As an experienced musician (on the trumpet), I know that it is important to establish good habits from the start. So I am a little worried about my right hand technique. At present, I have two doubts:
- How should I hold the pick?
- What should I do with the other three fingers of my right hand?
This post is about #1.
Holding the pick. It seems that the “standard” way is between the flesh of the thumb and the side of the forefinger, like this:
The problem is, this position really hurts my forefinger where the skin is squeezed into the nail by the pressure of the pick. See below — the arrow shows where I mean:
So I have tried moving the pick further along the forefinger, where it is supported by the knuckle:
But I don’t know whether there are disadvantages of this method which will come back to haunt me in the future. If anyone has any suggestions, I’d love to hear them. I’m also putting this post on the tenor banjo forum at BanjoHangout.org (click here to see it), which seems a great place to get advice.
See the following post for my next crisis of confidence. 🙂
Trumpet to Banjo 