Guitar Pick Crash Course Video Lecture - The Ultimate Guitar Course From

all right we're talking about pics there
are literally thousands of different
ones to choose from and they have a big
effect on the tone of your playing and
really just kind of like the feel you
have when playing guitar so we're going
to try to break it down into the
different attributes and the differences
between them so the main attributes of
atopic are shape thickness material and
texture some different materials and
textures one of them is cellulose and
fenders kind of known for these ones
right here it's got a very smooth
texture I've never really been a big fan
of these personally because they kind of
slip out of my hands and I've also
broken these a lot I'm not really a
heavy-handed player so I don't break
pics often but if I do they're always
the cellulose ones the plastic ones I
like are the Gator grips they're kind of
comparable to the tortoise ones I like
these particularly because they have
like a matte finish on them so they
don't stick that much nylon picks are
also really popular with certain players
like Jimmy Page for instance played
nylon picks another material worth
talking about is the Guitar Center pick
which is made out of these screaming
dying souls of local music store owners
so really quick just kind of give you an
idea what you sound like
the nylon one
versus the cellulose one
maybe a little brighter there and then
the Gator grip
maybe a little mellower I suppose and
the Guitar Center one so shape wise
choose a close up of a few different
picks this is just going to be the
standard one right here now there are a
bunch of different thicknesses of this
particular shape but I would say this is
the standard now the next most common
shape I would say is more of like a jazz
three type style it's a little bit
smaller and it allows for greater
control so just for an example I started
playing regular sized picks and
eventually as I got better I tended to
go more towards the smaller jazz islands
just because they allowed for greater
control there's different techniques and
stuff you can do on and on but that
doesn't mean I still don't use standards
in fact main picks I use I kind of
switch back and forth between two of
them I use a Gator grip 0.96 millimeter
one and a planet wave is a black ice
medium wanna so that's going to kind of
segue into thickness right so the
thickness of the pick is usually
measured in millimeters I most people
kind of say that a thin pick is any set
anything 0.6 millimeters 0.62
millimeters or below a medium pick would
be 0.6 to 0.8 usually and a thick pick
will be point eight and above and they
get all the way up to like 3.0 and stuff
like that now a lot of different pick
manufacturers will have their
thicknesses displayed by different
colors for example I've got like a good
range of Gator grip picks here right
they start thinner and then you can just
get them all the way up to like point
two point three and stuff like that now
the thickness to me is where the tone
comes from or that has the biggest
effect on a tone so I'm going to do a
shootout at the end of this video but
just kind of like for a general idea
this is a really really thin pick this
is 0.46 millimeters so if you're playing
chords I always play like an E minor
chord here
and there's very little resistance going
on I want to go up and down the strings
you kind of even see here it's not even
making a lot of noise that's why it
doesn't though there's very little
resistance
I guess it's good if you're just kind of
starting out and you're working on your
strumming and you get caught up now I'm
not a huge fan of the super thin ones
because they don't give you a very big
dynamic and you're playing what I mean
by that is like let's take like one that
I'm we're just using this is 0.96 so
closer to full millimeter right now you
can already tell I just got a brighter
sound and you can be more dynamic and
what I mean by dynamic strumming is
basically not hitting all six strings at
once right if you're just going all six
at once up and down
there's not a great dynamic there now
that can be kind of good for like a thin
pic but when you have more control you
can do things like hit little pieces of
the court
and drive the top of your acoustic
guitar now when I say drive that means
you can actually create a distortion by
it hitting the strings really hard and
that's why I figure a beginner I
wouldn't recommend using a pick that's
too thick for example this is two
millimeters it's a pretty thick pick
right perfect if you if you like
shredding and doing like metal stuff now
if you're just strumming an acoustic
guitar I wouldn't really recommend this
pick because you might get that kind of
sound so what that is is there's too
much resistance hitting the string
alright so if you see right here it's
really digging in you don't want that
you really want more of a smooth and if
you're using it correctly you can just
get like a cool tone like this you can
tell that's kind of a mellower sound
menace
the brightness here anyways there's a
lot of different uses of fix now the one
thing about maybe going with a thinner
pick for instance this is going to be
about a point six millimeter is you can
change how it sounds
thickness wise by how you hold it so
first let's start about like how maybe
you should hold a pic in general again
there's a lot of different ways this is
just the way I hold it I kind of think
of sticking my thumb straight up my
strumming thumb straight up like a given
thumbs up sign and then you kind of come
behind and slide the big part of the pic
right behind directly behind your thumb
so the tip of it is kind of pointing out
almost like a parrot's beak or something
like that right now you can just
generally play that way and for me that
gives me a lot of control now if I want
even more control with a thinner pick
all I have to do is choke off more of
the pick and you're just showing a
little bit of the end bet and that's
kind of simulate the control that you
can get from like a jazz 3 type pick so
it's one way that you can kind of like
make do with one pick and make it seem
like you're like you're swapping them
out if you only have access to one or
whatever but you can't really do the
opposite like with the fake pick with a
fake pick you're kind of stuck with how
it sounds now there's always all sorts
of different techniques and stuff you
can do to manipulate them but there's
just a few examples of the general
rudimentary differences between picks
another thing you might have seen
recently are these picks stamping
machines is a little stapler looking
things what you can do is you can slide
like a credit card in and kind of stamp
a pick out of really anything that you
can fit in between so will contraption
here really this is more of a novelty
than anything else even if you use like
a harder material like your credit card
or a hotel room key something like that
the edges that you'll get with the
Stamper really aren't that useful for
doing anything beyond just kind of
rudimentary playing now the novelty of
it is pretty cool especially if you want
to make like a pick out of your awesome
college student ID picture but aside
from that I probably wouldn't recommend
it for something that you'd be playing
with a lot a note on the texture of
different picks is on some of them
especially at almost all the nylon ones
that I usually see it they have little
kind of grooves like almost like small
little buttons that'll help you grip
them
because of the the slippery nature of
the nylon material the grooves really
help a lot and again that's why I like
the matte finish on the Gator grips
because I feel like even though after a
while that finished kind of rubs off a
little bit it's usually a pretty sturdy
controllable pick even unlike the jazz
3s and stuff you'll see like a raised
logo on a lot of them and star picks are
another really popular one they have
like a star cut out of the center that
just allows you to grip because really
being able to grip is obviously pretty
important for appe alright I'm going to
mic this up and actually do a shoot out
where you can kind of see in real time
the difference in tone the different
thickness and material picks will
present so check it out
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