. I will occasionally play single note runs using down/up picking with the thumbpick, braced with a finger as though it was a flat pick, but not a strummed rhythm part.

[zeeway]

My favorites are the good old Dunlop…sometimes I cut down the length a little. I always use one for 2-4 timing, and sometimes just hold on to it like a regular flat pick.

[fantex]

I used a Dunlop medium that I trimmed, it was a little tight. Now I use a large D'Addario full length and I stuck with it.

[jontewright]

Good old dunlop's are also my favourite. I use a size large and class myself as having small hands so size up. Also a quick suck of the thumb before I put it on seems to help it stick.

[JonPR]

I prefer not to use thumbpicks and get on fine with just my thumbnail. I prefer to be able to feel the string, same as I can using finger(nail)s instead of fingerpicks.

But I have tried thumbpicks occasionally, and what I found worked surprisingly well were metal ones. The big advantage ove plastic is that you can bend the grips to make them a comfortable fit - where plastic ones (IME) tend to be either too tight or too loose. I.e., I don't want the pick to move around on my thumb, but I don't want it to stop the circulation either! What surprised me about the metal was that the tone was better than I thought it would be; bright, but not too bright or scratchy. It's also naturally a little louder than thumbnail. But still, despite being able to bend it to fit, it still grew uncomfortable after a while (the edges of the grips would cut into my skin).

So I went back to thumb, because I also preferred the feel, even if the attack wasn't as loud or precise.

More recently, I was given a whole load of Bert Jansch's old thumbpicks - Dunlop plastic, L size - and found them quite comfortable; just the right size for me. One advantage with plastic over metal is you can cut them down. I found it much easier to play with one after trimming a good 1/4" off the point, and rounding it out more.

But still, I went back to thumb. I probably could get used to that cut-down plastic one if I practised with it enough, but I see no need. My thumbnail is good and strong, never chips or breaks.

Incidentally, Bert Jansch always used a thumbpick, and once famously fashioned one out of a teaspoon (as a desperate beginner). Here's a revealing quote from a 1994 interview:

Q: Do you still play with the thumbpick?
A: Yeah, yeah.
Q: What’s the advantage there?
A: I don’t think it’s an advantage at all, actually, I think it’s er, more like a disadvantage. And that all stems from Big Bill Broonzy. Having seen him on Scottish TV, there was a programme up here called ... This Wonderful World; and the only time I’d ever seen Big Bill Broonzy was on this programme. And they showed it quite a bit, people used to phone in to the TV company to ask it to be shown again. From when he was in Paris, playing in a Paris night club; and he wore a thumbpick, you see, so I felt, well I’ve got to wear a thumbpick.

[My emphasis.]

The odd thing about that is that - in all the old clips of Broonzy that I've been able to find (including what I presume is the Paris night club film), he is quite clearly not wearing a thumb pick! (In fact, the night club film was Belgian, although it looks very French.)

So my guess is - although he was clearly impressed with the Broonzy film - he acquired the thumbpick habit from his teachers at the Howff (blues player Len Partridge wore one), and then from Brownie McGhee, who he saw in person there (late 1960), and who also wore a thumbpick. He just conflated those memories with the Broonzy film.

And so the thumbpick became a habit from the start, a foundational element of his style - and it's shame he never explained in what way he (later) felt it was a disadvantage!

[PineMarten]

Originally Posted by JonPR

And so the thumbpick became a habit from the start, a foundational element of his style - and it's shame he never explained in what way he (later) felt it was a disadvantage!

I wonder if it was almost a bit of a chip on his shoulder from spending time around other fingerstyle guitarists with relatively delicate, refined bare finger techniques, your Renbournes et al? Jansch always had a slighter rawer, earthier feel about his playing that I presume started out from trying to be audible at unamped folk clubs - I love that about his playing, but perhaps he felt a little pigeonholed by it later when that was less of a factor.

[Bluenose]

When I was watching an old clip of Rev Gary Davis I noticed that he had big hands, used a thumb pick but wore it up quite high. It looked like it was even past the the knuckle. I then watched his protégé Ernie Hawkins and noticed he wore his pick high up this thumb as well. Obviously you need a stretched out pick especially if you have a big thumb but it does feel much different and makes alternate picking a bit easier and maybe even a bit more efficient.