Hello again, just made an epic discovery about picking! Since I’ve been into Bluegrass music I have had the opportunity to study with some amazing people and consequently befriend many amazing musicians on Facebook. It is thanks to these friends that I have been able to gain an understanding of how to pick properly. This may be an odd thing to say after playing guitar for some 25 years but it wasn’t until I came to the Bluegrass genre that I really started to study the physics of guitar playing properly. Questions like; how does he make that sound?, how is he able to play alternate picking across all the strings so effortlessly AND cleanly? 2 years later I think I have it!!! And I never thought it could be this simple. Below is the old way I would hold the pick. Note that the thumb is a little bent and the pad of the thumb is pushing against the joint of my index finger. Why? well it felt comfortable and it saw me through years of playing rock and Jazz no problem…. or so I thought. the thing is though by moving my pick a fraction of an inch off the joint something amazing happened. I had better control of my pick.

see the next photo and hopefully it will allow you to see the difference.

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my thumb it straighter at the joint and picking is more like an extension of the tip of my finger. It has the support of the other fingers and allows a smoother movement across the strings.

Feel free to try this out, it has changed the way it feels when I play now. I have more control, better articulation and it all just seems a little easier.