What picks do you use?

[BarryH]

I know a few of us on here use the George Dennis 1.3 Sharp red picks That HM is credited with using.

Now, having read comments on another forum that these are considered to heavy for Shadows music, I wondered what everyone's choice of pick was?

Cheers
Barry

[olemuso]

I use whatever I happen to get hold of. Currently Yamaha "sharkfin" style and "Awe-In-One" (Black) Rock picks.
I`ve got some George Dennis 1.3 Sharp Reds that I got a bundle of some time ago when a local music shop was closing. I didn`t like them and have given most of them away.

[Charlie Hall]

I use Dunlop Tortex 0.60 orange coloured picks. Have used them for several years and they suit the string gauge I use which is an odd mix between 9s and 10s. For heavier strings a thicker version of the pick might suit some better.
Regards,
Charlie

[colljaw]

I use Dunlop Jazz III's and noticed that Charlie mentioned on another thread that Hank used them for a while. I have always liked small heavy picks that come to a point as you can get harmonics easier when doing rock material by holding the pick down near the point and immediately after striking the string, dampening it with your thumb. I think that is the best way to explain it?

Regards, Jim.

[Len]

I use a Dunlop 2mm pick with a Medium set of strings starting with 0.11 (I can't remember exactly what the others are). The Washburn is setup for the those guages anyway. I prefer the tone of the heavier pick on my Washburn Falcon. Most people I know who play Strats seem to prefer thinner picks and thinner strings. Those who play Les Paul's and the like seem to prefer the heavier picks, at least in interviews that I have read recently. Others might have different opinions on this. I'm going to try a thinner pick with the single-coil option with the split coils on the Washburn for more of a Shadows type sound. Maybe a 1.3 or 1.5 (as played by HBM as BarryH notes). The thicker picks don't seem to sound quite right for the Sound. The other guitar (my daughter's that I am minding while she's overseas) is a Yamaha with humbuckers. Nice guitar but I can't get a Shadows sound with that.

[garystrat]

Hi Charlie

I wondered if you used the thumb damping technique, and if so perhaps can explain how one does it?

I have been trying to do this for a while now, but seem to get a metallic after sound, which is definitely not good. I suspect that it there is also a particular picking action associated with this, when one uses the style do you adapt to doing something different?

Gary

[Charlie Hall]

Hi Gary,
I have tried it but I don't do it very well, probably mostly because I don't use a small pick. The idea is to have a small part of the pick showing and for the thumb to hit the string just after the note is picked. Of course, this can only work with downstrokes. One thing you have to be aware of is the actual part of the length of the string you pick and the thumb must be in a place where a harmonic exists and will vary depending on where the fretted note is at the time.
Have a look at the Billy Gibbons video that I posted a while back in the tuition section. He demonstrates it there.
There is another way of producing harmonics, used a lot by steel players. If playing with a pick, hold the pick as normal with the thumb and 1st and 2nd fingers, slide the 1st finger sideways away from the pick and use the tip of the first finger to touch the string at exactly half the distance between the bridge and the note played, which will be the octave fret of the fretted note (or the 12th fret if playing an open string) if not playing higher than the 10th fret on a 21 fret guitar. Pick the note at exactly the same time as the thumb touches the string and you will get a harmonic one octave above the fretted note. This technique can also be extended to other harmonic points along the length of the string but the halfway octave point will produce the strongest sounding harmonic. Chet Atkins used this technique while playing a series of notes that included harmonics and normal played notes, producing a series of notes that sound like chimes. He would often use hammer on and hammer off notes during this too. If you go to Freddie's site:
jukebox.au.nu/instromania/instro_monsters/chet_atkins//
and select Chet's album HiFi In Focus from 1957, then play track 13 Avorado (Little Music Box), you will be treated with a wonderful sound where he used his awesome harmonics technique. He is playing harmonics and normal notes simultaneously a lot of the time. I think he played the tune with a dropped E to D tuning.
Then look for his album Me And My Guitar from 1977 and select track 1 Cascade. About 1/3 of the way through there is another example of the mixing harmonics and normal notes technique that sounds like chimes.
Regards,
Charlie

[garystrat]

Hi Charlie

Thank you for such a helpful and in-depth reply, some people seem to be able to do this naturally, but equally there are many others who try hard but still struggle. The people who do it well don't seem have to work at it, because of this I think they find it hard to describe exactly what is happening when they hit the string.

I have seen the technique in action close up, and it would seem that with a medium or smaller pick the size makes little difference, although they may hold it a lot closer to the tip and a smaller pick may well help. It appears that they form the first finger and thumb so that pick is well up into thumb and has about 3/4 mm showing, then there is almost a rubbing action of the first finger against the thumb actually as the pick strikes.

Perhaps I'm wrong, but it seems to me as though they create a fluidity of movement at the point of striking that boosts and improves the tonal quality across the board. Moving back toward towards the discussion on pick size and thickness, I wonder if some players compensate for this by using thinner picks to give more compliance to achieve the same effect when playing lead?

I also had a phone all the morning to say that The Guitar and Amp Shop in Worthing now have a quantity of the George Dennis red sharp picks in stock, they have have asked me to post this for anyone still interested:

www.guitarandampshop.co.uk/acatalog/George_Dennis_Plectrums.html (Tele: 01243 868246)

Charlie has kindly put a sticky note in the "For Sale" section, but it with Charlie's permission it seems appropriate to include it in this thread as well.

Kind regards

Gary

[rogercook]

My preferred pick is the Jim Dunlop Jazz 3 Sharp red nylon which Dunlop specify as 1.38mm. The ones I have actually measure around 1.30 at the tip. I also have some George Dennis 1.3 sharp which measure around 1.20mm at the tip. I find I get a softer rounder sound with the Dunlop and more attack with the Dennis. However I feel more comfortable with the smaller Dunlop especially on fast picking parts so I'm currently experimenting with sanding the Dennis picks down to around the same size as the Dunlop. The Dennis picks don't seem to be available in the UK at the moment but I found some for sale in Switzerland quite recently www.troublion.ch/shop/index.php?searchStr=george+dennis&_a=viewCat&Submit=%C2%A0

Roger

[sheendigs]

Hi Charlie
Thanks for the site, which I had forgotten and now I can play Chet Atkins music..
Talking about picks..I have somewhere on my computer a hexagonal pick that had Hank signature..made by VOX in the sixties and it was on their catalogue..Has anyone got one of those??
It had a Tortoise texture.
Very nice to play
Sheendigs

[BarryH]

I think the George Dennis and Dunlop Jazz IIIs both have the same sharp point.

I always feel I am able to pick the strings a lot cleaner with this shape, more so than the normal Fender 351 shape where the point is rounded.

Cheers
Barry

[Len]

Hi All

Charlie: That is an interesting version of Francisco Tarrega's 'El Alborado' (same tune, different spelling) or 'Music Box' by Chet in the way he has inserted those harmonics. My old Classic guitar teacher Alfred Alexander recorded the original one back in the seventies and many others have done it too.

Tommy Emmanuel devotes a whole chapter (Ch. 11) to 'Cascading (Artificial) Harmonics' in his book 'Note-for-Note'. Lenny Breau was another guitarist who played with Chet and he used the cascading harmonics. I still have some of Lenny's articles (Tommy refers to these in his book) from an old 'Guitar Player' magazine about how to do the cascading type starting with simple exercises. These can also be done without a pick. But it is better to do them with the fingers if you can as it gives more options. There are other good examples of the use of artificial cascading harmonics in Chet's 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' (Album: ' Chet Atkins Goes to the Movies') and also in 'When You Wish Upon a Star' from his video 'The Guitar of Chet Atkins'. I have both the music and the track for the former and I think I have the music for the latter somewhere.

Tommy Emmanuel also uses the cascading type (alternating harmonics with picked notes) and artificial harmonics in 'Up From Down Under' which is on an album of the same name and on his video/DVD 'Tommy Emmanuel Up Close'. He uses his fingers for that one but also teaches the pick technique on the video. There are probabl many more examples out there.

I like to separate the type that Billy Gibbons uses which are usually called 'pinch" harmonics where you hold the pick close to its tip and allow the thumb or others finger(s) to touch the string on either the downstroke or the upstroke. With this technique, you try to find a harmonic point somewhere along the string but usually 12 frets up from the fretted note. Some guitarists miss the harmonic but the resultant tone is more like that of a "rake" which is also a technique that many would be familiar with in the Blues genre. I think Billy does this. Buddy Guy also uses the technique.

Some heavy metal types use metallic distortion and run the palm of their right hand along the string in a "hit or miss" manner to produce a series of harmonics as they strike the right harmonic points along the string. Steve Vai and Joe Satriani also have another technique whereby they slap the strings with their finger at harmonic points. This works particularly well with minor chords such as the Em at the 12th. fret or Am at the 5th, fret (bar type chords). Michael Hedges also used this technique on an acoustic guitar -- you can check him out on U-tube. It's a shame that he is no longer with us. He was amazing. The same with Lenny Breau. Both died way too soon.

I hope this adds a little more to this discussion which seems to have moved quite a distance from the original question on this thread. I think it's quite interesting, however, to look at some of these techniques even if you have to spend half a lifetime to be really good at producing them yourself.

Regards
Len

[Len]

Hi Everyone once again

Gary asked "I wondered if you used the thumb damping technique, and if so perhaps can explain how one does it?"

I'm a little confused.

Did you mean a damping technique or what I call "pinch" harmonics (described earlier). Eric Johnson and Sonny Landreth use a damping technique with the thumb. Only Sonny uses the technique for slide guitar, which is mainly his style (along with some fretted notes here and there). With this technique they use the side of the thumb which they lay across any strings not being played to stop any extraneous noises. Eric uses the thumb for the lower strings and also uses his non-playing fingers to stop the unwanted notes from sounding on the upper string notes. He also damps some notes with his left-hand either with his left-hand forefinger or by "choking" the strings (with the whole flattened hand) behind the fretted notes where applicable. Tommy Emmanuel also does this quite a bit. 'Stevie's Blues' (his SRV tribute) is a good example with TE.

Len

[garystrat]

Hi Charlie

Wow.... thank you so much for posting that clip of Billy Gibbons, he make it look so.... easy.

Two things occurred to me on close study, he does seem to have his thumb projecting well forward of the pick, and if I'm not mistaken he does sweep (bend) his thumb forward just as the note is being played, which along the lines I tried to describe, albeit clumsily.

Gary

[abstamaria]

Posted this in the other site and thought it might be interesting here (I use a heavy pick).

Dear all,

Having learned here that Our Hero probably used thicker plctrums in the eraly days and that his preferred thickness is 1.3 mm (I hope that's all true), and needing every help I can get to get to sound like him (to compensate for a lack of talent), I was quite happy to find Fender and Fernando picks at a local store, marked in the desired thickness.

I had some free time yesterday and actually measured the picks with a very accurate digital micrometer. Surprise! The Fender 1.2 mm picks are actually only 1.0 mm thick. The Fenandos are in the range of 1.2 mm, so I will get only those in the future.

Fender "heavy" picks don't quite measure up to 1.0 mm, but Gibson's picks stamped "metal" exceed 1.0 mm.

I couldn't locate the original thread on plectrums, so have started this new thread to contribute this bit of information.

Best regards to all,

Andy

[BarryH]

Hi Andy,

It was your post on the Shadow Music site that led me to ask the question on Charlie's site.

Cheers
Barry

[asimmd]

Jim Dunlop 0.60 for lead work.

Jim Dunlop 0.38 for rhythm.

Never used any others or indeed wanted to try any.

Alan

[jbstratman]

Hi Charlie. I was just reading through this thread on pics and noticed your comment on your preferred string gauge. A lot of people claim that heavier gauges make a substantial difference to the tone for Shads music. I'm guessing from your choice you don't agree.?

Regards,

JB

[noelford]

Cactus heavy gauge. Best picks I've found in over 50 years of playing - by a country mile.

[gruntfuttock]

I use a TRIMUS 500 Wegen pick. It's very thick. Great for both Rhythm and Lead work.
Regards Gruntfuttock

[Deleted]

dunlop 0.60 for me .i cant use heavy picks ,i need something with a bit of give

[baz]

The size, weight and shape of a pick is a totally personal matter.

Thinking a particular pick might make you sound better is like imagining you could play golf like Rory McIlroy if you own the same clubs he uses.

You might be right-handed but that's where the similarity stops.

Baz

PS man up guys and learn how to play with your fingers .

[peterbower]

It just goes to show that no one plectrum [pick] is the panacea for every one, what about a 6 pence coin like Brian May uses or finger pics like some country pickers use.

[Charlie Hall]

Hi JB,
I don't play much Shadows music. My strings suit me best for the way I play most of the time.
Regards,
Charlie

[abstamaria]

We punters need all the help we can get.

Seriously, even just experimenting with various plectrums, just hitting the strings without playing, one will notice thickness and shape make a large difference in tone and sound. Thick gauge strings IMO need a thick plectrum.

The two things generating the sound are the pick and the string. They will make a difference in what one hears.

Of course a talented, skilled player will sound better than the amateur. But he will sound even better with the right gear (and plectrum).

l think for early Shadows, one must try to figure out what was available (and in vogue) in London in 1960.

Andy

[rogerbayliss]

I have used Dunlop 1.14mm Delrin 500 for many years now and many pro players seem to favour this brand according to some listings I have seen. The material seems to give a little when digging in and using the short hold technique where you bounce your thumb off the strings. Not all the tunes use that technique though ! I find holding the pick towards the end thickens the tone more especially on the treble stings. Never heard anyone say how thick Hank's pick was in the early days but have seem a drawing of one. Best way to describe what I saw was a rectangular shape with the usual standard pick shape and rounded point on one end with the rectangle part being held if that makes sense.

I recently bought a lot of different picks to try out on my Acoustic guitars between 0.5 and 0.8mm and after trying many I felt the best acoustic tone came from a Herco Gold 0.5mm which I heard Neil Young had used. But the differences are subtle and a matter for personal preference.

I have watched many players pick technique over the years and a lot hold it near the tip end. But if you want a softer tone hold it normally ! They say the first part in a tome quest is the pick choice and how it is held and used.

Also after a point thick plectrums are muddy sounding esp on thick strings and are best suited for the jazz sounds.

[baz]

Getting on for a tenner for a pick ................??........You could buy a lifetime's worth for that much (unless you're gigging regularly.)


Baz

[Rick]

Dunlop .60s ( Great for dampened gallops ) and Dunlop .73s for almost anything else. Rick.

[Darryl]

The modern version of the Fender medium (Steve B's pic) are still available. Not too expensive on the well known auction site. I buy 10 or so at a time.
I use them for Shad's, blues & rock stuff.
For country .81 Alice (have a grippy surface)
For the 12 string .5 or .6 (at someone's sugestion on this forum)that I purchased locally to try.

Rgds

Darryl

[somebodyelseuk]

Yellow pointy ones with a tortoise printed on them - bought a bag of them 20 years ago - or my fingernails.

Cheers, Julian