How To Hold A Pick

Throughout the years of teaching, I've noticed that there are some common mistakes that beginners tend to make. One of the mistakes is holding a pick. The way you hold your pick will definitely affect your ability to play your instruments properly. This is especially crucial for those of you who is inspired to be a great lead guitarist. If you don't hold the pick properly, your lead playing will tend to be sloppy and you will have a high probability of dropping your pick when you solo.

Even if you don't intend to play lead guitar solos, it is still recommended for you to hold your pick properly because of very same reason of playing lead guitar. Rhythm guitarist tend to arpeggiate (play a chord as a series of ascending or descending note) too. So the consequences of poor pick holding is the same as lead guitaring.

So how do you hold a pick properly? Take a look at the photos below to have a greater understanding:




This is the proper way of holding a pick. Notice that there is a small area at the edge of the pick that shows up in the picture. Holding in this manner will allow you to have a better grip on the pick so that you can have a better control on your picking motion.



Fig A: Proper way to hold a pick


Now let's look at one of the most common mistakes that beginner does when holding a pick:


I tend to see this most of the time when teaching young guitar players. From my understanding, some of them tend to be afraid that part of their thumb will be rubbed with the strings and this will create a discomfort feeling over time. Here's my advise: Practice makes perfect. So keep practicing until you're able to play without any part of your thumbs touching the strings.


Fig. B: Wrong way to hold a pick

So below are the step by step photos on how to hold a pick.


Step 1: Place your pick on the index finger as shown on Fig. C.







Fig. C: Hold pick on the index finger


Step 2: Cover the top part of the pick with your thumb as shown in Fig. D






Fig. D: Cover top pick with thumb

Below is a picture of how it looks like when holding a pick properly when playing on the guitar. Notice that the skin of the thumb doesn't touch the strings.











Fig. E: Holding the pick properly while playing guitar


It takes a bit of practice to handle it properly. So practice it and you'll be perfect in no time.