I’ve always been Fender Medium or Heavy pick user. I just started this course and tried to jump on the jazz iii picks. The problem I’m having is that you need to curl your index finger pretty heavily to use the pick. I can start out like this but after a few riffs, my index finger starts straightening out, and thus touches the string making string harmonics or just an ugly sound alltogether. How do you resolve this? Do you just forcefully keep curling the index finger more?
I can only speak for myself but my pick grip doesn’t change much between 351 style picks and the Jazz III and my grip is really relaxed; my index fingertip is nearly perpendicular to my thumb, rather than really curled in like a trigger finger.
Without seeing your grip, would it be fair to say you like the extra size of a 351 on the backside for stability? Like are you really choking up on the pick’s tip? If so you may want to expose more of the tip and hold the majority of your pick between your thumb and index in your normal grip.
If you just don’t jive with the size of the Jazz III (and even the XLs can be a little awkward because they retain the slim spade shape) then an alternative would be something like a Tortex TIII which is a 351 body with a Jazz III tip. Another precision pick, with a longer and sharper tip that I like is the standard Tortex Sharp.
As @GlassConcert says, we’d really need to see photographs of what you’re doing. But I can do all the grips we cover in the Primer — basically every grip I know of — with a Jazz III, either the regular size, or the larger one. So it may not be be a question of whether certain grips work, so much as how to do them.
In general, I flip flop between the small ones and the large ones and I can’t really ever decide. Whichever pick I used last is the one I’m using today! Until I lose it. Then the great cycle begins again.
I’ve attached two pics…It’s a little tough to take a pick while holding, but this is my best shot. The purple pick is my usual pick. The red is the jazz iii. If you look at the jazz iii, notice how exposed my index finger is. It will keep hitting the strings and play harmonics unintentionally. So I’m forced to curl it up much more than how I would with my normal purple pick. The small jazz iii leaves more of my index finger exposed and prone to accidental contact. How should I resolve this?
Hi! One thing you can experiment with the Jazz III is what we call your pick “point”. We had to name it something, and I will admit that it’s one of the less-inspired bits of jargon we’ve come up with! But the short story is that you’re looking for 90 degrees — perpendicular to the thumb. That will allow your pick to stick out farther and maybe relieve some of the finger scraping. Here’s how to do that:
Aside from that, probably the simplest thing to do is to try different grips until you find one that works. Sometimes, once you get something working, the other things magically start working too because you have a good mental reference for what “correct” feels like. Other times, you just like the new grip better so you keep playing that way, and the old one becomes a moot point.
The angle pad grip works well with the smaller Jazz III and we have some more detailed instructions for achieving it in the new Pickslanting Primer forearm motion chapters:
And of course there’s an angle pad chapter in the grip section too:
So there’s some redundancy here, but if the first explanation doesn’t help, maybe the second one will!
Finally, you can just stick with the XL. You don’t need to learn how to make every pick / grip work, and if you’ve got one that’s working well and feels comfortable, by all means just go to town using that one and don’t worry about it!
I’d suggest curling the three fingers to match up with the index finger, and modifying the grip from there to maybe move them away from the strings, but still supporting the index finger. That’s what solved the issue for me, although I don’t use Jazz IIIs that much anymore.
Here’s a video for reference:
EDIT: Sorry for the mess in the room, I just filmed myself on the fly. Also, the sound at 0:20 is not a fart, it was the buzzing of the A string since I held the phone in my left hand and got it too close to the strings .
It took me a long time to get used to the jazz iii. I’ve settled on the Eric Johnson model which is slightly larger in shape than the black version I was using. I also ordered the Petrucci newest version, which is larger still. Petrucci also has a new pick (flow maybe?) that is a lot thicker and has rounded edges. It’s interesting in how it tracks, it’s thick like a gypsy pick, so it is loud, but the rounded edged take some of the click out and it does glide a little easier.
Are you using XL or regular Jazz III? The XL would probably solve this problem.