I cover pick choice and pick technique in detail in my course Rockstar 101 – Essential Guitar Skills For Beginners but today I`m going to give you some specific advice about choosing the best guitar pick.
A few hours ago I finished a lesson with a student who has been playing for roughly 9 months and is making great progress. We had a very productive lesson, and it`s a lesson I often enjoy teaching as it`s one those lessons where a small change makes a BIG improvement for the student.
It is the lesson where I go though which I deem are the best guitar picks – especially for beginners. I show the student a variety of guitar picks and we look at which ones are suitable for which type of song, guitar and genre of music.
By the end of the lesson my student knew exactly which 3 picks he likes for which song, guitar and genre and we both both noticed big improvements in the sound coming from his guitar.
Choosing 3 picks is something I recommend you do too.
How many different picks do you use at the moment? And more importantly, when you grab a pick to play with, do you choose it because you know it will sound good for that certain song or because it`s the nearest one to you?
If you like to strum an acoustic guitar, go for the lighter one – 0.46 is the most popular for most beginner guitarists that I teach. They sound rich, have a lovely `zing` across the strings, and are thin, therefore easy to control.
For songs where you pick chords rather than strum them, then try something a little thicker, such as the 0.55 or 0.73 – they are definitely two of the best guitar picks for beginners.
You will find chord picking sounds quieter than strumming, (that`s because it`s one string being hit at a time as opposed to six when you strum), therefore having something slightly thicker helps keep the volume at an audible level.
Having a slightly thicker pick for chord picking will also help you hit the right string more often. This is because thinner picks are great when strumming but bend too much when chord picking which causes a lack of control and the wrong string being hit.
If you have played for years and can control a thicker pick, go for the Dunlop Jazz iii XL. I love them. I can`t believe no one told me about these until about 5 years ago.
Before I used those, I would use a multitude of different picks, never settling on any particular one as when I would get all sweaty on stage, they would fly out my hand and disappear somewhere in the audience. I`m sure I once `flicked` one in someone’s drink, or maybe I just wish I was that cool.
I used to be the world’s worst culprit for using the wrong pick. When learning, I would often lose all my picks or just be too lazy to go and grab one, instead using a 2 pence coin (thinking it was cool and anti-capitalist or something like that) when I was a dorky teenager.
I`d be sitting there strumming a bunch of cool, simple chords and writing some songs.
