Pick Length

[Charlie Silliman]

In Jeff Newman's "Introduction to the Pedal Steel Guitar" Part 1, he talks about palm blocking and pick length. He instructs one to place the right hand on the string (that will be picked with the middle finger) where the line from between the 1st and 2nd fingers runs to and meets the lower edge of the hand. Then the hand is angled in a bit until the middle finger pick meets the string. I find that I want to place my hand further (closer to the body) to make the picking comfortable. However, sometimes the higher strings don't block/silence all the way because the strings are under the little finger. In addition, he states that dunlop picks will not work (for his technique) as they do not allow themselves to be secured arount the fingers low enough to have enough (quite a bit) of pick extend beyond the fingertip. I currently only have dunlop picks and am trying to make his technique work. Any thoughts on this and should I get picks that are longer?