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| Moderated by: Richard Hefner |
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| Pick thickness for mandolin - Mandolin - Other Instruments - ezFolk Forums | |||||||||||||||
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Richard Hefner Administrator 
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I've always used a heavy pick when playing flatpicking guitar because it seemed to be louder than the thinner flatpicks. Lately I've been playing a lot of mandolin and it seems like a lighter pick might work better. Any mandolin players have any thoughts on this?
____________________ Richard Hefner Webmaster, ezFolk.com MP3 Page: http://www.ezfolk.com/audio/richardhefner Running Blog: http://old-runner.com |
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Homer Approved 
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Hi Richard...I don't play mandolin, but, I have always preferred a medium flatpick for guitar. It just seemed to flex more and give me more control. Lately, I've been doing more fingerpicking, though. Homer.
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Richard Hefner Administrator
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Thanks Homer... I think I'll make a trip to the music store tomorrow and get several different ones to try out. The really thin one I've been messing around with was one my son used on an electric guitar. I think something in between might work best.
____________________ Richard Hefner Webmaster, ezFolk.com MP3 Page: http://www.ezfolk.com/audio/richardhefner Running Blog: http://old-runner.com |
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Richard Hefner Administrator
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I just got Dan Huckabee's DVD "Learn to Play Country Bluegrass Mandolin" today in the mail and it answered all of the questions I had about pick thickness as well as right hand technique. He used an extra heavy pick and recommends that over lighter picks. He spent the first 15 minutes of the DVD explaining right hand technique, and that alone was worth the purchase price (I was doing 3 or 4 things wrong and noticed immediate improvement). The rest of the lesson was really good too but what I really needed was that first 15 minutes. If anybody else is interested in an excellent beginner mandolin DVD, here's a link... http://www.ezfolk.com/shop/info.php?asin=B00008QOP8 
____________________ Richard Hefner Webmaster, ezFolk.com MP3 Page: http://www.ezfolk.com/audio/richardhefner Running Blog: http://old-runner.com |
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klezmando Approved 
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I always play with a thick pick. I play mostly klezmer and bluegrass and often in non amplified situations. I have been playing mostly F-5 stlyle mandos,but I also use them on my H-1 mandola. You get a warmer tone. If there is not a thick pick handy I use the round end of a regular heavy or extra heavy pick. You can play lighter and get a more delicate or softer tone with a heavy pick, but a thin or medium pick cannot produce the warm tone of a heavy pick. The Golden Gate picks work fine for me. Hope this is heplful. Last edited on Sat Dec 4th, 2004 02:57 pm by klezmando |
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ira Approved
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though i switch picks for different songs, feels,etc.. i lean toward med.-heavy to heavy (.86-1.0) large triangles with slightly rounded edges. goldengates and dogs are too rounded for me, and the ultra thick may be great for bluegrass, but blues and folk need a tad more flex imho. depends what type of tune youre playing, and your comfort. re: the large tri, i tried using teardrops, standard guitar size, etc.. i find there is more control, less slippage, and the ability to use all 3 corners more fluidly with these. use whatever gives you the sound and feel you want. peace, ira
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banjoman0254 Approved
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I use a 1.5 Pro Plec pick for both the guitar and mandolin. If you can find a real tortoise pick, that is the best thing to use.
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hammerfinger Approved
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I use a Dawg pick. I think it gives the best tone out of a mandolin. I've also used a Golden Gate. Years ago I had a tortise-shell, but it got lost somewhere along the way. At one time I used a pick that was actually a rock, it was a good pick. On guitar I use a Dunlop Rhino 1.5mm. On banjo I use a National thumb pick and Dunlop .020 brass finger picks.
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SWAviator Approved 
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Random pick thoughts: When I first got into flat-picking, I found that a thick pick worked much better for me. It seemed that when I would play a note with a thin or medium pick, the pick was still flexing while I was ready to go the other direction. Besides, I got a much cleaner and better tone, with more volumn...and none of that dastardly pick click. For the past five-years or so, I've been playing Gypsy Jazz. I have a Pierre Anastasio Petite Bouche. It's a Selmer/Maccaferri copy of Django Rheinhardt's guitar. The strings are about like banjo strings and the guitar has a longer scale than say a Martin or Gibson. I use Michael Dugain and Wegen picks. The Wegen pick is about 1/8 of an inch thick. I can play faster with it than anything I've ever used. But on a flat top, it muffles the tone. Django often would use overcoat buttons filed down to the right shape...good and thick. No one has ever played more cleanly, faster, and louder than Django, and he only had two fingers usable on his left hand! Wegen makes a good bluegrass pick and a mandolin pick. All of Wegen's picks are hand made, one at a time. Take a look: http://www.wegenpicks.com . The Dawg pick for mandolin is a great tone generator, it's one of my favorites... and I like the thick black Gibson picks for flatop which is another good tone producer, as well as Wegen's bluegrass picks which are great for volume and brightness...depending on the guitar I'm playing. Different picks have a markedly different sound on the same instrument. I have a whole different set of picks that I use on the D-28 than I use on my Gibson AJ, or that I use on my Epiphone arch-top and my Sel/Mac. The same is true with mandolins. Last edited on Fri Jul 29th, 2005 05:31 pm by SWAviator |
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Herb Approved
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I have tried many picks and thickness..and I always seem to come back to the Martin medium..73mm. It seems to work well in all situations.
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Rex Approved
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My favorite mandolin player, Norman Blake, prefers a heavy pick with rounded corners. After much experimentation I settled on a Dunlop "500" 1.15 mm pick and used those for a dozen years. They gave me the best tone with the least amount of pick noise. I no longer play mandolin.
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Roger8510 Approved 
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All of the pros I have talked to use a relatively thick pick. I don't think I recall any that use a thin pick but I am sure you could find one. I use one that is in the Dawg range, or a Golden Gate. The reason I have heard from the experts, including Mike Compton who gave a workshop here recently, is that a thick pick gives you control over when the pick hits and leaves the string. Any flex is in the flesh of your skin, not the pick, therefore you have more control as opposed to the pick having control. Even with thinner picks I always play with the round end of the pick, don't know why, just a sickness I suppose. I started out playing the tenor banjo (mandolin tuning for Irish music) with Fender thins of all things. I felt like it helped me to get the 'bowed triplets', or diddlys. But now I play with my mando pick. I've gone from one extreme to the other. I love the story, perhaps apocryphal, of Bill Monroe. He found a huge gawdy multi-colored monstrocity of a pick and happend to be playing with it. A novice asked him the obligatory question, "what kind of pick do you use?" With a wicked sense of humor, he held it up and said, "I play with one just like this".
____________________ James Reed http://ezfolk.com/audio/jamesreed |
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skipp Approved
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I play with a thick, silver pick and it seems to "pull" more tone out of the mando than thinner, plastic ones for me. Also, hi everyone, I found this site and it looks excellent! I play mandolin mostly (three years), but I noodle around on the kalimba, harmonica, and I'm tempted by ukes too. Last edited on Mon Apr 17th, 2006 10:26 pm by skipp |
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Graywolf71 Approved 
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Hey Richard, When going to my Mando classes, my teacher recomends a thick bass pick one for volume and two when you record in a studio setting the thinner picks will be picked up on the recording. He showed me the difference and WOW was i amazed at the amount of pick snap you really don't hear normally. My favorite pick is the star pick with the star shaped hole in the center, i feel that it gives you better control over the pick and so keeps it from spinning in my fingers on those high speed tickles i like so much. If your video didn't show you, or explain it, you pick should be played at a 45 degree angle to the strings. This way you pick will glide over the strings and still catch them for the perfect sound, this also helps you increase your tickle speed. On the willy nelson song "blue eye's crying in the rain", one my teacher taught me, this little tickle tip comes in handy. Good luck on the Mandolin. Graywolf71
____________________ They can't take away our music because it's in our hearts, so keep on pickin' and smilin' for it's the one TRUE way to stay free. |
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Philj200 Approved 
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I use the same medium triangular pick for guitar and mandolin because I can anticapate how it will sound and I'm too old and cranky to fuss with different picks. Ralph Rienzler (sp?) the bluegrass musician (orginial Greenbriar Boys) and early promoter and historian of the genre was a better than decent picker. He used a monster that was both oversized and so thick it had no play in it what-so-ever. I asked him about it (decades ago). He said it gave him the volume he needed to stand up to Herald's guitar and Yellen's banjo. He said Monroe used a very heavy pick (albeit a smaller one) as well.
____________________ My MP3 Section: http://ezfolk.com/audio/bands/1143/ My Myspace area: http://myspace.com/philj200 |
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TNFrank Approved 
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I've been using Dunlop Nylon picks for as long as I can remember with electric guitar and as of late the electric bass. For guitar I used the .60mm, bass was 1.0mm until I gave em' up and learned finger style playing. For my new mando I'm back to .60mm. I've got some .88mm left over from bass that I didn't use because I switched to the thicker pick so I might give them a try but generally I'm on the lighter side then most people for picks. One very nice thing about the Dunlop Nylons, they've never broke on me, can't say that about other picks I used to use.
____________________ “You know what the difference between me and you really is? You look out there and see a horde of evil, brain eating zombies. I look out there and see a target rich environment.” -Dillis D. Freeman Jr. 11/2/2001 |
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Jim Yates Approved 
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I always use a medium tri-corner Fender or Gibson. I like them light enough to give a good tremolo and heavy enough to avoid that clicking sound that really light picks make. I use the same pick on guitar, mandolin, tenor banjo and bouzouki, but use a straight sided thin triangle shaped pick for mountain dulcimer.
____________________ Jim http://www.myspace.com/jimyates http://www.myspace.com/kirbyandyates http://www.myspace.com/kirbyyatesmazurek |
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| ezFolk Forums > Other Instruments > Mandolin > Pick thickness for mandolin | |
