As you start to learn more and more on the guitar, I hope you to epic guitarists across all different genres. As you do, you may start to notice how many guitar players use picks, and some don’t.
If you’re like me, you begin to wonder why. I didn’t understand when I first started (oh so many years ago now). What’s the difference? Is it just a matter of preference?
No, it’s not, and courses like Jam Play do an excellent job demonstrating why.
Check out Jam Play’s online guitar lessons.
Picking is the most common of all popular guitar playing. In most cases, the player will use a pick. In the cases of no picks, the player may be playing classical guitar, using fingerpicking for a softer sound, using fingerpicking for complicated harmonies, or strumming with their fingers for a less articulate sound.
In every case, as Jam Play will show you, it’s a matter of style and choice. The techniques for each are largely separate from one another, so you need to work on these skills at the same time. You’ll likely find you gravitate toward one or the other, and you may fall into the trap of practicing one almost exclusively. (For me, it’s the singer-songwriter fingerpicking styling of James Taylor).
Sadly, most methods and courses will fall into this one-sided trap too. There are a ton of courses out there that will make you a great lead player, but ask you to play something more complicated, and you’ll have no idea what to do.
You may be OK with this, but you shouldn’t be. Go to any of the best guitarists and with a little digging, you’ll find almost as many songs where they tone it down and use fingerpicking as they do shredding their solos. But the courses don’t reflect that most of the time, and it’s doing you a disservice.
Jam Play doesn’t have this problem at all. Following along with their clear courses, you’ll go through different guitar techniques and genres from classic rock to jazz to blues to country and everything in between. In these courses, they don’t ignore techniques. They bring in expert teachers to show you practical exercises paced out to give you your best chance for success.
Check out Jam Play’s online guitar lessons.
This point I’m trying to make about picking is just one common element you’ll find across the majority of guitar resources. The people who build out the resources (myself) included will lean on the things they’re strongest in. Even if it’s only subconsciously, we’ll leave important elements out, such as picking vs. fingerpicking.
Jam Play knows this is a problem and sidesteps it. They have one of the best collections of guitar experts and teachers out there. It’d be a shame to miss out on the chance to learn from so many of them.
