[shakenbake]

I’ve been holding my pick a certain way for over a decade – index and middle finger on one side of the pick and thumb on the other. As I’m getting into bluegrass music, I see bluegrass (and other genres) musicians hold their pick with just the side portion of their index and their thumb on the other side. I’ve been told by a small few this is THE way to hold your pick. I’m having huge difficulty adjusting to this two finger grip style for strumming in particular. It actually works nicely for fast picking strings and cross picking. But strumming it is just very difficult for me. Here’s why:

The people that I talk to basically say you need to hold your pick firmly and not let it move or angle or rotate in your fingers very much at all. Up until now the way I’d transition from picking to strumming is to simply loosen the three-finger grip I have on the pick and the pick would easily rotate downward during a downstroke and easily rotate upward during an upstroke. And then grip it firmly for picking. So how would I do this with a firm two-finger grip for strumming? I guess I’d just rotate my wrist up and down for each up and downstroke? This seems very awkward for me. One because I’m not used to it and two because it takes a very small amount of precious time to rotate the wrist on every stroke. Am I going about this wrong? How do others strum with the two finger grip and also transition from picking to strumming?

Why I’m even considering making this behavior change is that I do find I get more power and volume on the strings when I use the two finger grip. And also the two finger grip seems to work nicely for fast flatpicking. But I’m struggling with the strumming portion.