Thumbpicks

[drumrnmuzik]

Hey, first off I wish everyone a great New Years and a (much) better 2011.

 

Has anyone tried the Dunlop Herco flat picks? It's the hybred flat pick with a thumb strap. I saw the Fred Kelly Bumble Bees but they look like they'd move around and not stay where I want 'em.

 

Thanks

[Rocky4]

I never liked the fixed angle of thumb picks, and I usually leave just a little pick showing (don't even think about it! ) when I pick, which is impossible with a thumb pick.

[drumrnmuzik]

I can see where you're coming from.

 

I use classical style fingering, my thumb and three fingers. I either have to learn hybrid picking and lose my index finger or just thumb the leads and rhythms like Jeff Beck does. I just can't live with out my arpeggios.

 

Thanks

[cabba2203]

I had to design my own pick to meet my stringent needs.

 

[L5Larry]

The slide player in my blues band uses the Herco's and loves them. It gives him a plectrum AND four fingers to work with on his right hand. He wears his slides on his pinky, so he has a slide and three fingers to work with on his left hand. That's way too much to think about for me. The advantage of the Herco style (over the National style), is that the pick surface is the same shape and feel as what we are generally used to, and the thicknesses are the same as a standard flatpick. The Nationals are a weird shape and usually very thick.

 

I'm a bare hand fingerstyle guy. I found when I tried to use a thumbpick (or a flatpick) along with my other fingers that the thumbpicked notes were much louder and percussive than the bare fingered notes. I was never able to adjust, but I do pretty well with a bare thumb.

[Andy R]

I use a thumbpick sometimes but never tried one of these when I used to teach I would have the students use a thumb pick to get a referece on how to hold a pick to get started then once they got used to it they seemed to have a pretty good overall way of holding a pick once they adjusted a little.

[Jon S.]

I like to sand the tips down on thumbpicks to where it's almost a C shape. I saw Jerry Donahue do it and tried it out. It works great, and kind of takes away the "foreign object on my thumb" feeling.

[MojoRedFoot]

For some reason I am not a fan of using them on guitar but I always use one when playing banjo.