#1
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Angle for Tone Deaf fingerpicks
Howdy,
I'm getting back into playing guitar after a long hiatus. (I've been playing off and on for 40 years.) I've always loved fingerpicking blues, and that's what I'm going to set myself to learn now. I played some in the past, and never used fingerpicks, but I thought I'd try. I can't play with the standard fingerpicks, but I bought a set of Tone Deaf fingerpicks, and I really like them; the metal bit goes just enough beyond the pads of my fingers to pick without me feeling disoriented by the distance between my fingertips and the picks. But I'm wondering what angle I should wear them at. If they're straight - parallel to my nails - then they seem to slip on the strings. Now, this could just be my lack of experience with fingerpicks, but if I turn them slightly so they're closer to being perpendicular to the strings it is easier to play. What should I do? Straight or turned? Or is it one of those "just do what feels right" questions? Thanks. |
#2
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As long as you are getting the tone you want, do what's most comfortable. For me, that's keeping the striking surface of the pick perpendicular to the string, which can be achieved by a combination of hand angle and turning the picks slightly on my fingers. It gets easier as you practice and experiment more with the finger picks. You may find that you want to hold the guitar a little differently, for example, to get the correct angle.
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Martin HD-28, Guild JF30, Yamaha FG720S, Yamaha CPX700-12, old Alvarez (?) nylon string "May you stay forever young."-Dylan |
#3
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Those are a lot like Propik Fingertones, which is what I use. I just bend them so that they follow the contours of my fingers (as best I can do), and then bend the area of the pick that naturally strikes the string when I play, getting it to come away very slightly from my finger (so that the pick doesn't slide along the string, but catches it ever so slightly and releases the string cleanly). For me, this means the extended part is slightly off center of my finger.
In some ways, bending the kicks is like shaping your nails so that you get the release that you want, and the tone that sounds best to you. |