Picking discovery

[pauln]

Pick Orientation
Imagine the pick as the infield of a baseball diamond
This allows a coherent way of describing slant and tilt



Pick Slant
Changing of elevation of Home and 2nd
The axis of rotation is through 1st and 3rd


Pick Tilt
Changing of elevation of 1st and 3rd
Axis of rotation through Home and 2nd

For the past month or so I switched from my unbending 1mm pick to a somewhat floppy thin nylon pick, to investigate a mystery. Today I gave up and I returned to my unbending 1mm, and immediately was gifted with the solution to the mystery.

That mystery was that I feel I play with my pick flat; I don't try to tilt it to get a softer tone, and I don't try to slant it to avoid hanging up in the strings.
The nature of the floppy nylon is that the change in tone with pick tilt is exaggerated if I experimentally shift from flat to tilted... but when just playing the tone is soft when I feel I'm playing with the pick flat.

When I gave up and went back to the 1mm unbending pick I noticed and realized what was going on.
- I hold the pick very loosely
- between index and thumb on the baseline between 3rd and home (not in the middle of the pick)
- when I pick flat, the pick deflects both as tilt and slant because the way I hold the pick allows rotation through both axes (and the deflections reverse with pick stroke direction)
- I change tone by changing the firmness of my grip on the pick

It all seems so simple now, no extra deliberate motions, just natural effects of a loose grip. My hand figured out this technique by itself long ago, now I know.

[sgosnell]

That's pretty much how I pick, so far as I know. I've never done any deep thinking about how I pick, but I think I tend to use a level playing field, and any rotation is the result of involuntary movement of my fingers and hand. I've tried, briefly, rotating the pick so that either first or third is higher, but I'm not entirely happy with either. I mostly pick using my thumb and index, not moving my hand much, so there is some rotation through the 1-mound-3 axis. I don't claim this is ideal, it's just how I've been doing it for so long I don't think any change is likely.

[Cunamara]

I hold a flatpick similarly. Holding it along the 3rd baseline also gives you information about the orientation of the pick because you can feel the edge, unlike holding a large pick in the center. I like your description of orienting the pick in 3 dimensions, but if you grew up somewhere without baseball would it be intuitive?

I don't experience a 1mm pick as being unbending. To me that's still pretty floppy. 1.5 mm is my minimum and I don't mind 2 mm at all. Like you I use grip to allow the pick to move between my fingers and it's possible to feel how much movement and looseness there is. This gives a lot of control over tone. But I never do up-and-down rhythm strumming, which does work better with a pick that has some give. I've migrated to a thumbpick (Fred Kelly Bumblebee jazz XH and Black Mountain heavy) and fingers instead of flatpack and fingers after decades of trying off and on.

If you want a really rigid flatpick that isn't crazy thick, try the Adamas carbon fiber 2mm. It needs some sanding on the parting line around the edge to sound good, though. I find that as the flatpick gets thicker than 1.5mm, pick noise increases quickly. I prefer a really small flatpick (358; Jazz III is as big as I like. I cut 351 shape picks down to the Jazz III), I think in part to avoid any flex in the pick at 1.5mm.

[Rolf Field]

Well, interesting. I never think about how to hold my pick. Quite loose i guess. However i made my search in "pick-land". For me it's not only thickness but equally material. I use thick wooden pick's for my "fat" archtops (Ibanez 2616/jp20) and use a standard .6 dunlop pick for my Ibanez as120. Play different styles on the different guitars. The as120 is for funky scofield (and beyond) stuff. The fat archtops i use for a little fingerpicking and for ...well everything else.
The wooden Picks give me a warmer sound then the plastic ones. Don't know how but they sound warmer then the dunlop 207 i used to play with. Tried a brass pick up once but that's not my cup of tea. Way to heavy.

[Cunamara]

Ah, yup, if you want to play R&B/funky stuff, you probably do need a much lighter pick than I use.