How to Hold a Guitar Pick Like a Pro

How to hold a guitar pick like a pro, so that you don’t pick up bad habits. 😉
This is a really basic lesson with not to much too say, however a picture’s worth a thousand words, so…

 

Holding a guitar pick for strumming and soloing.

 

  • When soloing:  (1) Your first finger and thumb should be pointing towards the strings. Then (2) add your pick between them so it is pointing in the same direction, and your finger and thumb are supporting it.
  • When Strumming: (3) I start by bending my first finger like a hook and resting the pick onto of it. Add then (4) clamp down on it with my thumb.

Once you learn both of these, you can kind of morph back and forth as needed when playing rhythms and going into a solo, or vice versa.

 

TIPS
When you use a guitar pick you want it to be strumming or picking on the strings at a right angle to the neck.

While there are some variations to this, the photos/steps above should be learned by all beginners. This is one of those “learn the rules before you break them” items.

 

The reason it is SO important to learn how to hold a pick properly, from the very beginning, is that you may get really good on guitar in a short time and want to start playing more fast and accurate solos. But if you don’t learn how to hold a pick correctly it could really mess up your speed and dexterity. At which point you would need to relearn how to hold it the right way. So learn it right the first time, then once you’ve mastered it, you can adjust it to your own individual style.

 

And on that note…
When you’re strumming chords it usually involves your whole arm moving up and down and a combination of wrist movement. However when soloing, the arm usually remains still with the back of the palm resting on the guitar bridge, which allows your wrist to do most of the work.

 

Final Note
If you’re playing, “Learning to fly” – by Tom Petty: (see A) your whole arm would be moving up and down while you hold the pick relatively still.

An exception to the rule might be if you’re playing hard rock, or metal, like the verses of “Enter Sandman” – by Metallica. In that case, you would have your palm resting on the bridge (see A), and letting your wrist do the chunka-chunka’s.

 

Now that you know how to hold a guitar pick you can move on to the next lesson, or jump ahead to Alternate Picking.