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Are plectrums strictly necessary?
Nothing is necessary until you really find it so yourself...
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Hi,
Good to be hear again on this great Jazz website!
In answer to your question, it is really all about feel and what YOU are comfortable with: if you like playing with just fingers then do it. Wes Montgomery used just his thumb! Many many player use their fingers to play guitar or a combination of both.
Sometimes when I comp using three/four note chords I have recently started using my thumb to hit the 6th/5th string root and 1st,2nd and 3rd fingers to simultaneously play the other chord notes. I mainly use picks though such as: Ernie Ball Prodigy, Jim Dunlop Jazztone, Clifford Essex bull horn; all are 3mm. I also like a felt pick for comping. I also use a large black triangle bass guitar pick which sounds very mellow.
Good luck?
Experiment is key!
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Personally, I think for a time I was interested in going full-time fingerstyle because my first instrument was piano, and I wanted to do more pianistic things on the guitar. Over the years I more fully embraced the unique limitations and capabilities of the guitar, and realized that I like the plectrum for its tone/dynamics and rhythmic precision.
Of course there is still hybrid picking, which I love. You have fewer fingers, but it's often more about just opposing your picking motion against your plucking motion, like a downstroke/upstroke feel, as opposed to making each finger act independently. Again, there is a real rhythmic capability there.
But if fingerstyle is your thing, it certainly has its advantages too.
2 new & excellent Jazz Comping Truefire...
Yesterday, 10:22 PM in Comping, Chords & Chord Progressions