how many of you finger style players like me have tried...but cannot even come close to playing as fast with a pick as you can with your fingers. i suck with a pick i know... im just curious if anyone else can play faster with their fingers than a pick?
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Just curious
- Thread starter OneKillWonder
- Start date
I definitely suck at playing with a pick, but I can appreciate a great pick player (do we have to name them again?). 
I am still trying to get with a pick. I mainly use one on simpler stuff, anything with a bunch of string skipping and will use my fingers.
I had one pick that a guitarist friend left at my house, a .43, and it was perfect until I broke it after five minutes.
I had one pick that a guitarist friend left at my house, a .43, and it was perfect until I broke it after five minutes.
mark beem
Wait, how does this song start again??
Although I do use both, I favor fingers... I can do it with a pick, but it doesn't feel as good.. 
ditto for me. I just can't hack it with a pick. at rehearsal last night I was going for a Berry Oakley pickstyle type of vibe on an ABB tune and found it was just way too sloppy - fingers were much more fluid. I guess I just need to practice with it but I've always preferred fingerstyle.
the only exception where I'll use a pick is the very few times that I have to sing - for some reason in my brain I can't put fingerstyle and singing together and a pick helps me keep the groove... anyone else have this issue?
the only exception where I'll use a pick is the very few times that I have to sing - for some reason in my brain I can't put fingerstyle and singing together and a pick helps me keep the groove... anyone else have this issue?
Benjamin Strange
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I can almost play as fast with my fingers as a pick, but I get worn out pretty fast and it's not as clean. When it's important, I will use a pick. No shame in that!
I use the thickest, smallest picks I can find. Usually 1.5mm jazz picks. It keeps your fingers closest to the strings, so you don't have a huge piece of plastic flapping away in the wind that you are trying to do precision work with.
I use the thickest, smallest picks I can find. Usually 1.5mm jazz picks. It keeps your fingers closest to the strings, so you don't have a huge piece of plastic flapping away in the wind that you are trying to do precision work with.
for string-skipping stuff eg. alternating octaves and crossing high to low strings, and triplets (with three fingers) I'm faster fingerstyle.
for simple 16th note/8ths at a fast tempo (eg. Parallel Universe, New Gold dream, Where the streets have no name, Duchess) lines and some crossing low to high strings riffs, I'm faster with a pick.
for simple 16th note/8ths at a fast tempo (eg. Parallel Universe, New Gold dream, Where the streets have no name, Duchess) lines and some crossing low to high strings riffs, I'm faster with a pick.
I play guitar and bass, but started with bass first playing fingerstyle. So, if I'm playing the bass and I *need* speed then I gotta have a pick, as I have spent a huge amount of time getting my alternate picking up to snuff. Though I can play at a decent rate using my fingers I just can't move em as fast as a quick wrist-style picking. I see this topic comes up a lot, every know and then somebody disses playing with a pick, which is funny because I'd bet dollars to donuts people that say that can't play pickstyle worth a darn
I used to be fingers mainley. Then i took up pick style...and it really grew on me...i kinda perfer it now. Nothing sounds more aggressive to me than Rick's and Pick's 
Every once in a while I try playing with a pick. I really suck at it LOL! But, I watched Carol Kaye's Bass Instruction DVD and I dig her way of playing with a pick. Seems to make it much easier to play syncopated rhythms and such if you have your picking hand moving with your tapping foot, which there doesn't seem to be a way to do this as easily when playing finger style.
