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I'm also a headphone player mostly these days. I used to play unamplified a lot, but realized that I wasn't hearing an important part of my instrument, and also was playing too hard. Do you play along with music? That's how I learned back in the '80s as a teenager armed with a Walkman, and have really been enjoying it lately with Moises.ai to remove the original bass tracks.
A teardrop-shaped pick is roughly triangular, with one sharp/pointy corner and two gently curved "corners." Rotate the pick so you're striking the strings with one of the latter. That's not quite "backwards," but more like rotating it 90 degrees or so. I just grabbed a pick to check my own position, and the sharp corner is pointed more or less toward the bridge.
I do this sometimes, and I think it's a great approach, but I have to do it consciously. I've played for decades with the pointy end striking the strings, and I've just gotten used to it, and how I can adjust how much of my thumb meat is hitting the string (the Chris Squire thing, sorta), and also whether the pick is hitting the string totally flat or sometimes with a tiny bit of edge - you get a slightly different tone that way, a little grunty scrape. It's just like with fingers--you can get lots of nuance out of a pick.
I also play with the rounded corners, I find that the pick releases from the string much more smoothly that the pointed end. I also find that the sound is not nearly as "pick" sounding than with the pointed end. I have only been doing this for about the last 3 or 4 years and it happened by accident, a pick broke on me mid-song and rather than grab another pick I just turned it in my hand and I could immediately tell how much I was going to like it. In the last 15 years, I have gone from 100% pick player to 90% finger player, but I keep my pick chops polished because many days my fingers don't feel as good as they once did.
Dating myself here: I started playing in 1977, wearing out multiple LP's by picking the needle up and down 10K times trying to learn Yes tunes. I kind of "bounced off" pick for a long time, and try as you might, you CAN NOT sound like Squire with fingers, and it's tough without a Ric. My first "real" bass was a Ric 4001, in 1978. I learned basic competence with a pick about 10 years later, but it kind of fell by the wayside. Now it's my only relatively pain-free option, so I'm trying to get better. I'm strictly a bedroom player now, and spend more time building basses than playing them. I've been searching for the "best" headphone based system for a while now, tried about everything. the closest I've come to ideal is the Tascam Bass Trainer, the CD plyer version, which is pretty obsolete, fragile, and counter-intuitive to use. This is my current #1 bass, just finished building it a couple weeks ago. Plenty of places to park a thumb, but it sounds great with a pick. And yes, the hard binding edge at the upper bout chafes my forearm a little, so I have a padded sleeve I wear playing it.
That's a great pic! I love the bits of natural light - afternoon/evening sun? I bet it sounds great with a pick!Dating myself here: I started playing in 1977, wearing out multiple LP's by picking the needle up and down 10K times trying to learn Yes tunes. I kind of "bounced off" pick for a long time, and try as you might, you CAN NOT sound like Squire with fingers, and it's tough without a Ric. My first "real" bass was a Ric 4001, in 1978. I learned basic competence with a pick about 10 years later, but it kind of fell by the wayside. Now it's my only relatively pain-free option, so I'm trying to get better. I'm strictly a bedroom player now, and spend more time building basses than playing them. I've been searching for the "best" headphone based system for a while now, tried about everything. the closest I've come to ideal is the Tascam Bass Trainer, the CD plyer version, which is pretty obsolete, fragile, and counter-intuitive to use. This is my current #1 bass, just finished building it a couple weeks ago. Plenty of places to park a thumb, but it sounds great with a pick. And yes, the hard binding edge at the upper bout chafes my forearm a little, so I have a padded sleeve I wear playing it.
