The Steel Guitar Forum

Howdy, friends! I'm a longtime guitarist who has been bitten by the lap steel bug...hard.

I've been at it a couple months and am still really struggling with the metal (Dunlop .018) picks. I can play A LOT better with my fingers, but the tone is pretty muddy. SO--how important is it to just stick with it?

AND..is there a brand that seems to work best? I saw an advert for titanium picks and was intrigued (just not $50 intrigued).

Thoughts?

If you play hawaiian or western swing I think you really need finger picks. Just stick with it and it will became natural with time.

I think the more important is to just stick with it not trying every fancy picks.

Jerry Byrd was playing those cheap Dunlop picks you can find everywhere!

I personally prefer the JF picks but Dunlop are just fine.

1st thing is getting used to using them. 2nd thing is exploring preferences. 3rd...at that point you could start looking into pricier picks, once you are able to make more informed decisions.

If you're not used to the picks yet, there's no sense in dropping bigger chunks of money. You still won't be used to using them and it won't feel any better.

You may very well just find that you prefer those Dunlop picks after all.

I am in much the same area myself. I'm a guitarist and bassist moving to Hawaiian lap steel...and those blasted finger picks, I can play so much better with just my fingers (and the tone is better to my ears even, but that's probably just me being clumsy with the picks). Part of it comes from bass experience, being able to naturally mute strings with my fingers instead of palm as I move across them. And the ability to easily hit artificial harmonics using the thumb and first finger is nice!

That said, as an encouragement to both you and myself...when 6 years ago I started learning the sitar, I initially found the mizrab (plectrum) as well as rules about the right hand technique, left hand technique, and of course, the sitting posture, difficult and constrictive. However, given enough time and practice and the tutelage of a great teacher, I eventually realized that they made me a better player...now I couldn't imagine playing sitar in the odd, inefficient way that I thought was easiest back then. Sometimes the initial "easy way out" is just a dead end...

Good luck!

Edit: I thought this was funny...just a few weeks ago I realized I had the finger picks on backwards. I had them on sort of like claws over my finger nails. So in that case, it was user error. Did the same thing first few days with a sitar mizrab, had it aligned parallel with my nail instead of the appropriate perpendicular...

Expensive but well worth the price. Solved ALL my issues with finger picks...
http://www.perfecttouchpicks.com/

Mark, I can vaguely remember really struggling with picks for quite a while, then trying a flatpick, bare fingers, etc. I went back to finger picks because I was playing acoustic resonator in a band and really needed to cut through. But this time I really stuck with it and made the picks as comfortable as I could.

You really have to work slowly at getting picking accuracy. Your fingers have to be trained because it is so different than playing guitar. Keep at it, play things slowly and work up to speed once you are playing mistake-free. It will come together in time. As a guitar player myself since I was a little kid, I thought things on steel guitar would come quicker than they did.

I've had the picks shoot off of my finger, get stuck in the strings (wow, that is a rough one in the middle of a solo), and so I think I was a little more cautious than I needed to be when picking.

These days, I am putting a pick on my ring finger, so it's almost like starting over again.

PS: Make sure the pick fits comfortably--snug enough not to come off, yet not too snug in that it causes any discomfort. If .018 is giving you difficulty, try an 0.15 or 0.13.

Well, you're in luck! Elderly Music has 108 different fingerpicks... sigh.
https://www.elderly.com/accessories/picks/fingerpicks

National NP-2's, Kyser, 1941, Bob Perry, there's all sort of people who have discoved the secret magic metal that exactly duplicates... na, na, na...
(hint) -> THEY'RE ALL THE SAME. It takes 5 minutes to get used to any of them. There's another company called ProPik who have FIFTY-THREE different varieties, mostly angling the blade this way and that, fiddling around with the bowl and the tip... it might take TEN minutes to get used to any of them.

BUT: Propik also fiddes around with THE BANDS, A.K.A. cuticle-shredders, and this is where good stuff happens. There's a guy selling "Perfect Touch" picks direct:
http://www.perfecttouchpicks.com/
His bands go above the cuticle, which is pretty spiff. Personally I use the ACRI picks, they kinda
encase your fingertip completely. They stay on and don't hurt.
https://www.elderly.com/catalogsearch/r ... t=0&q=acri
I do conduct some surgery on them, shortening the tip a little, flattening and re-curving them. As far as prices go, because 1959 Les Pauls cost $400,000, OBVIOUSLY a guitar cord is worth $180 & rediscovering the Lost Secret of the Ancient's bevel on fingerpick tips don't come cheep neether.

BUT: the single most important thing is to have at least two sets of picks, one is to play music with and the other is to bend them to fit better while watching TV, skydiving, at work etc. When they fit better than your playing picks, you trade out your playing picks for your fiddle-with-them picks, because: sitting behind your steel fiddling with picks is not practicing music. You need a minimum of two sets of pliers to get them right. And even though playing with fingers works, you want to get used to picks too. You can tear up your fingertips pretty quickly if the thing goes beasty, seizes your brain & makes you practice fourteen hours a day. And picks let you play harder, which adds some more tonal choice.

You might give the open finger or 'butterfly' picks a try. I'm using the Tone Deaf Music ones right now -- they are inexpensive, and the open section lets you 'feel' the strings if you like, and the point of the blade can be right where you're used to your fingernail being.

If nothing else, after using them for a while now, I think they will ease the transition to the more 'standard' fingerpicks quite a bit.

I got the idea to try them from this old thread - thanks to those who suggested them:

http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=259124

Just stick with it.
I use .018 Dunlops.
I've tried several different picks and always go back to the Dunlops.
I see no need in re-inventing the wheel.

I'm with Randy on this one. There are a few brands to choose from but I like that style of finger pick. They provide some tactile feedback but still give you a nice sharp attack. May even provide a good trasition to fully covered picks, if that's where you land eventually, but I've been happy enough with my sound I haven't even made that switch.

Mark, if you're interested in trying the butterfly picks, I have an extra set I'll give you.

I ordered a set through amazon and never received them. They said if I didn't get them by a certain date to re-order. So I did, then I received both sets.
Send me an address and I'll ship them to you. Free.

JF picks, and if you are just starting, get the Jeff Newman course, "The Right Hand Alpha". You might as well start out the right way.

I struggled to the point of giving up on fingerpicks, but persevered and ended up fairly comfortable with Dunlop .13's.

Try those for a while, and see if the lighter gauge doesn't help.

Good luck!

Just push on through and keep at it. Understand that the string attack between picks and bare fingers is slightly different. I know other people who start with bare fingers and struggle to adapt to picks, but its just a matter of spending enough time with them as well as slowly training your hand to observe economy of motion (no fly-away fingers, use knuckles closest to the string rather than farthest, keep picks close to the strings, etc). When I started using them on banjo many years ago there was an initial period where they were very awkward and I could hardly hit the string I wanted without looking at them and making a conscious effort. This went on for a few weeks of daily practice maybe. It gets better with practice. Now I use them on multiple instruments and feel naked without them. I've never liked the somewhat clumsy feeling (for me) of bare fingertips anyway. I can't move them fast enough and pull any kind of tone at the same time, I'm too spoiled by the tone of picks. It's also okay the shape or bend the blade of the pick more to the contours of your fingertip.

As long as they are comfortable the brand and material of pick doesn't matter a lot at this stage, so ignore gimmicks like titanium, cobalt, etc. Stainless or nickle silver are just fine. FWIW I started with Dunlop picks, found the bands uncomfortable, and eventually switched to National NP-2's ever since. I go between nickle silver and brass sets, but find no meaningful difference. I can finesse the tone I want out of either one.

This cat plays without picks, he rips it right up! Can’t think of anyone else.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?list=PL2789 ... X06XkUhkbs

I once had Nickel silver pics, and the back of my fingers and nail got red and sore from some kind of chemical reaction happening. So I changed to brass

I was in the same boat- went through an awful phase learning picks- it gets worse before it gets better- ultimately just a matter of time spent vs. the right picks- I tried all the fancy ones- ended up with thicker dunlops- cheap and available anywhere on the road.

National fingerpicks are my favorite. I know Jerry Byrd used Dunlops, and he is my favorite player by FAR, but personally I can't stand Dunlops. the concave shape is very uncomfortable. Nationals are the way to go. NP2 is the current model number for national fingerpicks.

Fingerpicks hurt for a long time. Then they don't. Don't give up.

G Strout wrote:Expensive but well worth the price. Solved ALL my issues with finger picks...
http://www.perfecttouchpicks.com/

I agree!! great picks

Doug Henderson wrote:

G Strout wrote:Expensive but well worth the price. Solved ALL my issues with finger picks...
http://www.perfecttouchpicks.com/

I agree!! great picks

Which ones do you guys prefer? Long or short, round or flat?

Which ones do you guys prefer? Long or short, round or flat?

Why, YES! Absolutely... there are as many ways to bend them and fit them as there are players, but for ME: Start with the Acri picks, get out your (indispensible) WISS sheet metal shears, your coarse and your fine bastards (a couple of files too), two needle noses (and some pliers), 220, 400, 600, 1500 wet/dry sandpaper. Flatten the tip some removing the bowl, and shorten them 1/8" with the shears. Round & deburr. I like the tips to be bent slightly less than right against my fingers. When correct, the end of the tip is just below my finger, parallel with the nail.

THE IMPORTANT POINT: my reason 2 post 2wice is just to state the following: Look at your fingers bending. The centerline direction of the bend. You can angle the blades away from a 90-degree angle to your finger's working directions; you can also just put them on crooked, as in: point your fingers at your eyes, and put the picks on so the entire pick is rotated 15 degrees CLOCKWISE, the blades more towards your little finger, the band more towards your thumb.

AND THEN NEVER DO THESE AGAIN.

My thinking is the blades should be centered below the nail, flat(ish) and exactly perpendicular to the motion of your finger. If they don't hit the strings "right" - square-on - FIX YOUR FINGER MOTION, not dick the pick. Any/all of this angling stuff is going to introduce a scraping sideways motion over the string. A.K.A.... NOISE. Swish! Swish! Swish! And EVERY sort of noise, good and bad, is the result of something you DO. Or DON'T do. And while you can equalize out the scrape easy enough, you have to slaughter a bunch of musical content from 2.5K to 4.0K or so to do so. Also along that line:
Q: how do you know, for sure, that you've shortened the picks TOO much?
A: by ruining a pair or two; or five.

Steel needum Blessing? Okay,
May your money tree orchard be fructiferous* this year, 'cause you be a steel player now.

*(heh)

I bought two pairs of JF picks many years ago....still on first set. Once on good they fit so well they stay put.

WOW! I never knew finger picks could be so complicated!
I guess I've been living in a dream world.

If it wasn't for rampant, raging Obsessive/Compulsive disease we'd still be living in caves eating bugs & Mrs. Ogg would NEVER get her split-level 2 1/2 bath ranch house. Want meat? Go follow a sabre-toothed tiger and try to snatch a chunk of his latest kill when he's not watching and run like hell (he's ALWAYS watching). Better yet, go kill your own wooly mammoth. Among people who make up stuff like this, some think human speech (song?), and social groupings were the direct result of the whole heroic one man - one mammoth - one sabre-toothed tiger - that stuff wasn't working out so hot. Which TOTALLY proves the point about fingerpicks; E = All of the Above.

JF picks for me too. I won't even let Dunlops into my house. One thing I did when I was first starting was to wear my picks as much as I could stand during the day. Having them on while watching TV works well. Wearing them as much as possible got me used to them fairly quickly.