There are so many ways and differing preferences, but here's a personal experience and a recent discovery of mine
I've always picked with stiff picks. I don't want the pick itself to flex/compress, I want to control the dynamics myself and feel the string resistance.
Small picks was my choice until recently (Dunlop Jazz size or slightly larger). It felt like I had better control with only a small portion of the pick sticking out.
However, as I moved on to playing guitars with thicker strings, and especially acoustics, it just didn't sound good with that small thing. Too wimpy. So I started using slightly larger picks with less pointy tips. Much better sounding. However...listening to recordings of myself, I felt I sounded much too dynamic. As if I lacked areas in between soft and loud.
I was still only letting a small portion of the pick stick out, meaning it would allow for less pick wiggle...as I thought this would mean less movement for my hand, and more control. How wrong I was.
Only in the last few weeks I've started practicing letting the pick stick further out. And in that time I already have more control over dynamics, better sound, AND better and more precise technique! This way, letting the pick wiggle a bit more, makes it slide so smoothly over thick strings, and if I instead want the string to give in (go louder) I just give the pick a firmer grip. I do not have to adjust how deep I dig, so going from soft to hard and everything in between suddenly comes so natural. And that thumb doesn't accidentally mute strings any more
(e.g. when doing chord patterns/arpeggios).
It even seems I move the hand
less than before, and can more easily do large string skips. Kinda like when using a pencil...it may initially feel like holding it right at the tip gives you more control, but holding it further up makes you use less movement and gives smoother lines.
Charlie Garnett - Franken Tele
Yesterday, 08:52 PM in Guitar, Amps & Gizmos