no picks!

[mikeclement53]

Hello to everyone on the forum.
I have been playing guitars for many years and have never got on with finger picks. I am considering buying a Busker 'Deco ( which seems highly rated by many people) but I am a bit concerned. In one review, on this site, Michael says that not using picks will affect the longevity of the cone. Could Michael or others please explain how this is and given that I can't use picks would it be better to forget what would be a fairly costly purchase. Thanks to everyone. Mike

[Michael Messer]

Hello Mike and welcome to our forum.

There are various thoughts about using picks on National style guitars. Most of these comments are related to vintage National guitars with more fragile cones. It also relates to how people play and whether they twang the strings with bare fingers.

On a new National Reso-Phonic, Busker or MM guitar, it is not such a problem because (A) the cones are stronger than 1920s & 30s ones, and (B) because they are replaceable.

Get yourself a Deco and enjoy it, with or without fingerpicks!

Keep in touch and let us know how you get on.

Best wishes & Shine On
Michael.

[mikeclement53]

Hi Michael,
Thanks for your reply, I'm now clear about your comments in the review. I am going to go for the Busker and have placed an order for a 'Deco. The wait for delivery might finish me off though!!! I will indeed keep you up to date with how things go.
Many thanks
Mike

[andys]

I dont use picks on my fingers and thumb at all, and I prefer to play my MM guitar with bare fingers and thumb as I do my other acoustics mainly. I just have never got on with thumb and fingerpicks, believe me I've tried.

The MM/Busker guitars seem to be built like tanks, and I dont think that playing with or without picks will do any harm at all.
Also look at old footage of bluesmen like Son House, Missisippi Fred McDowell etc, most of them played and twanged their resonators with bare fingers and thumb.

I do sometimes play my resonator with a plectrum and fingers, especially after seeing clips of Roy Rogers.

Dont forget to post in the relevant Owners Club on this forum when you get your Deco!

[Stevie]

I don't use finger or thumb picks (I'd like to for the sound but I cannot get along with them) My picking involves the use of back flicks on the fingers (and also on the thumb for low C in C type tunings) as well as normal finger and thumb strokes (this controls string flap better than the usual down stroke on the low C) and this approach would not work with finger / thumb picks.

[melp]

Hi,

Ahhh, the pick no-pick thing. Six months ago I had never used finger picks, in 47 years. Then I started to play slide. Then I attended Blues week, played more in a week than in the last 47 years, or that's what it felt like.

When I start using finger picks, just before Blues week, it was so unnatural, I could not hit the strings I wanted to, I could hit the ones I did not want to.

I tried mostly with Dunlop plastic picks, also tried Pro-picks metal ones. At first I was using the Dunlop large. Then switched to a medium thumb pick, the blade is just a bit shorter, couple of mm.
I mainly use a thumb and finger picks on the 1st and 2nd fingers, for a bit I also had one on the 3rd finger, but have now dropped that.

So, after all that, six months on and I can hardly play without them. I use them all the time on acoustics and resonators. I even use them on my nylon string Spanish guitar, and my electric guitars. In other words everything except the bass!

The big thing for me was changing to the slightly, very slightly shorter blade on the thumb pick, it made a great difference. That and getting the fit right. I followed Michael's advice here and just tried lots until I found ones that fit, it works, quite a bit of variation in different picks of the same size and brand.

Why bother? Well, for me at least, The variation of the quality of the note. Picks give me a great range. All the things you can do, like the rolling techniques, the snappy bass effects.

You just get a better note!

I am happy that I stuck with it and although it took some time it did get much better quite quickly.

At the end of the day good instruments sound good however you play them, so its a personal choice, but after this experience I think its a good idea to at give picks a good try.

[Michael Messer]

Interesting thread - Stevie, regarding your comments about what will & won't work with picks; Quite a few players pick & strum both ways with finger & thumbpicks. I very rarely pick upwards with my thumbpick, but I do pick & strum both ways with my fingerpicks.

Shine On
Michael

[Stevie]

Hi Michael, I should qualify my previous statements by adding that I only have 1 Dunlop "L" thumbpick. I know that I could adapt but the thing is fairly uncomfortable after a short spell (too tight) If it was any looser, it would not stay in position. Is this what people mean by the phrase "suffering for one's art? I have seen others with spieled-up attributes on eBay. It's sure tempting!

I have played for nearly 40 years with next to no finger nails (Even when I started out with classical lessons in around 1971) My "backwards" thumb strike starts on the centre of the thumbnail and slides off giving me a low C note that does not flap like a regular thumb pluck would. I started doing this after I purchased Martin Simpson's "Slide primer" CD and tab. I used the idea to play "Spoonfull" which I play very similar to Martin's live version on "Bootleg USA" (CGCGCD)I have always tended to be on the aggresive side (and too fast!) so restraint would probably be better for me.

I actually used to think that the finger picks went on the other way around to simulate ordinary finger nails! Once that penny had dropped, I could see the value of finger picks. I saw Martin Simpson once and asked him how he achieved that percussive slam down onto the strings and he described to me that it was a backwards stroke. I was impressed that he could do that from such a height above the strings and with such panache but as usual, I soon cracked it . It rapidly became part of my playing style to the stage whereby I can back flick whole melodies on succesive strings with ease and I love the sound (attack) that it produces (not to be overdone I think) For myself, finger picks do not figure very highly in this scenario. I dread to think of the trapped click and subsequent thwack I'll get from such a stroke using fingerpicks. Moreover, the imbalance in string volume that ensues from using only a thumb pick is unacceptable to me.

At this point, I have to nod to your abilities and perhaps resolve to address my ingrained prejudices. I already have your "Play The Blues" CDs with which I am very pleased. I intend to purchase your tuition DVD very soon but upgraded tuners are first on the priority. I shall search for the aforementioned advice that you gave on the forum vis-a-vis thumb / finger picks.

Look Sharp,

Stevie.

[mikeclement53]

Thanks to all for your great replies from a perspective of experience. Melp's post seems to sum up my difficulties the best in that with picks on I find my thumb and fingers in the wrong places ha! The particular point about the length of thumb pick being relevant. I will try an assortment of picks because of the different sound qualities they offer over bare fingers. New to the forum so where are the specific brand threads to be found please? Cheers Mike

[mikeclement53]

Just found the Busker boys!

[Michael Messer]

The picks or no picks thing is really very personal. Martin Simpson is a wonderful guitarist and using his playing style as a basis to work from is no bad thing. I think it all depends on what one is trying to achieve. I started using picks when I first started playing Nationals in the seventies. It just seemed the logical thing to do. I play at home without them quite a lot, but always use them on stage for both acoustic and electric guitar playing. It's what I have got used to.

There are no rules, but there are some logical things one should and shouldn't do. Wearing fingerpicks the right way round is defintely something one should do!!!! Only teasing....

Keep in touch Mike,

Shine On
Michael

[Gerry C]

Brownie McGhee changed to fingerpicks because playing without them "messed up [his] fingers" and he thought that as a pro he should be ready and able to play at any time - which he could not do with messed-up fingers! So he "went home to study the picks". It took him almost a year to get used to them, and I believe he practised most of every day. He usually used a plastic thumbpick and two metal fingerpicks but at times he used all plastic.

Cheerily,

Gerry C

[melp]

Oh yes, while we are on the subject, something I forgot to mention in my last. While it took me about 3-4 months to get OK with finger picks. Then a couple of months to get better with picks than I could do with fingers.

One of my current objectives, now I can use picks, is to get the most out of the increased range they give me. Meaning getting used to playing up and down the strings for different effects, e.g. close to the bridge on the bass strings and close to the end of the fingerboard on the higher strings. Something I have noticed the 'masters' doing to great effect.

When I tried to do this I realised that it was quite difficult. Reason was that my wrist was anchored to the top of the guitar, so any movement of picks, or fingers for that matter, totally from the wrist.
Getting my wrist off the top of the guitar significantly increases the dynamic effect, as now the movement is wrist and arm. But I am finding it 'hell on wheels' to do 'automatically'.

I may have been doing that for the last 47 years, so that may take a while. Or maybe its just because my normal acoustic guitar is a Lowden 025, 11.5cm deep with a largish body which seems quite large to hold, so I am used to having the wrist on the top.

So I am working on getting 'off the top' but not too far so I can reach and be close enough to right hand damp, another of my favourite tasks to improve.

Like all these technique improvements the best I find is to play in 'slo mo' and exaggerate the movement a bit to start with.

Finally, one thing that helped with the pick, in the beginning, was to practice picking muting all the strings. I used to do it while watching TV, a bit of advice from Steve James. Also good for thumb finger independence practice.

But beware!!! If you try this good idea to do it when you are alone. During a movie one evening I managed to turn one of the sweetest female creatures on the planet, who was trying to concentrate on the movie, into a crazed axe murderer, in way under 30mins!

All good clean fun though.

[Deleted]

The thumb picks that I have found best of them all are by Herco, they are more like plectrum on a thumb pick, Strings direct sell them as do Guitar Junction, well worth trying.

Cheers

[markm]

I hate finger picks. Every so often I will put them back on and suffer for a couple of weeks with them. That said, I think one of the important things I have learned thus far about finger and thumb picks is that it helps to customize them for yourself. Besides heating up the plastic finger picks and reshaping them for your finger, one can take a Dremel and file down the blade of an oversized plastic thumb pick to your liking. I think that works out better than getting a smaller sized pick.

Even so, I always end up using a flat pick and my bare fingers for playing guitar. And, it seems to work for me.