How to Flat Pick A Guitar

Video Transcript

" Hello! My name is Aaron Moon and I am here today on behalf of expertvillage.com and I am discussing the steel string acoustic guitar and I am going to be describing the difference between finger picking and flat picking. This is a flat pick right here. It kind of looks like you know just a little triangle. They come in different sizes, different thicknesses, some are thinner and more flexible for different sound on the strings. Some are thicker and don’t really have any flexibility and they will give you a harsher, stronger sound off of the strings. Now you want to hold your pick in between your pointer finger and your thumb. I guess you could do it with your thumb, pointer finger and middle finger, whatever feels comfortable to you but this is the most common way to hold it. You don’t want to squeeze the pick all that hard. You want to hold it tight enough where kind of shaking your hand, it is not going to fall out but there is no need to apply all that much pressure on it. The idea with using a pick is just to run it over the strings. I won’t play a chord. I’ll just run it over the strings with a muffle to give you an idea of kind of the pressure you want to use and how it goes across the strings. I’m holding my hand pretty much flat above the strings and just do a downward motion, so I’m applying a little pressure as I go down and its kind of moving in my fingers like that. As it goes on the string, it is going to have some give and take and it’s going to be responding to how hard you push as you go down. You can also come up with it too. So with chords it will sound something like. It’s a pretty even strum there; nothing too out of the ordinary, just a normal kind of nice medium chord. "