Man, I love this forum.! Collective knowledge from generations of pickers. I can also find great answers to any question and much encouragement. I was hoping today to get some advice as to what type of finger picks to use. I flat pick for the most part, but use my middle and ring fingers for finger picking while I am holding my flat pick. I guess that is kind of like “chickin pickin,” although I am not very good at that. I would like to try to learn more using a thumb pick and finger picks (index and middle fingers). There are zillions of types of finger picks. I think some people like metal because they can be squeezed to adjust them better to your finger size and, thereby, make them more comfortable. I think I would like to try plastic though because I hear they have a warmer sound. What do ya’ll think?
Selecting Finger Picks
Hi @Mike1 Welcome back to @BanjoBen 's Forum. @Jake did a video on picks a few weeks back… Check this out
Don’t forget about this one, too: https://banjobenclark.com/lessons/all-about-fingerpicks-banjo-beginner
You might want to give Alaska picks a try. They fit over the nail which allows you to back strum along with picking. Chris Proctor introduced these to me eons ago. Fingerstyle guitarists typically use the thumb and 3 fingers rather than 2 as for banjo.
You can shape them to suit your preference with a fingernail file.
Here is an example of my attempt at a Pat Kirtley version of Ghost Riders. He won the National Fingerstyle Guitar championship in 1995 with it. I can’t play it as fast as he does but I tried for smooth instead.
You can see in this example the occasional back brush across the strings as well as just straight picking.
The nice thing about them is you can use 1,2 or3 as you prefer.
Great picking! What kind of guitar is that? It’s really pretty. I’ve seen several fingerstyle guitarists use those picks, I’d like to try them sometime
Sorry, I didn’t see your question until now. The guitar is a Taylor 914. Sort of a special edition in maple rather than rosewood.