Hey everyone,
I’m trying to figure out why my picking sounds scratchy and undefined. In trying to find a pick angle that makes it easy to pick, I find that the easiest ones also have the least definition. Any ideas what im doing wrong here?
Hi! Scratchy sound is a function of a lot of variables. I apologize in advance for the complexity here.
First, the pick material and how it wears. A nylon pick well get scratchy fast. There is no way around this. You’re using a high degree of edge picking here, looks like almost 90 degrees. Because of this, anything that happens to the edge, you’re going to hear it.
Have you tried approaching the strings a little lower with the arm and hand? This will position the pick so it has less edge picking. For reference, check out the discussion of approach angle here:
Another aspect is “pick point”. Not our catchiest term but it just refers to the way the pick is pointing in your grip:
It looks like you might be using positive pick point. Depending on the way the pick is moving, this may cause certain pickstrokes to grab more than others. So a positive pick point (or zero, or negative) may not be what you want unless it fits with your picking motion.
Which brings us to… the pick’s orientation versus its motion. Ideally, whatever picking motion you choose, you want the pick to be approximately 90 degrees to its path of motion, so that upstrokes and downstrokes sound the same. We talk about this here:
This is true even when you use an angled path of picking motion. From this clip, it looks like you’re changing the picking motion you’re using, from USX to DSX and back again. So you’re flip-flopping several of these variables. Are you aware of this or are you just winging it and seeing what your hands do?
If you’re just winging it, you’re mixing and matching lots of variables which may or may not work together, leading to the attack issues you’re experiencing.
It looks like you have a good start with wrist motion, so you might try running through some of those tutorials and trying out only one of them at a time, using the combination of variables we talk about in those lessons. In other words, try to copy my grip and edge picking and so on, because we already know that works. If it doesn’t work when you do it then at least that will maybe give us a clue as to why.
As an aside, you’re using very little pick exposure in your grip. I personally don’t do this because it doesn’t leave me much room for error as far as my fingers hitting the strings. You might try using a little more pick exposure. Not a hard wrong or right issue, just another thing you can try to reset.
So… pick point, pick exposure, edge picking / approach angle, and picking motion. Lots of stuff you can try!
Let us know how you make out.
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