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Originally Posted by Davis Webb
Depends on how comfortable you are with fingerpicking. I would say learn first with no nails, just learn how to finger pick. Then grow some medium length nails, they only have to just be a tad longer than your fingertip...as discussed in that great link above.
If you still need volume, try fingerpicks. I use hard fingerpicks, plastic. You drop them in warm water then put them on to fit them. They never really feel natural.
I mostly use a hard flat pick but keep medium length nails on thumb and first 3 fingers to move into fingerpicking. Nails are a hassle, completely. But you can do things with fingerpicks that are nice. Fingerpicking without nails or picks sounds pretty dull. You wont like it much for long.
Right now I am trying to emulate fingerpicking style with a flat pick. The flat pick has so much it can do that fingerpicks cannot.
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A good friend of mine learned how to use those plastic ones, also by heating and bending. They are indeed clunky, but I think that they squeeze the most tone out of a string.
They're basically heavy plastic flat-picks, so there is a ton of fundamental and hardly any squeak or chatter to speak of.
I like to frail into some of my phrases, and that just ain't gonna happen with a pick that wraps up from under the fingertip, so I have to stick with my glued-on tips.
If only someone made them from Delrin.
HE