Hello, I have been practicing pickslanting for about 3 months, and I have made quite the progress, considering i’ve been playing for 2 years. My problem is with the fingers. I have no idea how hard to hold the pick. When I hold the pick hard, i got a mark on my finger after 10 minutes of practicing. When i hold the pick lightly, if i try to pick hard, I use a lot of unnesesary motion, which feels unnatural. Any suggestions?
As the old saw goes, someone once asked Abraham Lincoln how long a man’s legs should be, and he answered “long enough to reach the ground”.
You want to hold the pick firmly enough to control it’s movement but not so firmly that you’re hurting yourself or causing excessive strain.
While I’ve seen a small number of people (eg. Rob Chapman) advocate holding the pick loosely, the vast majority of guidance I’ve seen advocated holding the pick “firmly” without crushing it. There should be a middle ground that falls between a vice-like grip that hurts your fingers, and a lightweight grip where the pick flops around excessively.
A useful metaphor for a starting point might be: imagine gripping a coin the size of a US quarter in the same way you grip the pick. If you were to sprint as fast as you could for 40 yards, what is the minimum tightness of grip you would need to keep it from flying out? In reality you might need to squeeze a little harder or a little lighter in a particular situation, but use that as a starting point. Also, if you’re using a stiffer pick, tightening your grip will make the attack sound brighter, and loosening will make the attack sound duller. There’s a bit of the same effect with a pick that’s not as stiff, but the difference is much less since the bending of the pick tends to dull the attack slightly even if you have death-grip on the pick (unless you’re grip is so tight it actually causes to pick to “curl” and become stiff like a rolled-up newspaper.
Another consideration is the texture of your pick. Something like a Jazz III with raised lettering might cause more discomfort than something smoother. In the Jazz III’s case, the texture is different on each side, so it might be useful to flip the pick over and see if one orientation is more comfortable than the other.
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Thanks for the reply. I started experimenting with the way I hold the pick and I think I have the solution. When you press your fingers against one another, you can see that the front pink area of your nail becomes white. I found out that, for me, the most comfortable way was when i had no white on index finger (or on none of all). Thank you very much ^_^.
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As firmly as you would hold a little baby bird.
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Haha, and your cells will get the oxygen they need–brilliant! 
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Just want to add that this is genre appropriate, if you’re treating your baby bird to some smooth, John-Mayer-esque bluesy noodling then your grip will be gentle, if you’re employing your baby bird for some death metal triplets at 220 bpm, then…well, sorry little bird, but you knew what you were getting into when you said you wanted to join Fluffy Chick Massacre Experiment
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Isn’t there a Nigel Tufnel bit in one of the old Joe Satriani videotapes where he makes some weird baby bird reference? I’ll have to see if I can dig that up…
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I took a couple lessons with a dude who had a second audition with Ozzy Osbourne after Zakk Wylde left and he suggested that the pick should be like a “loose tooth” in your grip. You don’t want it to fall out, but you want it to have some movement so that it can pass through the strings without too much excess force. I think this is pretty good advice in general.
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I know this is an old thread. But I think its best to try both the light and firm techniques, to find which works best. I’ve recently switched to a firm technique (not too firm)… which works well when you like to strike the string with a lot of force. It gives a nice jazzy sound. Also, it sounds great when your picking quickly… sortof a NAM type picking sound.