Chicken pickin' - why are everyone obsessed with using a pick?

[hylo]

On every post I read on the topic I seem to read use your pick and your fingers together.
I've always been a pick guy, but when I started learning some country-ish stuff and also went into Knopfler-land my habits changed from picks to fingers fast. I find it easier. Still use a pick for some rhythm and bluesrock, even though I'm starting to favor my fingers there too.

I've been reading myself up on chicken pickin' and it seems the general starting tip is to learn hybrid picking with your pick and fingers. Fingers just make more sense to me. A more even sound, easier to coordinate (thumb and index finger) and easier available when 'setting' your hand up for chicken pickin'.

Sorry about the long and boresome post, just had to blow off some steam. I find it hard to learn and it annoys me that it sounds so good when I get it right the few times I do get it right (if that made any sense).

[TeleTim911]

I don't think there are any rules on how to play a guitar. I think the pick is because it goes back to the way most people learn to play a guitar.

I learned finger-picking an acoustic, and I can do it with a pick and middle and ring finger, or use thumb and first and middle finger. I really believe it's all in how you want to do it.

Most of all...have fun!

[sir humphrey]

Ive never used a pick - fingers only. There are pros and cons - particularly for chicken pickin.

With just fingers you can get much more complex picking patterns and smoother, faster banjo rolls. You can also play lead and rhythm together more smoothly - you effectively have an extra finger.

However, without a pick you will find it harder to pick as fast as someone with one - particularly those chromatic runs that the likes of Brent Mason use to such good effect.

I've had to come up with my own technique for replicating these, using a lot more legato and hammer-ons. It works for me but it sounds subtly different - not necessarily worse (than me with a pick, not than Brent Mason!) but different.

[Donelson]

Originally Posted by TeleTim911

I don't think there are any rules on how to play a guitar.

Agree 100%. There are many ways to achieve the "chicken pickin" sound. The standard way I know of would be with thumbpick & fingers, or fingerpicks, that old-timey country picker's technique.

[Jupiter]

I'm in the midst of an experiment; 2012 is the Year of No Pick.

[Sooper8]

I'm with you on that.... its all about preference

[chabby]

I've almost never been comfortable with picks my whole life.
Even when I was gigging alot the only time I'd use them is when my fingers broke down.
Now I've been using a thumbpick off and on and have decided for me, if I ever use a pick, that's what works best for me.

I never put in the time to learn to be a good standard hybriid picker.
It was like why? I already spent all those years learning to finger pick, and to me its a superior method because as noted above, it gives you an extra finger, actually two fingers that normally would be pinching a flat pick.

The thumb pick doesn't interfere with my style at all and makes those fast chromatic runs less painfull and sharper sounding, which leads to the answer to your question"
Why are country pickers/chicken pickers obsessed withy picks......well, because you get that sharper bassy tone on the low end that flesh on strings just cant duplicate.

And who wants to grow a thumbnail longer than your girl friends?

[vincent]

Keith Urban palms his pick quite a bit a can still bust out some cool chicken pickin' stuff. I think it might be a easier transition for player that are used to using pick to start with.

[Northerntele]

I started with a pick and now I use a pick and 2 fingers. I've had to keep my nails short for so long that now I'm just comfortable that way.

[bobsway]

My new favorite pick arrangement is a National fingerpick on my F.U. finger and nothing else, just that and a plain thumb.

[bradpdx]

Lots of ways to get it done.

I came to electric guitar from a fingerpicking background when I was around 20 years old. I was 100% into using metal fingerpicks (3 plus thumbpick) and was doing ragtime and Kottke-ish material. When I came to the Telecaster, I didn't know what to do with just a flatpick, and so I added 2 fingerpicks (middle and ring fingers) to the mix. I played like that for years, not realizing that James Burton pulled a similar stunt. It makes a big steel sound easy to get, and chicken pickin' just pops. Easy to get a lot of speed, too.

By the time I hit 30 I had moved to a pick and bare fingers, which I still do; the good old "Nashville claw". I find chicken-picking very easy to do with that arrangement, and it allows me to use the flatpick for strums and straight up single note work (like flatpicking an acoustic). The flatpick is for me essential for a proper pop on the low strings.

I would estimate that about 1/3 of all the notes I play are done with a finger. I don't think about it, it's just what works at the moment.

Every so often I pull out the fingerpicks on the Tele for fun. It still works.

[hylo]

Nice to read something different, for once!

Been doing some metal work on my car (sandblasting and paint work) and that sanding paper totally ruinded my thumb for a couple of days, even though the result was quite good. Removed my windshield and primed up the area around. It was starting to look a bit faded, so there ya go.

Anyways, after playing some last night and getting it some more into the muscle-memory I realized a pick just doesn't work for me, not right now at least. If I want to emulate a pick, I make a pick with my index-finger, and it doesn't have that cripsy sound, but it's close enough.

It's a challenge, but I'm getting there.

[TG]

Over the years I've developed, unintended, the same system Brian Setzer and Buddy Guy use. Just noticed myself doing it one day after years gigging.
(In fact, it was when an elderly fellow at a gig came up and asked me how I did it that I realised it was happening.)

It's being able to palm the pick in an instant...even in the middle of a fast run of notes.... and by palming I mean it goes behind the joints of my middle finger. I then fingerpick with my thumb, forefinger and ring finger.
I can also get it back into position almost instantly.

Here's where it goes...



But some songs where I know I won't be using the pick I'll put it down altogether.

I've considered just not using one at all, but there are some things I just can't do without it.
Miserlou, for instance.

[telex76]

Whatever works best for you.

[Samrsmiley]

I only use pick because it's what I'm used to. In fact I'd like to get even more fingers involved in order to get the popping sound in chicken pickin. But yea I use a pick to get the velocity, and hybrid to get some of the other higher string notes.

[Jack S]

I chicken pick a lot with my fingertips. Here is a technique that takes some practice to do it well, but I will use index finger and thumb and pluck a string with the thumb, then almost simultaneously strike the same string with the index finger. When you learn to do this repeatedly and rapidly you can do all kinds of chicken picking. I sometimes do the same thing, but the first pluck could be the index finger followed by the thumb. I don't think about which goes first, my fingers just do it depending on what preceded the technique. To practice this technique, I will sometimes walk up and down the string(s) chromatically and vary the number of times I will pluck a particular note before moving to the next note. That is, say I might walk through a scale with a single ta-chink to a note then go back through and do ta-chink ta-chink through each note, then four times per note. The goal is to try and keep each ta-chink even as you shift from note to note and gradually increase your speed, so when you go to use the technique it comes quickly and you don't have to think about it.

This technique, rather than popping the string against the fretboard which is a good way to get some chicken picking going, you actually hold the finger and thumb as if you were about to squeeze the string and the plucking motion is horizontal to the fretboard, so you pluck the thumb toward the index finger and the index finger toward the thumb. I do pop the fretboard a lot too, so when I use the above technique I might combine the methods to achieve different effects. The important point is simply to get used to moving the finger and thumb rapidly while plucking the same string.

[CharlesCapps]

TG....you have solved a mystery for me. I'm 63 years old and all of my life I would see guitar players picking a song and then the pick would disappear and they were finger picking. I thought I was seeing an optical illusion when the pick would reappear. Then I realized that they were using a pick and also finger picking in the same song. I have always wanted to know how the pick "magically" kept disappearing and then coming back. Thanks for the explanation.

I'm mostly a rhytmn player who plays a little lead. I use the pick most of the time with a little finger picking here and there, especially when I want to pull out on the strings and make my Tele twang.

[Tele Fan]

It's all about what you're used to using. I've always used a flat pick so it's natural for me to use one and my other three fingers.

[chabby]

I either use no pick or just a thumbpick because though I tried the finger picks, found that the only place I like pastic applied to strings is on the the lower E,A and D strings. The upper register strings the pick is too sharp sounding to me.

Plus, I like the pop you get with flesh versus picks on even the lower strings as well.
Using no picks at all is how I feel the most dextrous and able to either pick or claw at will with no gnagly feeling appendage hanging off my fingers. However, if you play a lot you can really tear your fingers up after awhile.

[DblStop]

My theory is what works best,i'm able to use a flatpick and my fingers,I can also use a thumpick and fingers though i'm still working on that lol!! But I also use my thumb and my fingers too.