Choosing the Right Pick For Your Guitar
A guitar pick is a thin, stiff material that a player can use to strum guitar strings to amplify the sound. A pick helps guitar instrumentalists be faster and more accurate while playing. It is also helpful to prevent soreness and injury to a player, as using only fingers for a long time on the guitar may cause them to blister and affect the player’s performance. Guitar picks come in various shapes and sizes, and there are different criteria attached to choosing the right pick for a guitar.
The proper thickness of a guitar pick is an important criterion determined by the kind of guitar the guitarist plays. Acoustic guitar players generally use light to medium picks to draw out the sharpest notes from their heavy strings. They vary from 0.0177 inches to 0.0276 inches in diameter and are very good for strumming acoustic guitar strings to produce a soft, loud sound.
The medium pick is a universal pick. It is suitable for playing strumming notes on the acoustic and picking lead notes on an electric guitar. It is excellent for rock music genres to produce a sound that is a mix of bass, treble, and mid-tones.
Electric guitars commonly have light strings that require thick guitar picks. The thickness of the pick ranges from medium (0.028 inches — 0.0331 inches) to heavy (0.0335 inches — 0.0472 inches) to extra heavy (0.0476 inches and above) in diameter. The extra heavy picks are commonly used in jazz and metal music because of the volume it generates from electric guitars.
In addition to thickness, guitar players consider the material’s durability when selecting a guitar pick. Picks are made from different materials, including plastic, nylon, glass, celluloid, and xylonite. Most players regard the strength of the material, as nylon or plastic picks are likely to last longer than celluloid picks. It is also advisable for players to test the pick on their guitars to examine whether the material used to make the pick produces a pleasing sound to the ear.
The shape of the pick is as essential as the material’s durability. The four most common shapes are the standard shape, teardrop shape, jazz shape, and triangle shape. The standard shape pick has a tip that is not too round or too sharp, making it great for a beginner playing out different techniques on the guitar. The teardrop-shaped pick is for more advanced players and is used to target precision and improve rhythm control while moving one’s fingers on a guitar.
Another pick usually chosen for precision and speed is the jazz pick. They are generally smaller than the rest and are typically favored by professionals in the jazz or rock genres. The triangle pick is also used by advanced players in bass guitar, with each edge having the same length and thickness. It is larger than a standard size pick, and a guitarist can use each side to pick or strum notes.
Comfortability is also an important factor when choosing a guitar pick. To check how comfortable a pick is, the guitarist should position their fingers in the “OK” style, placing the pick between the thumb and forefinger. If the guitarist can play comfortably with the pick in that position, then the pick has passed the comfortability test.
