Best Guitar Picks For Beginners

You never know what big things littlest objects can do. To play guitar with perfection, you need a small and cheap object called ‘pick.’ It’s an essential tool for all guitarists, pro, and amateur, to produce a beautiful sound without hurting their fingers. Unfortunately, the pick is always overlooked because we don’t consider it as important as other guitar accessories. But the truth is, just like strings, cables and amps, picks are also essential to produce better sounds. Picks come in different sizes, shapes, colors, and thicknesses. If you think all picks serve the same purposes, then you need a little insight that we will provide in this review. Continue reading to know how you can choose the right pick as a beginner.

Top 5 Best Guitar Picks for Beginners

You May Not Know About the Benefit of the Guitar Picks

To know what benefits a guitar pick holds for you. First, you have to learn what a guitar pick is. In simple words, guitar pick is a slim, solid piece of material that is used to strum the strings of the guitar to produce a sound. It comes in different guitar pick shapes and sizes and is made up of different material types. The purpose of guitar pick is to keep your fingertips and nails save from getting cut or injured by the harp strings. It’s straightforward to hold due to lightweight and costs pretty cheap.

There are numerous reasons you should use a guitar pick instead of your nails. One of the main reasons why pros prefer using guitar pick is that it allows them to play music faster easily. With right picks, you can represent more accurately and enjoy smoother movements between guitar strings. While many pros prefer using their fingertips and find it more comfortable that way, beginners should always choose a pick to learn faster and play smoothly. The reason is that they are new to this practice and might hurt their fingers. The sharp strings of guitars can cut your fingertips and destroy nails. Moreover, constant strumming can make your fingers too tired and sore that you won’t be able to play guitar for long durations. A pick turns out to be a great protective gear and less abrasive.

Guitar Pick Dimensions

Guitar Pick Thickness for Beginners – Following the Actual Size of Guitar Pick

When it comes to buying a guitar pick, don’t forget to consider its size. The thickness of a pick plays a vital role in improving or ruining the strumming. There are five different types of depth from which you will be choosing one. Make sure you go with the one that suits your play style and genre. Here is brief information about five thickness levels of picks:

1. Extra Thin Guitar Picks: These are quite lighter picks that come with the thickness under 0.45 mm. These are best for delicate playing and widely used by acoustic guitarists. These picks produce different sounds than heavy picks.
2. Thin and lighter guitar picks: These picks come in varying thicknesses, ranging from 0.46 to 0.70 mm. Pros use these picks to play acoustic guitars and enjoy faster strumming. Much easy to grip due to lighter weight, these picks are less likely to cause tendinitis.
3. Medium guitar picks: These picks are available in different thicknesses, ranging from 0.71 mm to 0.84 mm. Beginners are highly recommended to use these picks and enjoy strong strumming at their learning stages. These picks make playing easy and less forceful.
4. Heavy guitar picks: These picks are perfect for guitarists who play electric guitars. Ranging from 0.85 to 1.20 mm, the average thickness used by the majority of pro guitarists is 0.94 mm. They are pretty suitable for solos and group jams.
5. Extra heavy guitar picks: Coming in high ranges of thickness, these picks are best suitable for electric guitarists. These can be used to strum the strings faster, efficiently and productively.

Knowing Its Material & other Features

Next thing you will be considering when buying a guitar pick is its material. Guitar picks can be found in a variety of materials including plastic and metal. The plastic picks are considered entirely commercial and widely recommended for players.

Some most commonly used materials for guitar picks are celluloid, nylon, and xylonite. The most popular one is called DuPont Delrin that offers a better sound and easy handling. Although different materials provide different results, there is no definite top choice when it comes to the content of a pick. It’s all down to your preference and likeability.

But, there are a few things you will be considering regarding real choice. For instance, how durable the pick is. Some materials wear down too quickly whereas some last longer. Nylon picks are supposed to be more durable than celluloid picks and offer high-quality strumming. DuPont Delrin picks are also next level picks offering long-lasting use and better quality. You will also be checking how smooth the pick feels. Some guitar picks offer a more fluid touch whereas others are quite rough to handle. There are also some with powdery and resistant feel. Lastly, you need to check the sound offered by a guitar pick. Some materials make sound heavy while other produce lighter tones.

An easy way to decide which one will suit you best is to get a few different types and check the quality of sound and touch by using each one of them. Don’t worry about the cost; picks are quite cheaper and affordable. Although nylon guitar picks are quite famous as the ones made up of DuPont Delrin, don’t restrict yourself to these two materials and find better options to enjoy incredible sounds.

Choosing the Shape as Your Style – Beginner Guitar Picking

When it comes to choosing a guitar pick, do consider your playing style to make a right choice. There are different shapes of picks available in the market, and every way is suitable for a particular style. It is said that smaller picks are perfect to go with as they offer faster strumming and greater economy of motion. However, the shape of the pick is only concerned with grip comfort whereas picking depends on the length, sharpness, firmness and friction level.

Standard “351.”

To begin with, standard guitar pick is quite familiar to amateur and pro guitarists. It’s also widely known as heart-shaped pick and marked with a number ‘351’ by manufacturers. It’s considered to be a good choice for beginner guitars. Standard picks come in multiple sizes, from smaller to standard. This pick type comes with a sharpened and beveled tip for more accurate and smoother playing.

Standard pick, sharp tip

As shown in the picture, this pick is slightly larger than usual 531 picks and comes with a more sharpened tip. It comes with the benefit of secure grip due to a bigger size and strong strumming because of the well-pointed top. It’s strongly recommended for beginners due to better sound results and secure gripping.

Jazz III

This one says it all through its name. It’s a popular pick for jazz players but has been widely used by professionals belonging to different genres due to its impressive speed and precision. It’s much similar to the standard pick but comes in a smaller size. Considering its sharp tip and heavier gauges, the Jazz III pick is trendy among professional and advanced guitarist.

Pointy Pick

This one has got an extraordinarily pointed and sharp tip that is good for extra control. But, it’s a little too bright for most of the players especially the beginners. Moreover, pointy picks are not too good in comparing to the ones mentioned above.

Shark Fin

It’s a unique pick shape with diversity. Where rounded edges can be used to produce standard sounds, the wavy fins can be glided against the strings to create new tones.

Teardrop (wide)

This one is a variation of the standard pick with a rounded shape but the same tip. It’s excellent for teen beginners who don’t want a bigger size for a comfortable grip.

Teardrop (thin)

Just like teardrop wide, this one is a variation of Jazz III with a rounded shape. Due to its narrowness, it’s pretty challenging to hold and use. Tighter control is required to grip it firmly.

Triangle pick

Players who play a lot of chords and choose fast-picking lines will find this pick pretty convenient. This triangle pick has rounded edges and pretty easy to grip. This one comes in a larger size so don’t look for a small one. The best part about triangle pick is that all tips work equally so if one wears out, use another one instead of buying a new pick.

These are the basic eight shapes, and most other forms available in the market are merely variations of these basic shapes.

For acoustic and rhythm guitarists, thin picks are preferable. Using thin picks, they can tweak harder and won’t even break the strings or play too loud. Thin picks are specially designed to play chords and easily bend when glided forcefully. While on the other hand, solid picks are perfect to play single notes and lead playing. Thick picks allow players to enjoy more picking control but have less crispiness than thinner picks.

Music style is another factor critical to consider when choosing a guitar pick. If you desire heavy sounds such as metal and death music, go with heavy sounds to achieve best results. Jazz players can also choose heavy picks to enjoy that warm tone but go with a smaller size to have better grip. If you want something suitable for country rhythm chords, go with thinner picks and enjoy perfect sounds.

Top 5 Best Guitar Picks

Conclusion

In guitar playing, picks play a vital role to improve the performance and enhance the sound production. From pros to beginners, every guitarist must use a pick to enjoy smooth and faster strumming. Make sure you buy a beautiful pick to experience good outcomes because shape and size of the pick matter a lot. Do consider the thickness and your guitar style to end up choosing a suitable pick. If you cannot decide what to buy, take help from top 5 sets of picks mentioned above to get started with guitar training as soon as possible.

Top 5 Best Guitar Picks for Beginners