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GMC Forum _ PRACTICE ROOM _ Thumb Picks

Posted by: Enucleation May 11 2010, 06:40 PM

There is a song that my band is working on that for one guitar alternates a lot between clean fingerpicking and fast distorted tremolo picking. The other guitarist is having trouble swapping between the two, I suggested that for the clean parts he just toss the pick and have a spare nearby, but he didn't like the idea. We figured it would be best to use a thumb pick for this song but how do you do pinch harmonics with one of those?

Granted, I don't even think there are any pinch harmonics in this song, it would be nice to know how to do this.

Posted by: Sollesnes May 14 2010, 12:00 PM

It's always good to know how to put the pick inside your middle finger for switching. Or he could put it in his mouth. I hate thumb picks For harmonics with a thumb pick.. I suppose you'll have to bring your index finger above to barely touch the string. It's how I made my first harmonics

Posted by: Ivan Milenkovic May 14 2010, 10:42 PM

Why don't he use hybrid picking?

Posted by: SirJamsalot May 14 2010, 11:14 PM

Interesting problem to have. Here's what I would do.

For the sake of moving forward with the song during band practice, I would just tell him to toss the stupid pick and have another one handy like you say. There's no point in his perfecting the picking to finger-picking back to picking moves during band practice. The time for him to practice that is at home when no one is looking

Now, how to do it? I have no idea!

Posted by: Kristian Hyvarinen May 15 2010, 10:08 AM

In my opinion, tremolo etc. stuff is pretty challenging with a thumb pick. I think it would take a lot of (wasted) effort to play all the "normal" pick stuff with a thumb pick. I like Ivan's suggestion, also all kinds of pick - no pick -movements are always doable.