Why I use Thumb Picks

My history with various right hand styles

When I started playing guitar 18 years ago, I only used picks. My teacher at the time taught me a little hybrid picking but that was the extend of my fingerstyle technique until I reached high school.

In high school I decided I wanted to learn classical guitar. Having long nails or not is better for classical guitar is a historically interesting debate. I decided to grow mine out and kept them long until maybe my second year into college. Whenever I'd play guitar, I'd switch between using a pick and playing fingerstyle, but I never liked having to do this.

At this point, I'd have periods of my playing where I would ditch the pick entirely and just do fingerstyle. I'd also have periods where I'd relent and work on my picking and fingerstyle technique.

Playing with a pick really limits a lot of things you can do. You can only play adjacent strings at the same time and if you want to play two strings far apart from each other it's a big jump.

On the other hand my fingerstyle technique without nails always sounded muddy and I couldn't play single note lines as fast as I'd like. Picks just have a really nice string attack that sounds good in a band context.

I worked on my right hand technique a lot trying to get my fingerstyle to sound cleaner but kept switching back and forth.

A few years ago I decided to dabble with thumb picks. I ordered a couple different ones but was never satisfied with how they felt. I quickly gave up on the idea.

I eventually saw a video of Lenny Breau playing with a thumb pick and decided to give them another chance.

Who uses thumb picks?

Thumb picks are associated with bluegrass, folk, and country. There are exceptions but their use outside these genres isn't widespread.

The thumb picks I use

I've tried out thumb picks from several different brands but the ones I've used the longest are Fred Kelly slick picks. They're a little tight on my fingers so I had the idea to make a cast of my thumb, submerge them in boiling water, then bend them around the cast. This idea did not work very well.

I've been using these Black Mountain jazz thumb picks lately and I'm liking them.

Why you probably shouldn't use thumb picks

I really don't recommend that children start out on thumb picks. This is because I don't recommend that children start out on fingerstyle guitar. It overcomplicates things for beginning learners. Students often want to use a thumb pick because I use a thumb pick even if it's not the right choice for them.

Playing with a thumb pick also makes strumming harder. I cannot do complicated strumming patterns with a thumb pick.

Everyone has uniquely shaped hands. For me, the thumb pick works perfectly for the size and spacing of my hand. For others a thumb pick may not feel right. Try it out and see if it's something you like.