To plectrum or not to plectrum ..... that is the question .....................
I wondered too and discovered that when my fellow guitar buddies came over and then left I was always missing picks and the reverse is true in that when I left a Buddie’s place I seemed to have ” acquired ” a new pick ....................
Well after much thought I went ” pick-less ” at least 7 years ago and I have been playing guitar since January 1999 . Don’t miss them at all . I keep my nails relatively short except for my thumb nail . In doing this my fingerstyle playing really improved much to my surprise and liking .
I use a nail polish that has industrial diamond dust and that’s it .
I have to use that stuff because steel strings and the brass windings on nylon 4 through 6 acoustic classical wear off too much of the top surface on my thumb nail and it hurts !
I also coat the thumb , index and middle fingers with 4 coats and it lasts a week the ring and pinky fingers get 2 coasts -
- only because mother nature for whatever reason(s) made those 2 fingernails much thicker than the others ? . The nail hardener is cheaper in the long run annually than buying picks .
Who knows I may consider to use them both in time - - one never says never I have learned 
One observation to be noted :
When I used a pick the sound of the note sounded O . K . to me and I didn’t think twice about it till I was at it on fingerstyle a while and then one day I used a pick just out of general curiosity and realized a big difference in the ” tone ” of the strings as far as the plectrum sound was thin in comparison to my thumb’s sound , my thumb’s callous is a meaty little knob and it grabs more meat off the string as it hits it and .......that’s what I personally found out and that’s a good thang ! Fingers do have a chunkier sound and more tactile control of the string’s sound character as you shape what you want to hear . Nuances are more controllable too it seems to me .
Sincerely
Hurricane Ramon
