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Topic: I have these Indian finger picks, pretty cool! |
Terje Larson
From:
Rinkeby, Spånga, Sweden
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Posted 13 Jun 2005 9:08 am |
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My wife is from Sri lanka and a long time ago I bought her a sitar for her birthday. She never played the thing though and it's been standing in a corner as decoration, in serious need of restringing. We got some picks from someone too. Don't know if you've seen them, they're like little triangles made by steel wire.
Tried them yesterday. They're not that bad. One thing that bothers me a little with regular fingerpicks is that you don't feel the strings with your fingertips. Well, you do with these picks! I think they eat the strings though.
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If you can't hear the others you're too loud, if you can't hear yourself you've gone deaf |
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Mark Lind-Hanson
From:
Menlo Park, California, USA
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Posted 13 Jun 2005 10:11 am
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Isn't it so that the Indian sitar players
strum with these picks alittle bit differently?
That is, they use a thrusting (downward)motion rather than a "picking" motion as on western guitars/mandolins etc? |
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Terje Larson
From:
Rinkeby, Spånga, Sweden
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Tom Campbell
From:
Houston, Texas, USA
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Posted 13 Jun 2005 11:27 am
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Terje
Those look like they have potential. Any idea where or what type of store these could be found. I alway open for any type of pick that offers more finger tip exposure but with the sound of a regular finger pick. Cool looking pick! |
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Jon Light (deceased)
From:
Saugerties, NY
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Posted 13 Jun 2005 11:32 am
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Unfortunately I lost track of the plectrums many years ago. For up & down picking, that would be worth messing with, I suppose, but it lacks a real picking edge for a sharp attack. Good idea, as far as thinking outside the box goes. |
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Terje Larson
From:
Rinkeby, Spånga, Sweden
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Posted 13 Jun 2005 11:33 am
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I have no idea where you can find them. But do a Google, they're called mizrab. I should check myself cause if I'm gonna use them I think I need a bigger pair. Anyway, be warned that they eat away at wound strings (ain't no wound strings on a sitar folks).
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If you can't hear the others you're too loud, if you can't hear yourself you've gone deaf |
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Ron Castle
From:
West Hurley,NY
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Donny Hinson
From:
Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.
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Posted 13 Jun 2005 12:39 pm
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Hmm, not exactly what I'd call an "improvement", by any stretch of the imagination. Looks like something that was made by a hobo about a hundred years ago!
Uhhh...I'll pass on them, thank you.  |
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Terje Larson
From:
Rinkeby, Spånga, Sweden
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Posted 15 Jun 2005 5:09 am
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| Well, different picks give different techniques. If you've ever seen a sitar player in full flight you know that they do not play in the same way as guitar players do but that it can still sound really good. They flip their index finger back and forth over the string a lot, that's why their picks work for both up and downstrokes. |
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David Doggett
From:
Bawl'mer, MD (formerly of MS, Nawluns, Gnashville, Knocksville, Lost Angeles, Bahsten. and Philly)
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Posted 15 Jun 2005 7:12 am
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| Yes they are designed to pick backwards and forwards. The American style of pick tends to catch an pull off when you pick backwards. Many old school blues pickers played with their fingers and did a lot of forward and backward strumming, whole chords and single strings. Steel strings tend to eat up my finger nails, and American style picks get caught and fly off. Maybe these Indian style picks are worth trying. I would imagine that a heavy gauge wire in the pick would handle wound strings better. Do they come in different gauges? |
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George Redmon
From:
Muskegon & Detroit Michigan.
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Posted 15 Jun 2005 8:03 am
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i'm always looking for a better pick...but nope..yeck...i'll pass on this one to. not enough surface on the string for one thing..
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Whitney Single 12 8FL & 5 KN,keyless, dual changers Extended C6th, Webb Amp, Line6 PodXT, Goodrich Curly Chalker Volume Pedal, Match Bro, BJS Bar..I was keyless....when keyless wasn't cool....
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David Mason
From:
Cambridge, MD, USA
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Posted 15 Jun 2005 8:55 am
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I have a few of these around too. I'm pretty sure I got them here: http://chandrakantha.com/
or else at some supplier listed at that site, which is a good starting point with references to a lot of info about Indian music. My impressions of the mizrabs were:
A) the string spacing on a pedal steel guitar or an electric six-string is way too close together to be able to get anything going, you can't get enough contact to set the strings really vibrating;
B) you'd have to do some pretty serious exercises for a long period of time to get the muscles built up to do long, alternating upstrokes and downstrokes with your index finger (the methods of selecting children and training them for a career in music in India would be totally illegal in America, no XBoxes to distract them that's for sure);
C) as mentioned, they can't possibly be using these on wound strings, they sounded awful.
I'll dig mine out and see if my impressions have changed, but I remember thinking "Oh, well..." The Indian lap slide guitarists V.M. Bhatt and Debashish Bhattacharya play with regular Western thumb-and-fingerpicks. Occasionally, I begin to suspect that musicians who are really good at what they play got that way by practicing their asses off, rather than through secret magic tricks. Oh, well.... |
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HowardR
From:
N.Y.C.-Fire Island-Asheville
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Posted 15 Jun 2005 5:03 pm
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Looks like a "finger thong" to me...  |
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Keith Cordell
From:
San Diego
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Posted 16 Jun 2005 5:22 pm
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| They really eat your fingers up. I saw a picture once of a sitar players fingers, they have pick-shaped scars on their fingers that are quite permanent and painful. |
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