Thanks tdn and WordMan. I never really thought about the pick transition much until it came up in WordMan’s post up-thread, but when I saw that I thought, ‘I do have that problem!’
I notice it when playing my acoustic which has .12 or .13’s. I use a .60mm pick (I think that is considered medium). I paid attention to my grip last night and noticed that I don’t use the thumb-and-index grip very often. I will give that a try and see if it works better for me.
Nothing to add, just got a giggle when I was scanning the topics and mis-read this as Guitar: Does it matter how I hold my pRick?
And I was left wondering exactly what that had to do with playing the guitar…
That is all.
Cool - and yeah, if you are either using a pinchy grip or have both your index and middle fingers touching the pick for strumming, then moving to the thumb-and-side-of-index will greatly increase the fluid movement from rhythm to lead once you get comfy with it…
If you are discussing a Dunlop pick is it the Orange kind? That sounds a tad on the Thin side. For Tortex, try the Yellow or maybe even the Green…if you just get Fender picks, obviously buy Mediums…
Will if you are going to rock out with your cock out, it could be a very big deal. 
However, if you are trying to strum a steel string guitar with your prick, well - that’s a whole 'nother kinda kink I never want to find out about…:eek:
Yep, the problem is when I do the rhythm with the both index and middle on the pick. I was trying to change my hold on-the-fly and there really isn’t enough time.
It IS the orange kind. I use greens too occasionally, because the oranges are a little thin. I didn’t realize there was a yellow in-between. I’ll try that – thanks!
You might enjoy Gabriela’s (or Rodrigo y Gabriela) pickless technique:
I am entirely self-taught, and four years in, realized I needed to switch from index and middle on the pick to index only. It was a pain, but it totally paid off in terms of what I could tackle playing.
…and yeah, get the Tortex Yellows - that’s what I use! 
There’s so much I shouldn’t say about this thought, and yet I will, 'cause that’s the kind of asshole I am.
It gets pretty hard on the finish…
That’s a different kind of French polish…
Guess you can really tell the difference between flat-wound and round-wound strings that way…
Beat it on out, there, boy…
Hilarious. I am self-taught too, but apparently 18 years behind you. I don’t always use the three-finger picking grip, just for certain rhythms. But it seems I should focus on the thumb/index grip.
Oddly enough, I remember now that I had a yellow tortex. It was one of my first picks. You know when you first start out and you only have one or two pics; those that were given to you by whoever it was that taught you your first riff? I remember wearing it out and then reshaping it with a file.
Oh yeah - I had picks for years! But then I started bearing down and getting a bit more aggressive with my picking and began wearing them out. Now I just buy them by the gross and leave the littered all over the place…
Where are you in Illinois? Ever been to Decatur? My wife’s family is from there…
Le Ministre - oh yeah - twisted minds think alike!
I’ve been to Decatur, but I think Carter was President the last time I was there.
I’m curious, WordMan, can you throw out a couple of song titles that you play rhythm on that tends to rip your pick in twain? Just something representative that your last band would hammer out and you’d be leaving dismembered picks on the stage floor.
Sure I’ve been there! But not in a long while; I am up in the Chicago suburbs. I have friends down-state, so I make it down in that area once in a while.
Do you have a favorite source for your grosses of picks? I’ve been meaning to start ordering them online. My acoustic chews through the .60mm’s pretty quickly and I need a cheaper source.
Just seeing this.
squeegee, my friend, as I have stated before, I don’t “rip picks in twain” ;)
- although it would be incredibly cool if I could do it on command - as my cool on-stage trick or something.
I just wear them down - I guess if I were to pick a song, or a player, it would be when I do Pride and Joy or other Stevie Ray Vaughn songs. That raking-upstroke Texas Shuffle rhythm puts twice as much wear on the pick because I am hitting both the downstroke walking bass AND the upstroke pretty hard - that’s just the SRV way.
Through playing, I just round the tip off the pick and it bevels so the edge of the pick gets sharpened - so I toss it and grab a new one. But that is somewhat common, isn’t it? Other folks wear picks down?
I wear through picks pretty quickly flatpicking…I’m usually playing a combination of Carter style bass movement plus offbeat strumming, and also throwing in Flatt runs and melodic phrases as the tune requires.
I change pick thickness as the situation dictates but usually go with a medium by default. On acoustic, a thicker pick is for volume and a thinner pick gives a thinner, more high-end tone.
On electric, I play all medium, except for jazz, for which I use heavy picks and flatwounds (Chromes)
For mandolin I use super thick mando picks by either Golden Gate or Dawg (David Grisman’s pick co.)
The best thing I have found for picking came from Craig Small*, IIRC. Basically you take a normal medium or heavy pick and shave down the sides to make the point pointier and shorten the pick. It leaves the big fat part for gripping but the thin point makes fast playing way easier and it also gives you more control, especially for pick harmonics.
So I spend an hour or so every month using a nail file to shape a bunch of picks.
Slee
*A great guitarist. I got this from him, IIRC. I was hanging out in my apartment one day screwing around listening to a 9.0 C.D, Craig’s band. I turned around and Craig was in my apartment with my roommate. I said ‘Holy shit, your Craig Small’. He said ‘Holy shit, you’ve heard of my band’. It was kinda funny.
Jeez - he can play.
As for the pick filing - so a Dunlop Jazz pick or other pointier pick can’t do the same thing, without the monthy filing?
I was exaggerating for comedic effect, sorry if I that didn’t come through. You’ve mentioned multiple times that you go through tons of picks and have a very heavy picking style, so I was just curious about what type of material you go all Townshend on. Thanks for clarifying.
That makes sense; I’ve never quite gotten the Pride and Joy down (I get to the E->A change and it all falls apart), but the shuffle picking is pretty fun to play; I really like raking the pick up and down in complete disregard to what the left hand is playing, and still making it work despite that.
Dunno. I used to kill picks regularly back when they were commonly made of celluloid; they’d either tear in two or get multiple notches and be unusable. Whatever they make picks from these days – e.g. Dunlop medium purples that I seem to be wedded to lately – seem to be much more durable. The edge gets a little jagged after a while, but it takes days or weeks of playing for me to get one to a point it’s not reasonably usable. I’ve never worn out a Tortex pick; those suckers seem indestructible (and somehow you destruct them! 
)
Great piece and great playing, but I want to smash a guitar over the head of the video editor. WTF? I’d like to actually see the piece. Can we please keep the shot in one place for a few seconds??? (watching that actually made me angry!!).
Good lord - agreed. Clearly the editor was trying to identify which viewers are epileptics by editing the video to give them seizures…
Looks like the guy (Rodrigo, I assume) is using a modified Flamenco approach - lots of big strumming and using his pinched index and thumb as a form of “pick” while also opening up his hand for more complex flamenco/classical pick patterns as needed. Cool.
**squeegee **- I think it all depends on force and angle. I never broke normal standard celluloid picks as you describe you used to do - I don’t come on my picks in a way that would make that happen. But I do “saw” the pick against the strings - the angle I hold the pick at relative to the strings leads to a circular motion (big, when I am doing SRV’s Texas Shuffle strum/pick; or small when I am doing lead work, but holding the pick at angle when I move it up or down…). That is what wears down my pick. I know folks who really hold the pick more perpendicular to the strings and have less circularity to their picking motion - they don’t wear out their picks the way I do, even if they play with as much force…
I don’t really have enough guitar skill to notice much difference (but if you want to talk drumsticks I could go on for a while). I just thought you might find this story interesting.
Quite a few years ago a friend and I went to see a new band called Gov’t Mule play at a little club in OKC. The girl wanted to get there early so we stopped by in the afternoon to see what time the doors would open. As we got out of the car, I looked up and noticed Warren Haynes walking down the sidewalk. “Well here’s your chance to meet him if you want.” She definitely wanted, so I made the introductions (not that I knew him or anything). While talking to Warren (and gushing if the truth were known), Allen Woody comes walking up. Warren saw his opportunity and went to the bus. While talking to Woody, Matt Abts comes walking by so Woody went in the club. After a couple of minutes Allen comes back out and visits some more (allowing Matt to escape).
Well, we ain’t leaving now, so we hung around outside until the doors opened (and heard a sound check not to be believed, video on youtube under Gov’t Mule at VZD, or something like that). It was a great show even after blowing the power for the entire block and waiting forty-five minutes for the city to come out and restore it. The band picked up where they left off, playing right up to the mandatory closing time of 2AM and a good time was had by all.
Which brings us to the point of the story.
At the end of the night, Woody came up and gave Leah (the girl) his pick as a souveneir. She busted his balls a little about “real men don’t need a pick to play bass”. He just laughed and told her to look at it. It was a fairly standard fender tortoise shell, a little heavy, with a half-moon chunk worn out of it, at least a third worn away. “What, they don’t pay you enough to buy a new pick once in a while?” Again he laughed and told her, “That’s from the last song.”