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Post by Colchar on Nov 30, 2017 20:06:49 GMT
After reading a thread on another forum, I decided to post something similar here.
That thread talked about playing electric guitar with fingers instead of a pick, but not playing in a traditional style (ie. patterns, arpeggiating chords, alternating bass, etc.). Basically, the person was asking about just plucking notes with fingers instead of a pick.
Does anyone here do this?
I've never been fully comfortable with a pick. I keep trying to become comfortable with a pick but any level of comfort with them never lasts very long. I also have some issues with my right wrist, which can make playing with a pick uncomfortable/painful. This is especially true after playing with a pick as the discomfort/pain can last a day or two. For a while now I've thought that I really need to just make the decision to ditch the picks and to stick to playing with my fingers instead of going back and forth as I know that the constant switching is holding back progress. Along those lines, yesterday I decided to put some real effort into playing with my fingers rather than using a pick.
I had some stuff that I wanted to work on so a little while ago I started taking some lessons with an old friend from high school who is a great player, and a good teacher. I talked to him about it last night and his attitude was that, if I can play with my fingers and doing so significantly reduces pain in my wrist then who cares about what you are 'supposed' to do - that I should just go for it.
So for the foreseeable future the picks are gone and we'll see how I develop using only my fingers.
I really like playing with just my fingers as I feel I am more musical when I do and I like the tactile connection you have with the guitar. I guess I feel more connected to it than I do when using a pick.
I basically use my thumb and first finger - thumb for downstrokes and index finger for upstrokes. And I do that for both strumming and single note playing. I try to alternate pick with my fingers but sometimes slip into economy picking, just because it makes some things easier just as it does when economy picking with a pick.
When using my fingers I pretty much play like the guy in the video below, minus the whammy bar wanking and his putting his fingers together as if he were holding a pick when strumming. Check out what he does at about the 0:19 second mark, that is what I do.
Sadly, the guy in the video drowned last summer so is no longer with us.
But anyway, I was wondering about other people here. Do you play with a pick, with your fingers, or do you use both and hybrid pick?
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Post by Bill h on Dec 1, 2017 22:21:10 GMT
I was pick exclusive in my metal and rock days. When I started in country bands I adopted the hybrid method of using a pick while at the same time picked with my pinky, ring and middle fingers, worked out nicely.
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Post by Grand Toad on Dec 2, 2017 5:44:42 GMT
I play electric with a pick most of the time. I'm working on hybrid picking as we speak.
On acoustic I can flat pick and finger pick. Bluegrass flat picking is bad ass. Learning to alternate pick was one of the best things I ever did.
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Post by Bill h on Dec 2, 2017 23:12:07 GMT
I play electric with a pick most of the time. I'm working on hybrid picking as we speak. On acoustic I can flat pick and finger pick. Bluegrass flat picking is bad ass. Learning to alternate pick was one of the best things I ever did. Bluegrass flat picking is awesome, wish I could do it. Mastering alternating picking is the key to getting to the next level no matter what genre of music your into. I was a slop master as a lead guitar player, I have light years of improvements to make, alternating picking being on the top of the list. When I started playing country music the hybrid method of using a pick and your fingers at the same time helped me do a better job of covering some of the music. |
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Post by sixstring on Feb 23, 2018 21:53:17 GMT
lately i've been working on a thing where i flatten an edge of a beer bottle cap and use that as a pick.
i can play with a beer cap to some extent and i like how it sounds but i'm trying to refine the technique a bit.
i do a little fingerpicking but not much. big respect for those who have the discipline to learn that stuff.
and Bluegrass stuff....get out... Doc Watson was the shit man!
i have a bunch of his live stuff. i have two good eyes and i still can't play like that!
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Post by Maxwell on Feb 24, 2018 21:49:02 GMT
I play fingers and pick and sometimes bofem same time...
Finger picking is fun, although a bit inconsistent at timesfor me still... somehow trying to break your head off about at the neck tends to mess things up for you for a good while...
Fun to play blues stuff especially and some smooth jazz stuff with just fingers... You can get all kinds of dynamic contrast with fingers, and blues 'snap' licks are fun with fingers... Sound damn cool...
I play with Fender 346 Med Shell picks....
A. Very easy to palm to finger pick
B. Easy to hold on to
C. Nobody I have ever played with used Fender 346 Med Shell picks so the rat bastids didn't steal 'em...
And yes, Doc Watson was 100% badass on mondo steroids and probably alien.
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Post by Sgt Rock on Sept 18, 2020 2:27:41 GMT
I never adapted to using a thumb pick. playing with a pick, you always have a guitar pick in your hand. so, when I started some Gordon Lightfoot songs, I started using my fingers, too. electic or acoustic, I use hybrid picking.
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Sasquatch
Burnt Rock Star
Posts: 32 
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Post by Sasquatch on Sept 18, 2020 3:41:33 GMT
Sadly I never learned finger picking. Once I got an electric it seemed pointless. Little did I realize some of my electric favorites were done with fingers only.
Not sure I can undo that now. Seems so foreign to me.
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Post by Sinster on Sept 18, 2020 14:39:36 GMT
I should have learned to finger pick.
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Post by Bill h on Oct 13, 2020 13:34:24 GMT
Never to late to start, even for us old dogs.
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Post by Die Bullen on Dec 2, 2020 17:58:23 GMT
I'm definitely a plectrum guy.
I actually got pretty good at clawhammer banjo technique for a time, but eventually I got rid of my 5 string because I was never playing it
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Post by infant on Dec 3, 2020 1:04:31 GMT
On acoustic, I do both depending on the song. I’ll either fingerpick or strum. On electric, it’s pretty much only a pick.
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Post by zontar on Dec 5, 2020 10:13:39 GMT
I use what works best for the song--so pick most of the time, but I have no issue using fingers or hybrid picking.
Although for 12 string I rarely finger pick--same for mandolin.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 11, 2020 5:51:38 GMT
Sometimes circumstances force us to adapt, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.....Sometimes that's how you learn. When I learned to play guitar, I always played with a pick. Twenty years ago, I hurt my back at work and was classified as permanently disabled...probably to never work again. Living on disability, which was 600.00/month, I was forced to adapt. I lived in my travel trailer in an RV park because it was all I could afford. I sold all of my instruments except my acoustic guitar because I had no space for four instruments. I learned very quickly that when you're living twelve feet apart from your neighbours with only 2" of insulation and an aluminum skin separating you, you have to learn about noise consideration. I only had my acoustic, and a dreadnaught is pretty loud, whether it's day or night. So I learned to play with my fingers. For three years, everything I played was with my fingers, and I learned a lot about how you create dynamics....When you want volume you can lean into it, but late at night, you learn to whisper on the guitar. It was probably the best thing that could have happened to me. I learned to claw pick and how to coax a very small sound out of the guitar. When I finally decided I'd rather die than suffer the boredom of doing nothing and the indignity of taking a handout, I forced myself to go back to work, and eventually got to a point of working fulltime and able to afford to live like a normal person. The strange thing was, even after I bought myself a Squier Fat Tele and a beaten Fender SuperTwin Reverb, I still wanted to play with my fingers. I found a pick quite limiting....Why would I restrict myself to only being able to play one note at a time when I had, effectively, five picks on my right hand that could all be doing something at the same time? I've learned, gradually to use a pick, for those rare occasions when a particular lead lick demands the articulation and dynamic attack that a pick gives me, but for comfort, most of my playing is with my fingers. I finally realized why players like Mark Knofler can sound so expressive. Necessity made me do the things that made me a better player and I'm grateful for it.
I don't know if I truly appreciated what I'd gained until one night after band practice was over. I set down my bass, picked up the rhythm guitar player's Tele and taught them a song we were going to learn. When I was done, I still remember the rhythm guitar player saying "Don't finger-pickers just piss you right off?" Everybody laughed, but it was the moment I realized what an advantage I'd gained. The worst three years of my life with only a flat-top Fender made me a better guitar player than the previous twenty years of playing with a pick.
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Post by zontar on Dec 11, 2020 8:39:01 GMT
Sometimes circumstances force us to adapt, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.....Sometimes that's how you learn. When I learned to play guitar, I always played with a pick. Twenty years ago, I hurt my back at work and was classified as permanently disabled...probably to never work again. Living on disability, which was 600.00/month, I was forced to adapt. I lived in my travel trailer in an RV park because it was all I could afford. I sold all of my instruments except my acoustic guitar because I had no space for four instruments. I learned very quickly that when you're living twelve feet apart from your neighbours with only 2" of insulation and an aluminum skin separating you, you have to learn about noise consideration. I only had my acoustic, and a dreadnaught is pretty loud, whether it's day or night. So I learned to play with my fingers. For three years, everything I played was with my fingers, and I learned a lot about how you create dynamics....When you want volume you can lean into it, but late at night, you learn to whisper on the guitar. It was probably the best thing that could have happened to me. I learned to claw pick and how to coax a very small sound out of the guitar. When I finally decided I'd rather die than suffer the boredom of doing nothing and the indignity of taking a handout, I forced myself to go back to work, and eventually got to a point of working fulltime and able to afford to live like a normal person. The strange thing was, even after I bought myself a Squier Fat Tele and a beaten Fender SuperTwin Reverb, I still wanted to play with my fingers. I found a pick quite limiting....Why would I restrict myself to only being able to play one note at a time when I had, effectively, five picks on my right hand that could all be doing something at the same time? I've learned, gradually to use a pick, for those rare occasions when a particular lead lick demands the articulation and dynamic attack that a pick gives me, but for comfort, most of my playing is with my fingers. I finally realized why players like Mark Knofler can sound so expressive. Necessity made me do the things that made me a better player and I'm grateful for it.
I don't know if I truly appreciated what I'd gained until one night after band practice was over. I set down my bass, picked up the rhythm guitar player's Tele and taught them a song we were going to learn. When I was done, I still remember the rhythm guitar player saying "Don't finger-pickers just piss you right off?" Everybody laughed, but it was the moment I realized what an advantage I'd gained. The worst three years of my life with only a flat-top Fender made me a better guitar player than the previous twenty years of playing with a pick.
Certainly adaptability can be an asset. Good lesson--thanks for sharing. And if that's what it took for you to learn about dynamics then--cool. I learned by playing with a heavy pick, and using a softer touch. While I often have a volume pedal plugged in when I play I don't use it for dynamics--I use it for volume swells and to cut out the sound between songs, etc. Too many musicians ignore dynamics. I once knew keyboard player who would not use dynamics--absolutely would not. Made it difficult to play/jam with. |
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