How do you hold your pick?

bobblehat

In  a bid to improve my playing recently I've been watching a fair few youtube vids. One thing I've noted is that almost everyone holds the pick with a closed hand. ( Middle, ring and little finger tucked in, if that makes sense). 
I've been playing for 35+ years but have always had an open hand and used my little and ring fingers as a kind of anchor.
I'm completely self taught so just did what came naturally at the time and have never been shown any other way.

This has got me wondering if this has held my playing back in some way ? Does it make a difference? 

fastonebaz

I find holding it closed hand way gives much greater speed.

Hootsmon

People have the style peculiar to themselves and I would go with that

What works for Joe Bloggs may not work for you

Have a look at Steve Morse's picking hand, it looks like a bag of shit and as awkward as they come, yet he does things with choice of strokes that most of us cannot do, including Troy Grady

Same with Pat Metheny....if you had the volume down you'd swear he was an amateur with his picking style and geeky method

but he is arguably the most fluent jazz player out there

My 2 cents...35 plus years? stick with it bud

nero1701

I hold mine with my middle finger and thumb asif I was making a fox silhouette, partially due to my fore finger not bending well and having had surgery on the other 2.

LionAquaLooper

There's no right or wrong way.  Look at Zakk Wylde and Marty Friedman as further examples.  Makes me cringe when i watch their picking hands but whatever works for them.  

FWIW - I play like you.  Open right hand with pinky anchored below the high E string.  But that's only when I'm arpeggiating or playing single note lead lines.  When I'm strumming forget about it - my whole right arm is moving lol

Roland

LionAquaLooper said:

There's no right or wrong way. 

Very much this. 

How I hold my plectrum depends on what I’m playing. My thumb it always across the pick, parallel to the string. For Nile Rodgers style strumming my first finger is at right angles to my thumb, allowing me to cushion the pick with the flesh of both finger and thumb. For rock songs my finger curls up parallel with my thumb, giving a more rigid surface. Then there are songs when my index finger is somewhere in between. My 2nd, 3rd, and 4th fingers also depend on the music. For strumming they’re loosely curled into my palm, which makes speed easier. If there’s palm muting involved, and there often is because I use muting to control volume and tone, then the 3rd and 4th fingers are uncurled far enough to give the edge of my palm access to the strings.

bobblehat

Thanks All.

Tannin

* There is no right or wrong way. 
* There is no one right way.
* There is one right way.
* There are some very wrong ways. 

^ All four statements are true!

There may well be One Right Way for a given player in a given style - but of course your best way and my best way and the next chap's best ways are very likely all different. 

I think the key here is that you have to look for the limitations of your chosen method. (Yes Virginia, all methods have limitations.) It may be that the limitations of your chosen method are not very relevant to you, and may not even be apparent (if your method suits your style especially well). 

I held a pick like a pencil for 40 years.  (With two fingers and thumb.) That's an odd grip but by no means unheard of - there is a certainly a number of famous players who do that. Just the same, while it gave me excellent speed and accuracy, I never, ever got consistent good, smooth tone and even volume. Tried and tried, practiced and practiced for many years. No dice. The only instrument I got good tone with and felt properly in control of was the bass - which I played with my fingers, not a pick. 

Every so often I'd try to adapt to an orthodox plectrum grip, but I could never get the habit or feel comfortable doing it. Unlearning is really hard!

Eventually, I tried playing fingerstyle. No unlearning barrier there, I took to it like a duck to water. I have never looked back. 

TLDR: if you want to change, try something really different. The benefit is that you can just learn it instead of trying and trying to unlearn something. 

musteatbrain

I swapped to a Steve Morse grip about 2 years ago after 30 years of playing. Muting is no longer achieved by the palm at the bottom of my hand, instead it is achieved by the side of my hand between my wrist and little finger. The advantage of this for me is that there’s more wrist rotation and every pick stroke moves in a pendulum motion so I can escape strings in any direction. This allows me to pick one note per string runs much faster as all the joints are in a neutral position and there’s no tension. Everything aligns like I’m using a taller ergonomic mouse for a PC.

I paid for the Troy Grady site access for a month and binged it a while back. It explains in detail why the way you hold the pick isn’t so important, but the way you move your wrist really is.

It’s made an improvement to my picking and has also helped if I go back to my old technique.

Rowby1

Open handed here but I close my hand to palm the pick. Open hand means I can damp with my fingers as well as my palm when necessary and I’m currently trying to incorporate some hybrid picking into my playing which I think I’d find more difficult if I was used to mostly playing with a closed hand. 

octatonic

I play hybrid so I am always switching between open and closed.
I use Planet Waves Black Ice 1.5mm, very thick and hardly any of the tip protruding.

Anchoring is ultimately counter productive- yes it took some time to learn how to play without it but I highly recommend that people do that.
Some people can make it work for them and ultimately there is no ''best' approach to anything.

I also went through the Troy Grady stuff- it was very interesting and by making a very small adjustment to my technique I was able to find 30 bpm for my speed picking.

Kurtis

With both hands! 

....ah, pick?!

theatreanchor

The right way is the way that works for you. 

Jfingers

I don't generally use one, if I do it would be finger and thumb with a slightly open hand. It's been that way for years.

punchesjudy

In my jeans little pocket whilst I play with my thumb and a couple of fingers. 

sev112

theatreanchor said:

The right way is the way that works for you. 

Except when it is wrong

guitarjack66

sev112 said:

theatreanchor said:

The right way is the way that works for you. 

Except when it is wrong

How would you know that? Would that not be down to the player? And practice rather than a new pick is needed?

Redneck

I don't have feeling in all my fingers, so as above I use a closed-ish hand and balance on the pinkie.

When I'm fingerpicking I balance on the pinkie and ring finger and use thumb, index and middle fingers to pluck, a la Knopfler, albeit with a Scottish accent and slightly more hair.

bbill335

Tannin said:

I held a pick like a pencil for 40 years.  (With two fingers and thumb.) 

wait, people hold a pencil with a thumb+2 digits??

Bod

nero1701 said:

I hold mine with my middle finger and thumb asif I was making a fox silhouette, partially due to my fore finger not bending well and having had surgery on the other 2.

I hold like that too, though not for any specific reason, it's just how I've always naturally held it.  I actually wasn't aware until someone on here pointed it out when I posted a vid of me playing.  I was a bit taken aback by it tbh.