I have an issue with being able to grip picks without them slipping, especially when my hands dry out. I tried gorilla snot at first, but didnt get on with it. I then found picks with stippled patches which were great, but i have the inevitable million or so cheap, smooth picks that i never use. I was working on something and saw my stanley knife and had an epiphany. I tried crosshatching a patch on either side of a smooth pick and created grippy picks, and i can use all of my picks now. And i didnt cut any fingers off… bonus 
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That’s a great idea, Ross. I have the same issue with gripping the pick. Thanks for sharing
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Nice DIY solution. Maybe there’s a business opportunity for you here collecting everyone’s unused smooth picks, adding some Stanley knife grip lines, and reselling them on the internet.
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I have this problem as well and have been experimenting with picks recently. Although I’ve settled on ones with a texture, I read that a bit of sandpaper, or drilling small holes in them can work as well as a Stanley knife too.
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or in lieu of a drill and drill bit.
Depending on the thickness of your pick. A paper punch works well to put a hole in it too.
I for sure liked the hole in the pick, however ya put it there. It does help me hold on to it.
I’ve used that idea too. It also works as stated I think.
Also, changing how I held onto the pick helped me hold it even better yet.
With all that said.
My pick still gets away from me on occasion.
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Great ideas on a subject that plagues a lot of us but doesn’t get much attention.
I read a great interview with Jerry Garcia from right before he died. On this subject he said he holds his pick like a pencil, called the scalpel hold. He said it gave him better attack on the strings. He also liked the stiffest thickest pick he could find because he didn’t want any wobble and felt it gave him more direct contact with the strings.
I’ve been trying it out and it seems odd at first but now I’m really getting to like this method.
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@rick111 Not tried holes but i did try sandpaper and that didn’t work
@sticktothemuse Not tried the scalpel hold, but I do like using thicker picks, especially now I play more lead.
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yeah I have done that with the knife and sandpaper saw a program about Rick Parfitt guitarist in status quo and his tech used to punch 4 holes in his picks leaving one side with a ragged edge I tried it hit the pick a bit too hard and shattered it also used a small strip of Elastoplast wrapped around it
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Scalpel hold- hold the pick with three fingers with most of the pick in your palm with minimal plectrum hitting the strings. When done right gives you great control! If you’re playing lead you might want to give it a try. Jerry liked it!
I like it, and will try it.
Tried this Dunlop pick: it’s an improvement on the regular Tortex, but the pick still rotates on me (though less).
Since the pick tends to rotate around a point, I was thinking, as @rick111 wrote, of drilling holes.
My thought was to position holes as far away as possible from the center of rotation to maximize the resistance to rotation.
Since drilling on an edge is tough without making a jig, I’ll just file a notch with a round file (filing also eliminates the risk inherent in drilling into small, potentially brittle, objects).
I’m also contemplating driving a little brad/finish nail through a non-brittle pick so it makes a little “crown” of roughness as it exits
So, now I gotta actually go and do it and see if works in practice as well as it will in my mind…And if it doesn’t, well I had fun working with tools and playing with an idea
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Making Grippier Picks with What You Got
As intoned, here’re the results of my experiments:
The “best/grippiest” result looks like a cat chewed on it, and it is wicked grippy.
I vote upholstery tack treatment only
- DRILLING:
Definitely need to clamp the pick to keep it from becoming a high speed cutting tool
Melted the nylon picks, needs a low speed
Felt it weakens pick more than gives grip - FILING
Slower, safer than drilling
Easy to monitor progress
Need a really small diameter (5/32"?) round file to get maximum 90° angle at edge
Didn’t seem to add much to the grippiness - NAILING
This seems to give maximum grip, as the rough is pointy
It’s fast
No fancy tools needed
Hammer from both sides if you want grippy on both sides of the pick
Put some “soft” wood underneath (like pine) so the pick can deform into the wood
Upholstery tacks taper, so the more you hammer in, the larger the deflection
Upholstery tacks are very sharp, so they go through easily
Tortex Flex is more brittle, so have to go easier with the quantity and how far tack is driven in - HAMMERING
If the exit flares are too pointy, hammer/sand them down a bit (you know the saying about having a hammer in your hand…)
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Or just buy Dunlop Max Grips. JMHO.
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Good point. These are beginner issues, for sure. Though this upholstery tack treatment is even more resistant to spinning (and I inherited about 100 picks). But given that there must be 50 or more million players using regular picks, another useful acronym might be SIUYBB (pronounced “SIGH-oob”) “Suck It Up You Big Baby” and just learn how to hold the pick… 
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Keep in mind that picks do slip and turn in your hands. It’s normal - you need to hold the pick really lightly and that will mean the pick moves. Grippy picks can help a bit but the key thing is to learn to adjust the pick while you are playing. I make little micro adjustments of the pick all the time I’m playing. It’s a bit like driving a car on a straight road, you are constantly making small adjustments to the steering wheel. These movements (pick and steering wheel!) eventually become subconscious.
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That’s what I figured, it’s something I’ll eventually grow into. Hard held pick sounds awful, soft pick is unruly—for now…
Guitar is like learning to dance for me: “How am I supposed to pay attention to all these different parts of my body, at the same time, and do it with someone else too???”.
As Glinda told Dorothy, “All in good time, my pretty, all in good time…”
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Glinda was the good witch of the north. The wicked witch of the west was never named in the movie.
Oh my heavens, my favoritest movie of all time (for real) and I got her name incorrect!
Thanks for the correction.
Perhaps I could write, “The character who scared the pants off of me as a little kid”?
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