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Thread: Gripping the pick too much when playing

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    Default Gripping the pick too much when playing

    Hi all. I have a habit of gripping the pick when playing the mandolin - even though I know I shouldn't do it, what happens is I end up doing it anyway, and then after a while I realize I'm gripping the pick too hard, so I relax my grip, but end up gripping it again later. Any advice on how I can avoid doing that?

  2. #2
    Registered User Pete Martin's Avatar
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    Default Re: Gripping the pick too much when playing

    Play very SLOWLY and concentrate on how hard your grip is.
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    Registered User foldedpath's Avatar
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    Default Re: Gripping the pick too much when playing

    When I first started playing mandolin, I bought Chris Thile's (very early) instructional DVD. There was one piece of advice on there that stuck with me, and it might help. Sort of a mental image to hold onto:

    He said (paraphrasing) to think of your fingers like the shock absorbers on a car. The pick is the tire and the strings are the road.

    If a car has no shocks at all (you're gripping the pick too tight), the tires have a rough ride on the road/strings. If the shocks are set too soft, or just lose all their damping (you're holding the pick too loosely), then you're bouncing up and down like an old jalopy on the road. And you'll probably drop your pick sooner or later. So you want to aim for something in-between, a bit of "damped float" like your fingers are shock absorbers allowing a certain freedom of movement of the pick as it hits and releases from the strings, but not too much.

    I don't know if this will help or not, but it helped get me through some of the initial stages of thinking about how tightly to hold the pick when playing single note melody lines.

    You may want to tighten your grip for some things. I tend to do that for fast runs or playing Irish "treble" ornaments. And a tight grip is important on some very aggressive Bluegrass down-stroke styles. But I think that advice about allowing a bit of "damped float" as a baseline for melody playing, and keeping that shock absorber analogy in your head, is useful.

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    Gibson F5L Gibson A5L
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    Default Re: Gripping the pick too much when playing

    Hold it so you drop it every once in awhile .... loose fingers thumb and wrist ...... floppy but firm the shock absorber metaphor is a good one... R/
    I love hanging out with mandolin nerds . . . . . Thanks peeps ...

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    Registered User fentonjames's Avatar
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    Default Re: Gripping the pick too much when playing

    get a v pick.


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    Registered User sblock's Avatar
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    Default Re: Gripping the pick too much when playing

    Quote Originally Posted by fentonjames View Post
    get a v pick.
    No, that's not it. Proper grip has surprisingly little to do with the pick material, and choosing one particular brand of pick will not address that aspect of things. It's all about getting the right amount of "damping" (shock absorption) from the hand and fingers, as others have so nicely described earlier in this thread. In his videos, Chris Thile advocates a fairly loose grip, in fact, nearly to the point of beginning to lose the pick altogether! The pick itself provides necessary stiffness, for a crisp attack and release from the plucked string; the hand and fingers, by contrast, provide elastic rebound and recovery for the next picking stroke (and affect the tone as well.) You can elect to play with a V-pick, Wegen, BlueChip, Dunlap, RedBear, D'Andrea, Dawg, GoldenGate, or whathaveyou: you still need to hold the pick with just the right amount of "looseness". Too much hand tension robs you of speed and fluidity, in fact.
    Last edited by sblock; Jul-12-2016 at 6:30pm.

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    Registered User Pete Braccio's Avatar
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    Default Re: Gripping the pick too much when playing

    Also, examine HOW you are holding the pick in your hand as well. A minor adjustment in location may allow your hand to un-clench a bit naturally.
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    Mando-Accumulator Jim Garber's Avatar
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    Default Re: Gripping the pick too much when playing

    I think Chris Thile's advice is right on. I find that if I loosen my grip to minimum I can play smoother and faster. I do experiment a bit with that and try to see what level of grip has the best tone but also produces clarity in notes.
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