I believe it helps to hold a pick in the fashion that Andrew and MickeM do. That is, your thumb and nail of index finger are parallel to the strings, and the pick is tucked in, held against the thumb and the side of the index finger. I hold mine very extreme, the point of the pick is about lined up with the first knuckle of both the thumb and the index finger. Only a mm or 2 of the pick is exposed. You can even hit harmonics on upstrokes when you hold it like this, nearly as easily as on downstrokes. On downstrokes my thumb knuckle does the damping. On upstrokes, the damping spot is before the knuckle (towards the nail).
This may seem to not be comfortable at first, but give it a try, I personally can't imagine holding it any other way. Although I would not expect guys who hold it differently, and reach a high skill level to have any reason to want to change the way they hold it. Look at how Lian holds it. I can't imagine how a guy can play as well as he does holding it like that, but he is super.
edit: if you are interested in what I am saying, a picture should help. I this is from MickeM. I hold mine with less tip exposed, and also my index finger is more tucked in (pick tip lines up against first knuckle of index finger and thumb), but this is a reasonable facsimile. Except it might be best to hold hit closer back in line with the thumb knuckle as I do. It is nothing to hit harmonics when you hold it like this, and it works for everything, AP, sweeps, etc.
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This post has been edited by fkalich: Oct 2 2008, 08:16 PM
