Using multiple pick grips?

Playing Technique
#1

Hey all,

I was wondering, if it is okay to use multiple pick grips for different things?

I’ve found from working through the primer, that my fastest and easiest alternate picking motion is wrist DSX, and because of this, the grip that seemed to work best for me was the trigger grip. That grip sort of helps me get the arm position and everything right.

However, for some rhythm stuff, strumming chords or arpeggiating chords, I find the angle pad grip, fully extended grip works best for me. Especially for chord arpeggiation as I can hold the pick in such a way that I don’t need to move the arm much and I can dial out edge picking for a more positive attack.

For the likes of metal rhythm, with fast downstrokes etc, the trigger grip again seems to work best for me as with fast downstrokes, my wrist is making similar motions to my alternate picking. Not the same obviously but similar arm position etc.
If I attempt it with angle pad, it tends to just become the trigger grip. I don’t know if that is just a consequence of the arm setup and wrist motion or something else.

So, I was wondering is it okay to use these multiple grips and just learn to switch between them when needed?
I spent some time trying to find one grip that would work for everything I do, but it seems, unless I’m getting things wrong, that I need multiple grips.

When I say multiple, I actually just mean two. Trigger and angle pad.

Any advice greatly appreciated.

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#2

I have gone through similar things with different grips. I currently think if I can do a switch with little or no thought it’s fine, but if the switching causes me to focus on my picking to much then my playing becomes an exercise at the gym rather than actually playing an instrument to make music.

Whatever works and gets my mind away from my right hand is good. Thats what I think. I can uses a fair ammount of picking techniques, but switching between them is a bit to distracting, and I go into a mechanical mindset rather than listening to the music

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#3

I see what you are saying.

So maybe, I should try extended trigger for strumming and chord arpeggiation etc. It’s not really a big deal to switch between full trigger and slightly extended trigger. I tend to be more or less full trigger for lead but for rhythm I could try relax the index a little and let it sort of extend naturally.

Does that sound like a good thing to try?

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#4

Definitely Switch my grip, mechanic and most everything else (to a degree) for different techniques.

Summary

There’s a great video on Bernths YouTube page about a sticking point for many players of developing techniques that are too vastly different and it becomes difficult to transition from say alternate picking to tapping or sweeping. It’s good to play mixes of things to avoid that. Dare I say… learn some songs :wink: haha

Seriously though, I relearnt my tapping years ago because I used to slide my pick into my thumb web and tap with index but it just became counterintuitive at high tempos.

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#5

It’s a very mild shift, if thats really the two versions you’re juggling with I’d say you’re on a good path to building a consistent technique that you Don’t have to think about.

For me I’m always switching from index to middle finger to gypsy jazz. They are all quite different and good for different things, but my obsessiveness over using all of them really puts me into a gym excersice type mindset that I’m always trying to get away from.
I’m really trying to just use one atm at just let it happen rather than think about it.
I’ve actually done that a couple times now, sticking to one main picking technique, and it Really does start to feel natural after a year or two of just using one/ two main picking techniques. I like sweeping and fast shredding, so for me the index and palm anchor just works. And the sooner I can get away from thinking about my picking the better, it’s incredibly frustrating switching between multiple techniques for years and feeling lost.

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#6

I think using multiple grips is fine, in fact I think I’d recommend it! Ideally you’re taking at least great mental notes (or real ones / video) of what the different grip looks like to make sure you can recall them well, but overall I think it’s a great way to find pros / cons to the different ways of holding them.

I feel like my rhythm and lead grips (using the same pick) are pretty different, unsure what they’re called though. For bass I’m pretty much exclusively doing trailing edge as well.

Edit: confused trailing edge with upward pickslanting

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#7

You are playing bass with a pick and Upward pickslanting? :open_mouth: Do you have any video? I’m not a bass player. I’d like to see though, I’d tried bass a few times with a pick

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#8

@WhammyStarScream sure can, I even have a thread devoted to it lol:

Bass & trailing edge picking: my progression

Edit: just realized I confused trailing edge with upward pickslanting (again, oof).

2 Likes
#9

@MikeHendrycks
@Pepepicks66

Yeah I agree that their are advantages to be being able to play with different grips.
I suppose my biggest problem is switching between the angle pad grip and trigger style grips. I think maybe if I try practice chord arpeggiation with an extended trigger, then it wouldn’t be so much of a shift between the trigger and slightly extended trigger.
I had ruled out trigger for this particular task before, but I can’t fully remember why. I do find I have to take a pause or concentrate very hard if I want to switch from angle pad to trigger and vice versa on the fly.
I guess it can’t hurt to try practice these things with trigger for a while and see…

One thing I did notice about the trigger, it seemed to give more edge picking than angle pad which is great for some things, but for chord arpeggiation on clean sounds, I found it hard to get a loud enough sound. It’s been a while since I’ve tried it with this grip though, so maybe with a few tweaks, I can make it work…