Pick grip relief, pick size method for upward slant

Playing Technique
#1

Tonight, while I was working on downward and upward pick slants, descending 4’s, 6’s and 7’s I noticed that my upward slant while starting on the low strings from a scalar climb, that it wasn’t angled all that much, no matter how I tried. I tried the grip backwards (like how Paul Gilbert alt pick for 8 yrs) and it felt ok, I could pull it off, but I don’t really want want to stay in weird angle.

So I tried making more room the tip ( I was choked right up close to the tip before) at around 1 cm. That way I could angle it towards my face further just a tiny bit more. Also making a 1 cm of room from the tip to where the outline of my thumb, meant griping with less flesh… not as much thumb and not necessarily gripping. This also meant gripping not quite on the side of my index finger, but off to a 45 deg or less and less flesh, basically the tip only. I noticed my staggered 4’s from low E improving immediately, with speed and accuracy. The tone was also different, less lows as compared to when you hold the pick with alot of flesh. Took a little getting used to, but I did like the speed and accuracy performance boost. Is this how any of you guys hold the pick for upward pick angle? Also, do most here use a full sized fender style pick or small size like jazz III, Paul Gilbert/ Petrucci size?

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#2

I use Dunlop ultex sharp picks. I think that one is more prone to encounter the problem that you describe at the beginning of your post when you use a smaller pick. With a larger pick, you generally have more room to put the fingers further back on the pick, and thus can create more exaggerated uwps angles. Really though, you only need the slightest amount of pickslant in the first place. Unless you have almost no upws angle whatsoever, you probably have a sufficient amount to ascend a scale without string hopping. To see if your pickslant angle is enough, hold the pick in the uwps orientation that you would normally hold it at, do a downstroke on a string (preferably not the high “e”) and make sure the direction that your pick is moving is perpendicular to the angle of the pickslant. If you don’t clear the string above the one you plucked, you’re either using too much pick, or you’re uwps angle is insufficient. If you clear the string, then you’re good to go. If you’re uwps angle is 45 degrees and you are using just the tip of the pick to pluck the string, as you say it is, then you should have no problem.

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#3

Troy and the crew did a survey on this not too long ago!

https://troygrady.com/2017/01/18/poll-which-pick-do-you-use/