Thumbpicks - Love or Hate - Tips and Tricks

[Charlie Bernstein]

Originally Posted by kmckenna45

I've struggled with using a thumbtack for finger style guitar for years. All the better players use them

All? We might have different definitions of better.

Originally Posted by kmckenna45

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?

You can trim and sand them, and you can heat them in boiling water to rebend them. It's easier to just shop around for something comfortable.

Originally Posted by kmckenna45

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 don't use flatpicks. I play with fingerpicks or bare fingers. I recommend taking off the picks for songs that want to be strummed. You can still fingerpick just fine with bare fingers in the same songs.

If you don't want picks on your other fingers, lots of people hybrid pick with an ordinary flatpick. It takes some practice, but it'll probably pay off. Thumbpicks aren't designed for flatpicking. Flatpicks are.

[rllink]

Originally Posted by 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.

When I first used a thumb pick on banjo I had been doing finger rolls on the ukulele without them. When I put on the thumb pick it felt like it was in the way. But it did strike me right away that when I did rolls without, I was plucking the strings with the side of my thumb. I was moving the pick back and forth on thumb trying to find a way to make it work. I put it high up by the knuckle and found that if I plucked with the side of my thumb as usual that I would get that familiar feel of flesh on the string and that the pick would also catch the string and give me that sharp clear ringing sound from the pick at the same time. So I played that way and over the course of a week or two the pick felt better and I would keep moving it out, until I finally got it out on the thumb nail and it felt natural there where it is designed to be.

I'm sure no one here is doing this, but I was at a beginner banjo workshop last winter and a fellow was wearing his thumb pick upside down. Needless to say, he was having a very hard time with it. The instructor got him straightened out. But later he told me he had gone through a dozen different styles of thumb picks trying to play them upside down like that.

[PeterM]

1 brand...

Pro Pik

[Bodegard Rippy]

For years i struggled to find a thumbpick that worked for me. Had written them off until i started attending a jam with louder instruments (piano et al).
I've since switched over to thumbpicks almost all the time.
The pick i found that worked for me was Black Mountain Jazz Tipped

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by PineMarten

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.

Well, he was already accustomed to the thumbpick, years before he met Renbourn.
And - as I said - his teachers at the Howff (Len Partridge, Archie Fisher) used thumbpicks, as did his main inspiration Brownie McGhee - as well as other players he witnessed in the early days, like Martin Carthy and Peggy Seeger. It would have seemed the normal thing to do! (Davy Graham - his other big hero - didn't use one, but he didn't see Graham play until a few years later.)

But you're right about the clubs with no PA. He has said that his aggressive right hand technique - snapping strings back against the frets - came from trying to make himself heard in clubs where other performers would be mostly either singing or strumming, and therefore carrying well enough with no need for mics. Fingerpicked instrumentals could easily get lost. And he also wanted to be loud and bluesy, certainly in the early days, to create driving grooves. So the thumbpick obviously helped with that.

[Charlie Bernstein]

Originally Posted by 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.

Cool! I'll try it!