Hi all, my name is Jan and i have been taking lessons from Justin for several years now. I felt like I was a beginning intermediate although there are only two or three songs I can retain without the tabs in front of me! I signed up for the strumming as I had a weird little stroke like incident last year and it totally messed up my fretting and strumming hand. But I have managed to get my fretting hand back in shape but my strumming was suffering. It threw all my timing off. My doctors suggestion was sell all your guitars and forget it!!! I left furious and determined to get back what I had gained from Justin over the years. My guitar playing is my meditation. I did notice in the lesson on picks and holding the guitar that I was angling the guitar and had given myself a sore neck and left shoulder. What an eye opener after all this time!! I played tonight in the way Justin recommended and no pain after playing!! I just had my 70th birthday last week and have had GAS during lockdown really bad, so i am committed to continue the enjoyment I get from the guitar. Many thanks to you Dr. Justin. 
Glad to hear you’re making a recovery Jan.
So I have been traveling over the last year and anytime I find picks in souvie shops, I always get some. I try to get thin ones but sometime all they will have is thick ones, and I’ll get them anyway thinking eventually I’ll use them. In my practices I’ll play around with the different thicknesses and I always end up coming back to my Fender Thin ones. I don’t know what they’re made of but some of the other picks I have feel like a piece of plastic. The plasticky ones will sound very clicky.
I have been paying attention to how clicky my strumming sounds now, and I am experimenting with angling the pick some because that seems to be less clicky sounding. There’s three concerns that have arisen as a result.
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I feel less control over the pick because of the rounded tip sliding over the strings easier.
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I find my hand coming away from the strings when I angle the pick. I’ll end up only grabbing the thickest strings on the down strum and the thinnest on the up strum.
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I feel the nail on my first finger going over the strings on down strums. This can’t be good.
Are these normal? Am I over-angling? Maybe I need to either force myself to correct these or just stick with the normal straight angle I am used to?
I’ve tried, but angling the pick doesn’t work for me. You have to get the angle JUST right or the note won’t ring out. Too much angle and the pick seems to ride up and over the strings. Or the strings move out of the way of the pick. Either way, the note doesn’t ring out.
I think you need to settle on a pick you like and move forward with that pick. Otherwise you’re contantly having to adjust your strumming dynmaics to adjust to the new pick.
Dunno if this is anticipating the Dynamics part of the course, but I’ve found myself adjusting the angle depending upon how loudly I’m strumming. For moderate+ strumming, angling the pick works great and gets rid of any flapping noise; however for soft strumming, an angled pick creates a lot of what I’ll call “pick-squeak” (similar to finger-squeak during chord changes) - flattening out the pick gets rid of that (without reintroducing any flapping noise since the strums are soft) … this may or may not be applicable to most players, but folks like myself who like to play (and sing) soft moody songs where I’m just barely touching the strings on each strum, that squeak can get pretty annoying 
… but then, maybe I should be finger-strumming instead (Grade 3 - which is mostly why I’m taking this course!)
Paul.
Can my index finger instead of pointing toward angle of pick, be folded and perpendicular to pick?
I am asking this because the perpendicular position feels more comfortable to me.
Please suggest!
I am attaching photo of the perpendicular position.
@Indranilkapuri Comfort is important. Looking at your photograph I would pick up on two issues.
1] Your pick is sticking out a long way from your grip. Try having less of the pick protruding for more control.
2] Your fingers 2, 3 and 4 are curled tight in a fist-like shape. Try relaxing them and allowing them to uncurl. Tension in the fingers is not good for playing well.
I hope that helps.
Cheers 
| Richard |
Is angling the pick a good technique for picking individual strings or only for strumming? Just watched a Flatpicking technique video by Tony Polecastro and he said to angle the pick for individual strings.
I angle my pick for both strumming and picking individual strings. For me, it helps the pick slide over the strings more easily, prevents the pick from getting “stuck” in the strings during up-strums, and, when combined with a more “in-out” vs. “up-down” motion when picking, makes string-skipping much easier and more natural feeling.
So, my pick is angled in two directions. The bridge-facing-edge is angled HIGHER than the nut-facing-edge (about 45 degrees to the strings), and the tip is angled up so it’s slightly above the grip area (about 30 degrees)
YMMV
Edit: Changed word in BOLD from “lower”. I meant to say higher. Sorry for the confusion.
I’ve seen a few players who hold the pick with the bridge-side lower than the nut side, but it is rare.
Interesting. Your method is opposite of what (little) I’ve seen which is angling the pick down (nut-side lower), but when I tried your method, it appears my wrist is in a more natural position, rather than tilted down. I’m gonna give it a try… thanks!
Nut side angled down is also what Justin teaches in his course. But I guess as with a lot of things, it’s not a case of (absolutely) right or wrong - the main thing is you need to angle the pick to make it slide smoothly over the strings.
I rewatched Justin’s Strumming SOS video about how to hold the pick and you’re right, he does teach NSD (nut-side down). Maybe it’s just a comfort/personal preference thing?
It is just a preference/comfort thing, but the vast majority of players angle the pick down towards the nut.
I often tried, but I do not angle my pick, because I do not get it to sound better, in the contrary the sound is more scratchy. I have no idea what I am doing wrong.
I made a video, but am not sure that I capture the problem accurately enough. I made alternately two strokes straight and two angled. Maybe someone has an idea what I am doing wrong?
(The pick is a Tortex Dunlop 50mm)
Hi @kaiben,
Thanks for the video! that helps a lot.
I notice that you are moving across the string diagonally. This is part of what is causing the “scratchy” zipper noise. Try to move more perpendicular and it will help a lot.
the other thing I see is that once you gain confidence to strum more quickly, it will also help. This will come with practice.
Your pick angle is a bit straight. this is not generating the scratch, but is probably holding you back from strumming confidently. You will want to angle the pick a little more so it can move across the strings without catching as hard. this will help you to hold the pick in place and it won’t spin quite so easily in your fingers.
Take a look at the some of the comments from this thread, both above and below my linked comment. Richard has a nice diagram. Getting the angles figured out is what will get you moving along and strumming with confidence.
Hi @sequences,
thank you for your hint. Yes, I am moving diagonally over the strings and maybe it’s a bit less scratchy when moving perpendicular, but the arm movement feels strange.
A while ago I started to hold the guitar more diagonally, with the headstock up, because so I can better fret the chords with less problems in my wrist. Especially when fretting the F chord. If I hold the guitar this way and do my strumming movements from the elbow, I naturally am strumming diagonally. Is this a bad habit? I was quite glad that I found a way to reduce my wrist problems…
Hi @kaiben
What you describe sounds like you are in a “classical position”. it does relieve the strain on the wrist but I agree it feels a little odd for strumming angle.
Experiment with how your strumming arm is positioned across the guitar and how you are holding your shoulder. You may find a comfortable position with a little adjustment.
I would say no. The natural rotation of your elbow joint down through your arm, wrist, hand and fingers creates a curved arc through which your pick will strike the strings. That necessarily means that first contact on a Down strum will hit the thickest string slightly further away from the bridge / closer to the neck than the last contact, which will strike the thinnest string marginally closer to the bridge as the strum emerges and exits.
The scraping issue in your video is a speed related issue. You are not picking with any pace, more of a stumble across the strings. That is not how you actually strum in real life contexts of playing strumming patterns and songs. At tempo you should not hear any such scraping.
Thank you Richard, I will investigate if the scraping vanishes on faster strumming.