Fingerpicking Question

scotta
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Mon Feb 01, 2010 4:51 pm

I know what you mean frybaby. My wife has given me a thumbs down on long nails too. I've been working on it a little bit and it seems like the sound is pretty good with just my fingertips but so far I'm not getting the sound I would like out of the thumb. I haven't tried a thumb pick yet but I think I'm gonna get one and try it out. It's just going to take some experimenting on my part to see what works best for me. Either way I'll enjoy working on it!


frybaby
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Mon Feb 01, 2010 5:44 pm

Scotta;
I can be fun, and its a challange,but again worth the effort. One big challange is finding the right pick, and the right size. I experimented with two so far. Nationals, and Dunlap. In addition to thickness the also come in thumb sizes. Small, Medium and Large. The last set I got ( had to buy them in a set of four - packaged that way, I bought small, wiich were a bit to small, I experimented with placing them in boiling water to soften them and then reshaped. Still working on it ruined one, but got one a little more comefortable. Anyway be prepared to experiment with thickness, thumb size. Also one of my experiments included shortining the pick length, it seem too long so I cut and filed it, with some success.. Like you said it can be fun... and it keep me out of trouble. Long fingernails do look a bit weird.
Finaly if you want to go with the nail, I have also used a nail hardner, it like clear fingernail polish. I hardens the nail and work quite well, but then again my wife doesn't care for clear polish on my finger nails either. One down side to the clear nail hardner is yellows after a while and even looks funkier.
So there it is.
Frybaby.


wadestar
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Mon Feb 01, 2010 6:50 pm

Chasplaya wrote:
How short does the Hospital dictate, as its a bit of a fallacy that nails need to be really long for fingerpicking, one sight recommended to look at your Nails with the palm facing towards you, you should only see about 1 - 2mm past the flesh tip of the fingers. Too long and you get string drag. Also when they get too long they are more susceptile to breaking or cracking. Tops should be rounded and smooth filing inside edge as well as outside edge. The thumb mail should be slightly longer as its dealing with the Bass st
rings a bit more heavy duty stuff.
I made a mess of my new found toy...my nails I quit bitting them, then tryed to angle them just right as to an artical I read made a lot of sense, I will be growing them rounded again. To hard to get the right angle on them, I am no pro so the sound to me is close to the same.


TGSteve
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Fri Feb 26, 2010 6:36 pm

I don't play a lot of fingerstyle guitar, but when I do Alaska picks seem to work pretty well for me:

http://www.alaskapik.com/

Most of the local shops used to carry them, but they are a little more rare these days, at least in my area, so I have to get them online. Since I already know my size, it's not a problem, but trying them out could be a challenge for a prospective user.

I think they're worth tracking down though. Use them on my index, middle, and ring fingers, and a combo flat/thumbpick:

http://www.jimdunlop.com/index.php?page ... ucts/herco


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