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Hey thumb pickers, if you’ve ever thought “Hmmm… I wish I could use a thumb pick as a flat pick so I can more easily switch from hybrid picking to finger picking”, check this out.
As background, finger picking is my dominant way of playing. I only recently, in the last three years since joining AM, started routinely using a flat pick, a.k.a. a straight pick or plectrum, and I’ve improved a lot with it. Most recently, I’ve been working on pick-hiding, sliding the flat pick on the fly from thumb & index playing position to between the crotch of my middle & ring finger for the thumb- & two finger picking position, and then sliding it back to the thumb and index for flat picking.
So I walk around all day with a plectrum in my picking hand to get real familiar with hiding the flat pick and putting it back. Still, it doesn’t feel “right”, to me, when I switch from flat pick playing to finger picking with a free thumb.
The ultimate in efficiency, for me, would be to be able to just use the thumb pick as a flat pick as well as for finger picking. The whole problem with that idea is this: Up strokes. They’re pretty nearly impossible with a standard thumb pick.
I’ll let Seth Lee Jones further explain the problem and provide a possible solution:
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Hi Mark,
My use of thumbpicks over the years has been ‘ at best’ spasmodic, but like most things you have to stay with it and constantly practice with one until it becomes almost second nature and more importantly ‘at one with your thumb’
I’ve never owned and used a thumbpick which I haven’t first cut down and modelled to my own comfortable setting.Regards using a thumbpick in the style as a flat pick as well, it might be useful to watch Ben Smith (below) and watch how easy and fluent he uses a thumbpick. It obviously comes with a decent amount of practice and a thumbpick that’s honed to your liking.
On the subject of Black Mountain pick, I couldn’t get on with it at all, it was far too chunky and wasn’t smooth enough for me.
Richard
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Hey Richard,
Thanks for posting that, it gave me a serious GAS attack. I fell in love with the D-35 which was a personal surprise.
Ben’s playing is amazing. I’d like to know what brand of thumbpick he’s using and what mods, if any, he’s made to it.
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Fred Kelly and Dunlop are the most popular in UK. What I’ve found more important is the gauge of plastic used. The thinner ones feel easier to the thumb but unfortunately give a thin tone, the opposite is also true. I think size, gauge and shape all play their part.
Joi, I bought my D35 thirty years ago, it’s now coming into its own, however sometimes I feel I’m going in the opposite direction!
Richard
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I started using thumbpick & fingerpicks seriously when busking in Germany early ‘80s. They are excellent for accompanying louder instruments, and also for being heard at jam sessions or acoustic gigs with no PA
Sitting around at home I usually play naked digits. That might change though if I can get my Fred Kelly delrin thumbpick sculpted right, I’m filing a few thou off it every day.
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OK. Yesterday I made the hour drive to the nearest big well-stocked music store to get strings etc and particularly to check out their thumbpick selection. To cut a long story short I ended up with a Herco combination pick.
Having tried these things in the distant past I wasn’t optimistic but they’ve improved a lot over the years, like my plectrum playing. I spent a couple hours last night working with it on various things including full on finger style, full on lead single string / double stops, and switching from one to the other.
It worked great, and I discovered some new moves in the process which was exciting! The strumming and flat picking modes were a bit kludgy but I think I can get there, might need to get a thinner one, I got the extra heavy. This is what I bought, in bright red (I would have bought the tortoiseshell but it wasn’t in stock).
I’ll be getting examples in each gauge, they make thin, medium, heavy and extra heavy. When I’ve settled on a gauge I’ll most likely thin-out the width of the plectrum and shorten-up the stick-out of the point a bit to reduce the amount of catching that occurs causing stumbles when strumming upstrokes.
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Look into Black Mountain picks, they are great it’s a thumb and flat pick in one. they sell them on their website and also on Amazon.
Yep thanks for that, I’ve started looking at those as well.
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They look pretty good Mark, I’ll be interested how you get on with them. They do look less cumbersome than the Black Mountain versions.
Richard
I might become the world’s leading authority on hybrid thumb picks at this rate. Fred Kelly makes them as well so will be picking some up. I use the orange Fred Kelly conventional delrin thumb picks, particularly for Travis picking but country blues also.
Eddie Pennington, Travis picker extraordinaire, turned me on to Fred Kelly thumb picks at a Centrum workshop in Port Townsend WA some years ago. I’ve never found anything better yet.
In a moment of madness at the Grey Fox Festival in NY a few years ago I bought a Blue Chip JD Crowe banjo thumb pick. I did so after playing with it for about an hour during which I may have had a beer or two.
I was so impressed I shelled out about $30 for it, and also a pair of Sammy Shelor fingerpicks to go with it for about the same price. It’s all very nice stuff that I can take out and use when I feel like it.
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