help! i have never learned to use or hold a plectrum.

[Hook]

I like the Dunlop, Tortex medium pics. The red ones. If you want to use a pic, use the pick, the more you do it the better you'll get at it. Find the thickness you like, put it between your first finger and your thumb,and just start Struming.
This is how my finger nail grows permanently now. Only on the left side, that's with using a pick.25 years of beating the crap out of guitars.
Rock on!

[AndyR]

^ Yep, that's how I do it.

And actually I've had the same problems with the nail on my index finger - it's almost recovered now I haven't been gigging for over 14 years!

Also, orh, I tend to move the pick around between my thumb and finger, depending on what I'm doing, picking, digging in, or strumming. Eg, there's more pick sticking out for strumming and my grip is more flexible. For picking and lead stuff, there's less pick sticking out and I'm holding it a lot tighter. It's all pretty instinctive and subconscious - but it wasn't when I started nearly 40 years ago.

I've been trying to remember how I got going, I don't remember getting any actual advice, though. I just went for it and pick and fingers kind of figured out what they needed to do. I do remember realising that for strumming (what I learnt first) I needed the pick to be held lightly (but firmly so it doesn't fly off!). You don't want it to be rigid in your fingers for strumming because it catches on the strings - not such a good sound, less controllable sound, and... er... the thing keeps jumping out of your grasp.

Experiment with different amounts and angles of grip and different amounts of aggression/attack. But all the while, concentrate on making different sounds, look for sounds you like and try to make them repeatable and consistent. If you concentrate on the sounds, your thumb and fingers will learn what to do as a by-product...

I THINK that's how I did it... nearly everything I've learnt over the years has been about getting the sounds I can "hear"... I've always let the "technique" look after itself... It's always seemed an easier way of learning for me. When ever I've tried to learn a "technique" I can never figure out what I'm meant to be doing. Reaching for a "sound" instead, and getting it however I can, seems to work better for me...

Several folks have said about trying light picks. I suspect that is what you want (eg for "big strumming", very light pick, strum aggressively, but only "caress" the strings as you're doing it). I'd recommend going in the music shop and buying one of each. Different sizes, materials, weights. Pretty soon you'll find one or two that work better than the others. Buy more of them and concentrate on using just those. But bear in mind they all do something different - I've got loads of picks, and they all create different tones.

[Tangled Wires]

On a related note, playing bass with a felt pick has the sound of fingers and the ease (at least for me) of playing with a pick. I can't play a bass with my fingers for the life of me.

That's a very good tip and something that I have taken too recently using the felt picks I brought for my Uke. I am usually a finger bass player, but have been experimenting playing live recently using my bass and sending one output through a bass amp and another through a guitar amp via an octave pedal, which creates a guitar and bass sound at the same time, albeit playing exactly the same notes. Bearing in mind that I want to play guitar riffs on a bass I find it more natural using a pick and the felt pick really does allow the bass to sound pretty much like it is being played by fingers.

I would concur on the guitar side of things with what others have said generally, go for a really light gauge pick, especially for acoustic strummed stuff, as I find it glides nicely over the strings as you will not be after a more aggressive and harder edged sound that a heavier duty pick will offer.

Agree that it's best to maybe buy a selection and see what works for you, and you buy can half a dozen Dunlop picks of varying flexibility on Ebay for a few quid.

I'd go with the techniques offered by others, as I am totally self taught and would probably not recommend any of my methods

[Gnasty]

What`s a plectrum? All these years over here on the real side of the world i`ve been using picks. 

Tortex green for electric



Tortex yellow for acoustic

[Gnasty]

I`ve pretty much have changed the way i hold my pick over the years like evolution to playing style, but if your pick is flying out of your hand then you want to grip it closer to the tip so you`re holding more of it. I hold it closer to get pinch harmonics while i lead and ease off a little for rhythm. You don`t want to grip real tight though or it will affect your playing.  Mind you flying picks still happen to me to from time to time.
Everyone plays and strums different so whatever is comfortable is the key, and well if my advice doesn`t help there is always glue. 

[Hook]

Damn Gnasty, those are some seriously heavy pics. About 6 years ago (Using fender or really any kind of pic) I started noticing a specific scrape across the strings that I just couldn't tolerate. It was all I'd hear when I played. So I was gigging alot and asked some of the other guys playing around & one buddy of mine said switch to tortex...never heard the sound again. I used to use the orange but was poping strings like crazy so I switched to the red one. Any lighter & I just rip the pic in half. I got to agig in Ybor city (it's in Tampa) once & forgot pics so I saw a guy I knew playing down a few bars, he gave me a yellow & that was like a brick of concrete; can't imagine the green!!!
You Rock!

[AndyR]

Oh gawd, yeah, I used to use the green Tortex in the early 80s, then I switched to yellows. Somewhere, I've still got an old tobacco tin with 50-100 worn down greens and yellows from all the rehearsals and gigs back then.

I have a couple of new yellows in my pick holder, but I rarely use them, they seem SO heavy to me now... I cannot imagine using greens!

At some point I changed to Dunlop Nylon for electrics. They have more grip and seem more versatile soundwise. I also like to be able to feel the thing flexing in my fingers (I hold a pick, for electric, between thumb, index AND middle fingers). My go-to weight for the nylons is .88 mm. I've tried the next one down (.73), but they're just too insubstantial and bendy, and they don't give me the "grind" from notes when I want it.

On acoustics, if I use a pick at all, usually the Nylons are too "dull" sounding. Possibly because holding a Nylon .88 makes me play like I'm playing an electric. Instead, I usually use the red Tortex (.50). They give me a nice light brightness to strumming. If I play too hard they break, so that encourages me to go softer, which sounds better. If I use the reds on electrics, the guitars just eat them the way I play them.

What I found a few years ago is that you can adjust your playing to different picks, and that gives you different sounds/styles. I'm one of the people who swaps pickups, changes guitars, fiddles with amp settings... and I have to keep reminding myself that, actually, the pick, the cheapest bit in the chain, has a HUGE effect on the sounds coming out. If the guitar part I'm trying to record isn't sounding right - not cutting enough, too cutting, whatever - the FIRST thing to change is the pick I'm using. Quite often, the guitar and amp settings I've chosen turn out to be right - I was just using the wrong pick.

[Blooby]

I actually don't go for thin picks that often.  Never on electric (Dunlop 2 mm in the purple) and only times when it is 100% strumming song will I go thin on acoustic.  I find Fender Mediums to be a compromise between the nice strummy sound but still being able to hybrid pick or play single note lines effectively. I also find that they warm up every three songs or so and get too bendy.  I'm always swapping them out.

The last year or so, I'm picking up both electric an acoustic with no pick. It might be a subconscious attempt for me to slow down.

Blooby

[Oldrottenhead]

still thumbstrumming guys, but lots of good advice thank you all. i struggled with thumb picks just too hard, cant seem to find a softer thumbpick anywhere. am gonna get a bundle of pics and reread this thread when i have a few hours to myself and try and absorb the advice.