How to Hold a Guitar Pick & Best Guitar Picks

👉 Video Chapters
00:00 Should beginner guitar players use a pick?
00:31 What is the best guitar pick for beginners?
02:09 The best pick for acoustic guitar
03:51 How to hold a guitar pick

💬 Get In Touch!

[loonatunes]

Guess who just bought 12 picks without knowing their thickness

[Victoria-imkp]

i've been wondering why strumming with my pick was so hard and sounded terrible, i completely gave up on using it. turns out i've been using the hardest pick known to man, i cant even bend it at all 😂 i had no idea there were different sizes

[pathetic]

I just broke my pick while tryna fold my pick... DANG

[thedipperdapper]

i’m using a cut up arcade card as my pick lol

[danparks]

Justin would be so proud, I bought the thinnest the shop had and have a 0.38mm. Wondered my my 0.9mm pick was destroying my strings until I started following his lessons. Such a good teacher!

[Dreyno]

I started off using medium picks but my guitar teacher who was a phenomenal player, used thin picks. So I worked my way down to red Tortex .5mm. Used them for years. But eventually found them squidgy. So moved to orange.6mm. Then settled for yellow .72mm for a few years. Recently I went to 1mm. Just far more control. But still prefer the .72 for chord work.

[mdgardner]

As someone in the very beginning stages of dealing with depression, I laughed my funking ass off!!! Just picked up a GORGEOUS Ibanez Gio HHS and Vox AD50VT amp last night for a creative distraction. Hopefully I can make my dog a fan. She’s freaking out. I love seeing the reactions of your amazing talent and skill.

[GrandmasterGib]

Thank You!!! I've been discouraged when trying to use a pic for a while now (I even switched to a classical guitar and started only fingerpicking & hand strumming). Out of all the videos I watched seeking help you were the only one that talked about pick thickness. I've switched my .7mm pick to a .38mm and it's made a huge difference! Thanks to you my steel string guitar is back off the rack.

[cadeyrndragheim]

I am a beginner and i prefer a thicker pick. I don't like the clicky sound from thinner ones. When strumming you keep your wrist loose and also a different angle on the pick, experiment with how you'd like it yourself, i like to keep it a bit outwards. With a jazz 3 or similar it makes it easily roll off the strings. Fun skill to learn from the start too.

[Yazmin-hqqe]

Justin I am so incredibly grateful to you. The website and app are awesome. I picked up the guitar when I was 15 and put it down again a few months later thinking I would never be any good. I’m now 35 and have picked it back up because I just love music so much and you have given me the tools and the confidence to let go of past worries and just enjoy playing. Thank you for your magic.

[isohel]

I already completed the previous beginner course but I'm doing this new beginner course again just because I love his videos and I want to improve my skills

[sicbixch]

so far this playlist has been really helpful. thank you!

[hillers]

I started playing using your advice for pick thickness and how to hold the pick and it worked really well - thanks Justin 👍👍👌👌👏👏

[grog]

One thing that I do is use a hole punch and make a hole in the center of the pick. It really helps you to get a good grip on the pick and control the angle. Improves your grip on the pick. Doesn't work with my Dunlop fattie though.

[rajchopra]

Love you justin, Thanks for all the effort🌸

[PATRYAN]

Benn playing guitar on and off for years and started 10 years ago with your beginner videos but had to stop due to college and life. I started playing again about a month ago with my Seagull S6 and I love it. Guitar Center just sent me a coupon for being a nurse and I bit the bullet and pure tased at Gibson G-45 Studio for $800.00 USD. I feel like an idiot for spending this much on a guitar but also extremely excited to start my Journey again with Gibson and your videos. If I end up not playing as much at least the Gibson can stay in the family and ill pass it down to one my my kids.

[TheOuttabody]

Great tutorial video, Justin!

I got myself the thinnest pick (0.50mm) I could find. But as a novice guitar player, even 0.50mm was too stiff and thick for me, which made strumming very difficult, especially strumming up!

Strumming down was okay, but strumming up was always the problem which felt like going against the grain and most of the time the pick got stuck on some of the strings.

I think the problem, when strumming, in general is this: we’re not supposed to hold the pick parallel to the floor(ground). When strumming down, we’re supposed to hold the pick at an angle where the tip of the pick should slightly face up. When strumming down, the tip of the pick should slightly face down.

Since I was not able to find a thinner pick than 0.50mm, I made my own, cutting my own guitar pick, using the thinnest possible plastic I could find, which was a disposable plastic cup on which I first outlined the actual shape of the pick. I was curious to see if using a thinner pick really helped and made things better with strumming and also with down-up picking.

And wow! At my first attempt using the pick I, myself, made, I just loved it. I had no problem with picking strings or with strumming. And I loved how natural the strumming felt. The pick I made was very “forgiving” because it was very thin and flexible. Even if I wasn’t fast enough to change the angle of the pick when strumming up and down, the pick easily gave in and bent and slid over the string, rather than resisting the string and getting stuck.

I definitely recommend that you try the thinnest pick you can make or find. If the pick happens to be a bit too thin for you, you can always find something thicker to cut yourself a new pick. It is just a trial and error to find out what works for you. Also, make sure the material you use "retains" and keeps its form. Meaning, after a down or up stroke, it doesn't stay bent.

[MrChaseramay]

Justin, thank you for showing your pick positioning with the index pointed toward the strings. All these years I have been resting the pick on the side part of the knuckle. What a difference this has made! Much more accurate. Thank you and YouTube 👍

[huntercrow]

I've been teaching myself guitar for over a year now and just recently decided to start learning how to use a pick. It definitely does work to use a simple fingerpicking pattern just to learn concepts and be able to play basic songs. When it comes time to learn the more technical stuff, though, it seems like picks are the best way to go.

[ulf]

This guys so nice and such a good teacher