Anybody here do hybrid picking?

[Joe Beamish]

Hybrid picking can be great on electric, although for me it doesn’t give the power or volume I want on acoustic, especially for a full-on Travis picking approach or a Bert Jansch thing.

On the other hand, while I can and do play lead lines with a thumb pick, I prefer to use a flat pick, which is also best for strumming. I do sometimes use my index finger for single note picking, as well as strumming.

I use pretty much every method, which sucks, because I’d probably be a better player if I chose just one approach and focused on that.

[leew3]

if you're already finger picking it shouldn't be that much of a challenge to hybrid pick. I like it as I get the volume I want for the bass notes and can then strum as needed better than I can with a thumb pick.

[Cecil6243]

Thank you for all the comments!

[Brent Hutto]

I would if I could. Just about every player I've seen doing the styles of music I aspire to mixed pick and fingers. Some of them are 90% flatpicking with a few notes grabbed with the fingers. Some are more of a continuous 50/50 mix. But they all have the ability to do it in any combination they need.

Two decades ago I briefly (year or so) took classical guitar lessons. At that time I could do a passable job of classical-style playing with fingers on either nylon or steel strings. Took lots and lots of ongoing attention to my fingernails and of course plenty practice but it sounded pretty good to me.

Then I was away from guitar for 15 years. When I returned, I had totally lost any ability to create a decent sound with my fingers. I can shape and buff my nail the way I used to, I can try to recall the technique. It just sounds awful on steel string acoustic or even worse on electric guitar.

No idea what's going on. I think in my 60's there's something fundamentally different about my finger nails than how it was in my 40's. Or maybe my fingers and hands are just stiff and clumsy now? It's frustrating but every time I sit down to try and figure it out I give up after an hour.

It's not enough to just make a pleasing tone with my fingers (which I can't do anyway). For that style to work you have to be able to match the one of your flatpicked notes with the tone of the finger-picked notes. My guitar teacher keeps nylon nails on his right hand fingers full time, cut really short but shaped and buffed out to make the tone he needs. I have a feeling I'd need to go that route to make hybrid picking work but I'm not willing to wear those nylon nails all the time, not least because they'd drive me crazy playing golf 4-5x a week.

[Charlie Bernstein]

I wear fingerpicks or go commando. (Never found a flatpick I couldn't drop.)