What Kind Of Guitar Picks Should I Use

What kind of guitar pick you use differs if you are a beginner or advanced player.  It also differs depending the kind of music you play so the answer to this question is different in most cases.  To make the best choice you should be aware of the different properties of a guitar pick.

There are 3:

1.Material -You can probably find picks made of almost any material you can think of from tortoise shell to granite stone from the tops of the Himalayan mountains; boasting magical properties to your sound.  By far the most common is plastic.  95%  of all guitar players use plastic and you should too, but by all means experiment.

2. Thickness –  This is the most important one when choosing your picks.  Here is a break down of the basic thicknesses of picks and what they’re good for.  Picks come in may degrees of thicknesses even between the 3 described below.

Thin Picks:  These picks bend easier and absorb the shock of strumming the strings well.

• Great for beginners.
• Great also for people who have a hard time holding on to a pick.
• Great for chord strumming because they flex more as you strum.
• Can sound clickety clakety if you go too thin.
• You can’t dig in very well with thin picks because they’ll just bend away.

Medium Picks:  These are the best all purpose picks.

• Good for strumming chords
• Good for single notes like playing melodies and lead.
• Allow you to dig in a little more before they bend away.
• Are a little harder to keep hold of.

Hard Picks: Very stiff and don’t bend much as you strum the strings

• Great for playing hard and fast.
• Bring out a very full sounding string.
•  Because they won’t bend much they can be hard to hold onto.
• Harder to hold on to when strumming chords.

3. Shape –  Shapes can very as well but it is really just personal preference.  Generally if you have tiny hands or fingers you might prefer a smaller pick or vice versa.  Just try different shapes and see what you think.  Most store won’t stock a large variety of shapes anyway.

* My advice is to buy a bunch of thicknesses to start, and work your way up to thicker picks as they bring out a nicer sound from the guitar.  Here is a Variety Pack of the kind of picks.  It has all the different thicknesses in it.

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