Fast alternate picking, with a thumbpick?

[Tailingloop]

I'm starting to get into flatpicking, and I've started playing with a thumbpick. Is this a good or a bad idea? Any fast pickers out there using a thumbpick, and you pickers using plectrums, what happens to your speed when you put one on?
And why!
Is it because your just not used to it, or because the thumbpick is destined to be slower?

Thanks beforehand!

[Fngrstyl]

Originally Posted by Tailingloop

I
Is it because your just not used to it, or because the thumbpick is destined to be slower?

Thanks beforehand!

Definitely not slower. It is just a matter of what is comfortable for you, and practice practice practice with whatever you decide to use.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZntrQyHftiY

[Bonenut65]

Ive seen some banjo pickers with pretty amazing thumb pickin skills, so I say why not? If a thumb pick works for you, go for it!

[rofong6]

It is possible, and if it works for you go for it. Although the picking angle is a little different for me anyways, but it keeps the pick from sliding out of your hands. Check out Wayne Henderson for a unique style of flatpicking.

[HHP]

I doubt you can get the speed and tone with just the thumbpick. You can get it by combining with fingers and thumb, particularly if you work on single and adjacent string picking, ala Wayne Henderson. Carter style can be done with a thumbpick, but again, you need to use fingers to brush the chord stroke. No doubt it will be easier to get either sound with a flatpick.

[Richgj3]

Toby Walker does it. Go to his site and watch him play Black Mountain Rag and Blackberry Blossom among other fiddle tunes. www.littletobywalker.com

Or


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJxPX...e_gdata_player

Rich

[DesertTwang]

I use a flatpick and have tried a thumbpick only on a few occasions, but I would find it difficult if not impossible to obtain the same speed and accuracy, for two reasons: The thumbpick sticks out much further and therefore reaches deeper into the strings and tends to get tangled more easily. Second, I find it impossible to do upstrokes with a thumbpick because that movement pulls it away from the thumb. As a result, you can't achieve the punch that is necessary for good flatpicking and/or the pick simply comes off.

I think - and perhaps I'm mistaken - that all fast pickers who use a thumbpick use picks on their index-, middle- and ring fingers also, like a banjo player does.

[Misty44]

Originally Posted by HHP

I doubt you can get the speed and tone with just the thumbpick. You can get it by combining with fingers and thumb, particularly if you work on single and adjacent string picking, ala Wayne Henderson. Carter style can be done with a thumbpick, but again, you need to use fingers to brush the chord stroke. No doubt it will be easier to get either sound with a flatpick.

In this vein, Lester Flatt used a thumb and one finger pick, thumb pick on the down strokes, finger pick on the up. His style was primarily rhythm, not lead.

However, you may get some pointers from Chris Sharp's video instructions on Lester Flatt Style Guitar, including this one on picks: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cx-m8XbK5t0

[ebick]

I just happened to be watching The Secret Policeman's third ball (I think that was the one) and there was a segment with Mark Knopfler and Chet Atkins. In that segment, Chet used only a thumb. I have only tried this a couple of times, and not with my mind set on making it work, but I may try again, especially after seeing that, because I just can't get comfortable with finger picks.

[rkl245]

That's how Wayne Henderson does it and I've heard he's pretty good

[mr. beaumont]

Lots of guys will grab the thumbpick with the index finger and hold it like a pseudo flatpick for fast runs, see Tommy Emmanuel or Brent Mason...

[Pitar]

Using a Fred Kelly medium slick pick (orange) I will use the blade like a standard flatpick when I need to. For fast alternating I stick with fingerpicking. It's a lot more effective, accurate, consistent and gives a greater speed envelop for a fraction of the effort flatpicking puts on the hand.

[RP]

Originally Posted by rkl245

That's how Wayne Henderson does it and I've heard he's pretty good

You got that right! I saw him perform in a small venue recently. At such times he passes his guitars around for anyone who wants to try them out, and spends a lot time talking to folks. I asked about his playing style, and he said it's like a pinching motion that he does between his thumb and fingers. He makes it look effortless...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAbMvmv5cSs

[pete1960]

I would recommend a thumbpick.
You can hold as you would a plectrum.. thumb-first finger.
You can also move quickly between alt picking , hybrid picking , banjo rolls etc

[wcap]

Banjo players were already mentioned above. I'll say a bit more.

Though I never use a thumbpick on guitar (I tend to use classical-guitar-like right hand technique on guitar), I played 5-string banjo for many years, usually using a thumbpick (and two finger picks too). Listen to some good 5-string banjo playing sometime - Scruggs style or melodic style, or Bela Fleck's jazzy stuff. Some of this is faster than just about anything that people do on guitar. There is no reason for a thumb pick to slow you down. It might even facilitate playing faster, but it all depends on what your right hand technique is like.

No matter how you play, with picks or without, it will take a great deal of time to develop really good right hand control. Anything new (e.g. playing with a thumb pick) is going to feel awkward at first, and for quite some time afterward too most likely.

Personally, I don't like the position my hand would have to be in if I were to use a thumb pick on guitar (though this hand position is perfectly natural for me on banjo), but many people play guitar with a hand position that will be compatible with a thumb pick.

EDIT:

Oops... I just re-read the original post, and I saw that the question was about using a thumb pick for flatpicking. I was thinking of fingerstyle/fingerpicking in what I wrote above.

Personally, I might find the use of a thumbpick as being a little awkward for flatpicking (I think I would have more nuanced control over attack and tone and volume and such in a flatpicking context with an actual flatpick), but I have no doubt that it would be possible to make this work. In my mind the only reason for doing this though would be to be able to switch quickly between flatpicking and full-blown fingerstyle (as opposed to hybrid picking), on the fly - if that is something you want to do, then I can see how flatpicking with a thumbpick might be a skill well worth developing.

A bit more elaboration on why I might prefer a flatpick: When I flatpick (and strum with a flatpick) I vary the pick angle a lot, and I vary the solidness of my attack a lot. For example, when I want a softer gentler sound I sometimes have the pick sort of floppy in my fingers (not to the point of it being at risk of flying out of my fingers, but to allow it to move or be deflected a bit as I strike a string or strum). Other times I use a really solid attack for more clarity and greater depth of tone. I'm not describing all these nuances of my flatpicking style very well. I think the solid attack would be easy to achieve with a thumb pick (gripped with both the thumb and index finger) but I think I'd find the looser sort of attack harder to pull off (especially without risk of having the thumb pick flying off my thumb on the upstrokes).