A problem Im having is that the pick tends to move around too much as it hits the strings, making me readjust often and throwing me off. I’m currently using angle pad. Is there a way to make the pick feel more ‘locked in’?
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Probably you’re digging too much into the strings which causes a lot of extra resistance. If you find youreslf doing it practise using less of a pick. Maybe try playing stuff on clean with a little boosted gain so unnevennes of attacks will be obvious. Then just develop a habit of using a certain amount of the pick digging in to the strings.
Otherwise there’s a problem in your pick grip or the amount of force you aply to hold. Check it and then apply the changes.
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As @Troy often suggests, a picture (or video) is worth a thousand words. If you show a demo of your grip and the direction of the unwanted “wiggling” it might help us make suggestions specific to your situation.
Edit: One basic principle is to do with where pressure gets applied to the pick. Because of human anatomy, most grip approaches can thought of in terms of part of the thumb acting as a straight structural “beam” supporting one face of the pick, and part of the index finger acting as a straight “beam” supporting the opposite face. Because “support” is only coming along points where one of those beams meets one of those faces, the tendency will be for the pick to want to “swivel” around those beams. A quick way to reduce wiggling is to ensure that the “thumb” beam and the “index finger beam” are at right-angles to each other, so the “swiveling” around one beam is resisted by the orientation of the complementary beam. Another consideration is how the “x” formed by the complementary beams is rotated relative to the tip of the pick. For a lot of my picking, my preference is to have my thumb pointing down across the face of the pick at about a 45 degree angle off the “midline” of the pick, and have the tip of the curled index finger pointing 90 degrees to how the tip of the thumb is pointing, so the tips of my thumb and index are basically forming a “letter x” that would be standing upright on the face of the guitar if I lowered the entire assembly down through the strings.
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What kind of pick do you use?
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I like to dig in quite a lot with the pick, so sometimes I have the same issue. Recently I noticed that using a lighter pick, like a 0.88 or 0.73, can help a lot.
EDIT: It also depends on the type of picking technique for me, I for example noticed that it is easier for me to hold on to the pick when doing one-way pickslanting, compared to twps.
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Another variable is the attack of the pick.
With the attack the direction of the string resistance that leads to your your fingers changes (or at least can).
If the strings push the pick against your fingers it’s fine, if they push it to the side it’s hard to hold.
I experience the same when I play lines with not consistant attack.
Unfortunately the only solition I have so far is finding the ‘sweet spots’ and store them somewhere in the brain.
Probably that’s the way to solve this, if you struggle in specific passages, look out for the strokes that push the pick in the ‘wrong’ direction. If you found them play around with some variables (amount of slant, attack, hand position and so on) in a range that doesn’t kill your picking strategy.
My experience is that it’s not how tight you hold the pick or the material or things like that causes problems, it’s always the direction the pick is pushed by the strings.
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