How to Tame the Thumb Pick Introduction I had been playing fingerstyle guitar for over 30 years without a thumb pick, when I decided to purchase one. It happened when I saw Tommy Emmanuel play with a thumb pick, and I thought: Aha, THAT must be the secret!* However, when I first tried to play with a thumb pick, it was simply impossible! My bass notes were WAY too loud - if I could hit the strings at all. I tried to file the pick shorter and thinner, and it only got worse. Today, I always use a thumb pick and I would recommend a thumb pick to everyone who wants to play fingerstyle guitar. So, what happened? (* I was wrong.) The Thumb Pick For those of you not familiar with the thumb pick, here are a few: You wrap it around your thumb, and use the part that sticks out to pluck the strings of your guitar. One thing you will immediately notice, is that you can easily play with the side of your thumb now. Of course you can also do that without a thumb pick, but because you will only use the flesh of your thumb in that case, the sound will be a little dull. For a brighter sound, without a thumb pick, you will have to move your wrist up, so that your thumb can make a sharper angle and you can play with your nail. However, as fingerstyle players often mute the bass strings with the palm of their hand, this is not always an option. This is one of the advantages of the thumb pick: it works well with palm muting. Advantages Now why would anyone use a thumb pick for fingerstyle guitar? Besides the reason mentioned earlier, which is that it works well when your hand is in a natural, palm-mute position, there are three more important advantages. 1. A thumb pick will increase your volume. You will have to increase the volume of the strings you play with your fingers too, of course, but that can be learned. 2. A thumb pick produces a good tone. The tone will vary on the type of thumb pick you use, but the smooth surface of the thumb pick will produce a nice, smooth, consistent tone. Consistent I guess is the keyword here. If you play with your bare thumb, the tone will depend on the exact angle your thumb makes with the string, whether you hit it with the nail or not, etc. In practice, this means that the exact tone will vary over the song. But not with a thumb pick, which will produce basically the same tone every time you hit the strings. Consequently, your music will become 'slicker' and sound more controlled. 3. A thumb pick helps to get a good groove. If you play with your bare thumb, the (mechanical) friction of your thumb on the strings will depend on the angle, position, and exact spot of your thumb you use to pluck the strings. These parameters vary all the time, which means that the friction between your thumb and the strings varies all the time. Increased friction will slow your thumb down, and this means that playing with your bare thumb will cause a variability in the timing of your bass lines. A thumb pick has very low friction, so your timing will become much more steady, whereas it also greatly helps reduce thumb fatigue. This will particularly be the case for up-speed and 'boom-chick' (Chet style) fingerstyle guitar. Try playing a regular beat on the low E string with a thumb pick, and you'll know immediately what I mean. It is particularly the combination of consistent tone and steady timing of the bass strings which really help to improve your fingerstyle songs. Disadvantages If you have never played with a thumb pick and want to know the disadvantages, simply buy one and try to play your favorite song. Impossible, right? Right. That was my experience, and that is probably everybody's experience. Most of the times, the bass strings are way too loud and overwhelm the rest of your notes. Playing at low volume seems impossible. Almost everybody also finds that the actual 'pick' you use to pluck the strings is much too long. It gets stuck behind the string, and you have to lift it all the way up to carry it over each string, and then put it between the right strings again, without hitting the wrong string in the mean time. As a bonus, the thumb pick will be so tight around your thumb that it blocks the blood flow, and after a few minutes the tip of your thumb will be blue and swollen and feels like it could fall right off. How to Tame the Pick When I started playing with a thumb pick, I went through all of this. I messed up many thumb picks with knifes, files and sandpaper. I made them shorter, for better control, and thinner, for reduced volume. I found that sanding them thinner actually does not reduce volume. It only adds a snappy sound to your attack. I got so frustrated that I decided to buy every single type of thumb pick I could find. They came in all the colors of the rainbow and some had such a strange shape that you might wonder where you had to put it. I tried them all, and they were all bad. Two were slightly better than the rest. In fact, these were a little shorter and thinner, and were called 'speed picks'. So I decided to use these. It still took me days of annoying loud bass notes, and I almost decided to give up. I tried to invent reasons why *I* would not need a thumb pick anyway. But every time I saw Tommy play I got mad. This was because I could see that the thumb pick actually added something to his way of playing that I could not reproduce. I could almost feel how great it was to play with a thumb pick, until I tried it myself. So... I decided to just act as if I were stupid and play with the thumb pick every day, completely ignoring how bad it sounded. And guess what? That did the trick! Just a few days later I played one of my favorite songs and enjoyed the steady beat and the great sound of my guitar. And all of a sudden I realized: Hey! I'm playing with a thumb pick! The days that followed were a joy. Although I still used the shorter, thinner 'speed pick', I felt victorious. That is, until my thumb pick broke (which was the last one of the two 'good ones' I had). Thumb picks are hard to find where I live, so I had to order them in the States and it would be a week before I would get a new supply. So I decided to use one of the other picks I had in the mean time. Much to my surprise, it did not matter much anymore what pick I used. I could play quite well with all of them! The Brains Behind It I have said before that playing guitar is an intellectual process. The same applies to the use of a thumb pick. The fact of the matter is, that once you decide to keep on using it, your brain is so smart that it will subconsciously adapt the motion of your right hand as long as the loud bass notes annoy you. This takes a few days, but it will happen. The funny thing is that if you try to do it consciously, it does not work (or is very hard to do). So, instead of wasting time with files and sandpaper, just get yourself an ordinary thumb pick and 'learn to live with it'. Just play, ignore how bad it sounds. It may take you a few days, maybe longer, but eventually it will come. Guaranteed. The only adjustment you may want to make is to loosen the pick a little if it is really too narrow around your thumb. The pick should be tight enough to remain steady, even if you pluck hard, but if it really starts to hurt badly, you may want to dip it in boiling water for a second and widen it a little. On the other hand, it also takes some time to get used to the squeezy feeling. The tip of my thumb used to get a little numb, but maybe my body created some new peripheral vasculature in my thumb to maintain a steady blood flow, because even a tight thumb pick does not bother me anymore now. Limitations Thumb picks are quite versatile, and can also be used as a flatpick, simply by holding the flat part between thumb and index finger. However, upstrokes are more cumbersome, as a thumb pick will not 'wiggle' between your fingers the way a flatpick does. Thumb picks are really designed for downstroaks, but, with a little practice, they will substitute a flat pick in case of an emergency. Of course, some songs or playing styles may come out better with a bare thumb. It remains a personal thing. However, in my case, there is nothing I can't play well with a thumbpick, and there is a lot I cannot play well without one. Take Home Messages The use of a thumb pick may improve tone and timing for fingerstyle guitar. Although the choice to use one remains a personal thing, of course, I would recommend it to everyone who wants to play fingerstyle. You do need to get used to it, which requires some persistence. Don't waste your time on trying exotic models or making modifications. Just act as if you don't know better, ignore how bad it sounds and play on! BACK