Picking & Warming up

As a guitarist, warming up your picking hand is a crucial part of your practice routine but choosing the right pick is equally important to achieve your desired sound and to complement your playing style. In this article, I’ll discuss how to choose the right pick as well as provide you with a simple routine which you can use to warm up with.

When choosing a pick, make sure that it’s comfortable and that it suits your playing style: 

1. Avoid using a pick that’s too thin if you’re playing aggressively, or

2. Too thick if you playing delicately.

I prefer to use Clayton’s acetal rounded triangle picks (0.80mm) and Bog Street Battleaxes . These picks have a large surface area that allows you to grip them well and they don’t slip out of your hand and disappear in the “pick abyss”. They also have a a texture that’s great for gripping and they can be rotated to a sharper edge when they’re dull.

There are many non-traditional options if you want to be outside the box as well: Bryan May of Queen preferred a sixpence coin while Justin Broadrick of Godflesh was rumored to prefer a metal guitar pick; but that sounds like a nightmare for their strings!

Some popular traditional picks include:

1. Dunlop Jazz III (red or black ) for a solid grip (but are quite small)
2. Dunlop Tortex (green & blue ) for the normies
3. Dunlop Ultex (0.88mm) for good texture

In addition to choosing the right pick using a metronome will improve your rhythm capabilities. You can use a metronome app to program tempo changes to make your routine succinct or there are many great and affordable metronomes which you can select time signatures with as well as which double as a guitar tuner.

Remember warming up is not a competition so go at a comfortable pace when starting and focus on form, attack, and repetition. Then gradually push yourself to a level that’s physically challenging by bumping up the tempo being mindful to not damage your wrist and hand.

You can improvise rhythms, use a lead sheet with notated rhythms to follow, or jam to a song that you can match the rhythm to. The choice is yours! A simple routine to get started is to set a tempo on your metronome then:

1. alternate between down-picked and alternate picked quarter and eighth notes (for 2 measures)
2. down-picked (if possible) and alternate 16th notes (2 measures)
3. followed by tremolo picking (32nds for 2 measures)

It’s important to switch up your routine by creating your own picking patterns and trying out different time signatures to keep things fresh and challenging. Try changing and alternating time signatures to 3/4 or an unconventional meter like 5/4 to challenge yourself.

Tip When tremolo picking, focus on drawing small circles with your index and thumb fingers in slight conjunction with your wrist to derive a strong pick attack. You can also add your middle finger for the “pencil grip” if you want to go full on James Hetfield mode.

I recommend dedicating about 5-6 minutes of your practice routine to warming up your picking hand. Remember to focus on form, attack, and repetition, and you’ll soon notice an improvement in your playing. With regular practice, your right hand will become more agile and you’ll be able to play with greater ease and precision.