Choosing the Right Thickness of Pick

Hi there everyone and welcome back to Shred Steps! Thank you again for stopping by to check out some great tips and tricks on guitar playing. Today I want to discuss choosing the right thickness of guitar pick. This may seem a little introductory to some but this is a huge topic and once I settled on the picks that I play now, it made my guitar playing skyrocket.

So lets start! I know for most beginning guitar players, they choose a very thin pick. I know this because I did the same thing and I played with one for many years. But I want to show you why this is the wrong choice when tackling lead guitar.

The reason you see electric players playing with heavy picks is because the pick does not bend around the string unlike a thin pick. If your pick bends around the string, once you start to play fast you will lose a lot of your picking momentum. This turns into very sloppy playing very soon. If you are using a heavy pick the string moves around your pick allowing for more attack, and in turn faster cleaner playing. Now by attack, when play electric guitar, you are able to really dig into the strings with a heavy pick and get a stronger sounding note making for great dynamics. If you were to dig into the guitar using a thin pick it is likely that your pick with snap, and yes I have personally done this several times.

I want to say that I don't think thin picks are useless, quite the opposite really, I feel their best use is for acoustic strumming. Nothing sounds better on an acoustic then a thin pick. When I'm out playing acoustic I absolutely have a thin pick on hand. But that's only for rhythmic strumming, when it comes time for lead out comes the Jazz III* even on the acoustic.

Lets take a look at this in the terms of sweep picking. Well in sweep picking you want your pick to go in a fluid motion up and down the strings, you want nothing slowing down your pick when you are doing this technique. If the pick is bending on the strings, this is going to slow you down and you are going to sound sloppy, we don't that. With a heavy pick you get what I call "play through", the strings move for your pick allowing you to "play though" the strings. This is extremely important for making each note ring when sweeping arppeggios or passing tones. I make it a point to show anyone who wants to sweep, or who just wants to play lead in general, to use the right pick.

This has been many, many years now since I have been using heavy picks, but what I can tell is that I do remember a bit of a learning curve, I know for me I dropped my pick a lot more often when switching to a heavy pick, and this still happens all of the time. I also set out on a wild hunt for the right pick, I can honestly tell you that I have spent hundreds of dollars trying to find the right pick, I have even gone as far as spending $35 on ONE PICK! But no matter what I try I always come back to the old Jazz III. (I am also famous for losing or breaking my picks, I just recently ran over a twenty five dollar pick and it shattered, so now I use whats economical lol.) But I do want to just say here that V-Picks is one of my favorites (and no that is not an affiliate link, I get no money from V-Picks, I just love their products). Their picks really are sticky like they say on their website and I barely drop these ones in comparison to my Jazz III's*.

Lets wrap this up, go out and buy you some heavy picks, whether or not you want small ones like the Jazz III*, or if you want something like the good old fender tourtise shells*, get a heavy pick and start practicing with it. You will thank me and yourself in the long run once you start getting used to heavy picks. I promise you that your playing will become so much more clear, you will shock yourself and everyone else who hears your play!

Until next time everyone,

Cheers

Sammy Jo



Note: The links with the * beside them are affiliate links and I do get a commission off if the sale if you decide to purchase. Thanks in advanced!


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