Help: finger picks, no feel, but crisp

Subject: finger picks, no feel, but crisp
From: Memphis Mud
Date: 19 Aug 02 - 08:45 AM

Yesterday I dug around and listened to JUSTAPICKER's music. Very Nice. Clean. Athoritative. Mr. JP, you must be using Finger Picks to get such a clean sound.

I've tried the garden variety F-Ps and I'm hitting multiple strings and the volume is erratic. I can't feel what I'm doing.

In order to get a sound similar to JustaPicker's (which I admire), I think I'll need to use FPs. I really don't like them. But to get that sound, do I just need to play with them for 60 days to force my hands to learn?

(Because of my "real" job, I can't use acrylic nails or grow human nails too long)

Subject: RE: Help: finger picks, no feel, but crisp
From: GUEST,fred miller
Date: 19 Aug 02 - 09:05 AM

Hi, I know a bit about fingerpicks, pretty much everything except how to play with them. Have you tried propik fingertones? they have a big open area with a metal rim, so you can touch the strings. But you may not like metal, they don't have plastic, at least not yet, I'm pretty sure ( I used to talk a bit to one of the propik guys about their picks}. Some people like alaska picks, basically a fake nail sort of thing. I'm making some picks myself that let you touch the strings, but they aren't on the market yet. Different things seem to work for different people.

Subject: RE: Help: finger picks, no feel, but crisp
From: Ferrara
Date: 19 Aug 02 - 09:06 AM

MM, I would say, experiment with as many different styles of finger pick as you can afford to try. A lot of people find that one brand or style works best for them but there's no way to know what works for you without trying them.

For my zither and zither-harp I'm currently using: brass picks for the right hand fingers (they give a soft sweet sound and minimize clicking); a regular plastic thumb pick on the right hand; and some funny, rounded, downcurved plastic picks (that can't catch the strings) on the left thumb, which needs to strum chords right-to-left on the zither-harp.

I don't like to use these rounded "backwards" picks on my right hand because the sound is too muted and I use the right hand to pick out the tune.

There are picks with a "point" at the tip, which I like sometimes. In my case I need the pick to be as similar as possible to the "feel" of picking with my nails. And it mustn't extend far enough to catch the string if I move back down the strings too fast and don't lift my fingers quite enough. I'm starting to try sitar picks because they can't catch on the strings as I move from string to string. Not too good for guitar, though.

I'm sure you're going to get an awful lot of opinions on this!

Rita Ferrara

Subject: RE: Help: finger picks, no feel, but crisp
From: Ferrara
Date: 19 Aug 02 - 09:10 AM

Well after reading Fred's post I think this thread is going to be very helpful to me! - Rita F

Subject: RE: Help: finger picks, no feel, but crisp
From: Lane
Date: 19 Aug 02 - 10:01 AM

I'll second the propick fingertones. I tried lots, but never could use them until recently when I found these. I go accustomed to them very quickly and now dont use anything else. But I still dont play like JP :)

Subject: RE: Help: finger picks, no feel, but crisp
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 19 Aug 02 - 10:39 AM

Finger picks change the geometry of your hand in very significant but subtle ways. Playing with finger picks is NOT just like playing with bare fingers, just louder. There's a non-trivial learning curve there.

Subject: RE: Help: finger picks, no feel, but crisp
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 19 Aug 02 - 10:51 AM

How right Guest Russ is. It's a VERY different ball of wax.

From a practical point of view, if you don't wear finger picks than you'll never accidentally sit on them when you leave 'em on a chair, and you won't go through that panic when you show up at a gig having forgotten them.

Rick

Subject: RE: Help: finger picks, no feel, but crisp
From: harvey andrews
Date: 19 Aug 02 - 11:13 AM

I use plastic finger picks and have done for 35 years. A problem I'm finding now is with digital recording and modern mikes etc they make a thumping sound when they hit the strings which I find distracting.I don't hear it on a cd I recorded in 1989. I want to put down some purely acoustic tracks with my guitar for a cd. Any tips on what I can do to minimise the thump?

Subject: RE: Help: finger picks, no feel, but crisp
From: GUEST,Fred Miller
Date: 19 Aug 02 - 11:14 AM

Hi Rita,

Can you tell me more about using mizrab type picks on a zither harp? I mostly tinker with guitar and mandolin, and use up and down strokes with my picks. I started out mangling other picks into versions of mine, made some brass, but mostly make an "origami" version now with sheet polycarb. I've been through the u.s. patents of wearable picks, and wrote one for mine, but shouldn't have overstated my knowledge of it. It's an unknowable subject, really. Different things work for different people, it seems.

One concern I'd like to hear comments about is if anyone has trouble with the edges of the ring-bands of fingerpicks catching against each other. I've got mine down to a very thin material, but it's kind of an egonomic homeostasis; you immediatly get used to being able to hold your fingers closer, and they can still catch, grabbing chords sometimes.

It's killing me trying to make the best version I can of my picks, because it takes so much time getting used to a variant, and I can't know what might be better, another material, or what. I'm hoping someday a few players might like my picks.

Subject: RE: Help: finger picks, no feel, but crisp
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 19 Aug 02 - 11:18 AM

Is the thumping sound new or is it something you've always heard but it just recently started showing up in recordings?

Subject: RE: Help: finger picks, no feel, but crisp
From: GUEST,Les B.
Date: 19 Aug 02 - 11:47 AM

Seems to me I remember reading that Merle Travis, who normally picked "bare fingered," once tore a nail badly and had to resort to fingerpicks. He apparently kind of liked it once he got used to them, but the story didn't say if he reverted back ??

As a banjo player I've used them for years. On guitar I've got to play a few days before I'm used to them. They certainly do change the hand position from bare fingers, but boy do they give you snap and clarity.

Subject: RE: Help: finger picks, no feel, but crisp
From: Mudjack
Date: 19 Aug 02 - 12:31 PM

Unlike real finger nails, finger picks will grow on you.(with a smile) After to many years of avoiding finger picking, I finally have got use to them. Banjo picking is the real teacher of using picks.
My choice of picks is Dunlop brass .018 ga. and an ivaroid thumb pick. A trick I learned at a workshop is shaping the finger picks not only to fit snugly on your digits, but shape the tips to slightly turn so your picks strike squarely agaist the string instead of at an angle. I finger pick banjo and guitar with two finger picks and thumb. I keep tyring to use a three finger and thumb style and can't seem to make the ring finger do what it's supposed to.Hence, off come the picks and I can play without picks. then after the fingernails rub to nubs, back to the finger picks. This might be the yo-yo tehcnique of failing to learn new stuff.
We all have to keep with in our limits and comfort zone. But maybe that is how style is invented.
Mudjack

Subject: RE: Help: finger picks, no feel, but crisp
From: Memphis Mud
Date: 19 Aug 02 - 12:44 PM

Good Advice people. Thank you.

BTW, I can make (less than horrible) noise on the banjo with Thumb and two fingers. But that's because a rest those other two fingers on the face of the Jo. Can't do that with the guitar. In fact, I've developed a (bad?) habit of resting my ringfinger on high E string while plunking away elsewhere. This won't work with a FP on that finger, slides around.

I'm going to try to find those Propiks to start with. But here in Memphis, all I can find are "normal" FPs. Where do I look?

Subject: RE: Help: finger picks, no feel, but crisp
From: harvey andrews
Date: 19 Aug 02 - 12:46 PM

I think the thumping sounds are because recordings have got very precise and are probably to do with the modern mikes and digital sound. Does anybody else hear this problem? I don't hear it on other recordings, but I don't think it's me or my techniques. It's just the sound of the pick hitting the string as well as the sound of the note.

Subject: RE: Help: finger picks, no feel, but crisp
From: GUEST,Fred Miller
Date: 19 Aug 02 - 12:54 PM

Yall ought to look up our secret mailorder place here in louisville. First Quality Music Supplies, they carry them, and some others. Nice people, mostly bluegrass folk, will treat you right.

Also, Propik has a mail order website--I can't find either of these addresses right now--but it always comes up on searches for thumbpicks and such.

Subject: RE: Help: finger picks, no feel, but crisp
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 19 Aug 02 - 01:19 PM

Persevere – you will find that you get enough feel through the picks once you get used to them. I have very soft nails which never grow very long and easily get destroyed by my steel stringed guitar, so picks are a godsend.

During the hay fever season my hands tend to swell a little. The picks then become too tight and hurt my fingers, so I sometimes play with my finger tips rather than nails when I am just playing for myself and volume isn't important. If I have left the picks off for a while, then I might need a tune or two to get back into the swing of things, but I find it very easy to switch between bare fingers and picks without any noticeable change of hand position.

The biggest problem with picks is losing the damn things


Doug C

Subject: RE: Help: finger picks, no feel, but crisp
From: Steve in Idaho
Date: 19 Aug 02 - 02:14 PM

I talked with Justa about pics - he uses a thumb pick and his fingers are bare. Says that the thumb pick forces his other fingers to work harder.

I don't use any picks on fingerpicking - have some nice calouses where I didn't from flat picking - but it's OK.

Steve

Subject: RE: Help: finger picks, no feel, but crisp
From: Justa Picker
Date: 19 Aug 02 - 03:52 PM

Thanks for the comments.
Norton1 is partially correct. I do play that style but also can play bare fingered as well as using metal picks on index and middle. (Currently I'm liking Kyser metal picks and an Ernie Ball thumbpick.) Most of the recordings that Menphis Mud referred to were in fact done using fingerpicks, and the reason is clarity, articulation and punch. There was one tune on that page which was done with just a thumbpick and bare fingers ("That'll Never Happen No More") - but the rest I think used metal picks, and I hate the sound of the clanging of the picks on the strings too. I've tried curving the ends of the metal picks so that the angle of attack limits the sliding of the picks on the strings. But like others have pointed out, with the digital technologies available today and the increased clarity of recordings you hear everything. In a perfect world, I'd use just a thumbpick and go bare fingered with a bit of nail for the attack. But more and more I'm getting into tunes with single string runs, breaks, and the whole two fingered flatpicking thing (ala Fred Henderson, Rev. Gary Davis, etc.) and for that, you need finger picks to get that bite and attack - or you'd shred your nails no matter how hard they might be. There is indeed a difference in angle of attack between playing with metal picks, or just using a thumb pick and fingers, or entirely bare fingered. It's really just a matter of practise and developing the muscle memory and realigning your hand to the new "grid" or arc. Metal picks require a higher arc and the others, not as much. Course it all changes again when you start using a muting or dampening effect on the bass strings and for that style of (Travis) playing again you need a thumb pick to get a good thud or whomp on the dampened strings.

Doesn't take long to adapt to any of them. The key is to just do it, and don't think about it too much. Your fingers will comply. In one of the first lessons I ever had with Rick (and I'd been using metal picks pretty extensively prior) was him telling me to remove the picks from index and middle and just play with a thumb pick. At first it felt really weird and all I heard was the bass from the thumbpick so much louder than the bare fingers. Within an hour of playing like this with him, the overall volume evened out, and the bare fingers started compensating and playing a bit harder. Just think of learning to play these various ways, as akin to learning how to ride a bicylce. Once you figure it out (and really it doesn't take that long) you'll be able to adapt more quickly in the long haul and the balance will find and right itself.

Subject: RE: Help: finger picks, no feel, but crisp
From: Fortunato
Date: 19 Aug 02 - 08:49 PM

Mudjack and Justapicker are right. You have only to do it. Talking won't do it. Thinking won't do it. Just put on your National or Dunlop thumbpick, try light or medium first maybe. Try brass finger picks, I agree. The gauge can be from 18 to 25. I use different gauges on each finger, but don't ever think you won't have the feel. Play, play, play and play some more and you will begin to feel. It's a zen thing. A do thing. A "Be Here Now" thing.