BEST Pick For Older Guitarists - Got Arthritis? No Problem!

Hey, guitar enthusiasts, let me tell you about a brand new product that is revolutionizing not only the way my students finger pick their guitars, but also now how they are strumming their guitars. If you're an older learner over the age of 50 suffering from arthritis, you're definitely not going to want to miss this video.

So I had lots of students writing to me saying, Lauren, you get to check out this product. It's amazing. It's really helping me with my finger picking and I feel like it's really, really comfortable for me to hold while strumming. So Black Mountain Pick reached out to me. They came out with a brand new light gauge pick. I did a video for them not long ago about finger picking, but now I'm going to do one about strumming because I feel like this light gauge pick is really good for strumming. So I want to thank them for sponsoring this video. Not only do they make thumb picks, they also make full length slides and finger slides. So make sure to check out the link in the description below and go and support our sponsor. So the great thing that I like about these Black Mountain picks, first off is that they're the full size of a pick. Okay. I really like that. And that's why I think there's a really good strumming application here for my students. So you can see it's the same exact size as a regular pick. And I love that. Now if I were going to take my regular pick and I was going to hold this, you know, I would take the thumb and I put it on the back side of the pick and I take my first finger and I would hold on to that pick. Right. Well, that's the great thing about the thumb picks is they've got this little spring loaded piece in the back. Okay. And this one is just a regular tension. They do sell ones that are extra tight. Now if you're someone with arthritis, I don't know if that extra tight is going to be too much. This one, it's very comfortable. It doesn't feel like it's squeezing me too much. This is just their regular tension spring. And the reason I like this, you know, other thumb picks, it's usually just a single piece of plastic and sometimes that plastic over time gets worn down and it loosens up. But I feel like these springs that they have a really good feel and it's just like setting up your pick. All right. You just, you put the thumb in the little loop in the back. Okay. As if you were going to hold your Regular pick. And then you just hold onto it with your other finger. Now, the great thing about this, because, you know, I have a lot of students who are older, and they reach out to me and they're like, Lauren, I'm having a really hard time holding onto the pick. Not because they're doing anything wrong, because they suffer from arthritis. They have arthritis in their thumb joints and in some of their other fingers. It's just really hard to hold on to the pick. And if it's acting up, it can sometimes be painful. So with this, you know, if you're having a rough day, you don't even need to hold the pick. Watch this on the close up cam. I'm gonna. I'm gonna strum with an open hand here.

Play a chord so that it sounds good.

I'm not even holding onto the pick, and I'm able to strum. I would probably recommend getting in the good habit of just placing the first finger on the thumb pick. Just a little bit of support. I'm barely, barely holding on. I'm barely holding on to the pick. Just. Just kind of giving it a touch. But it's really comfortable. And that's why I was so excited. My students, like, they finally came out with a thin pick. They finally came out with a thin pick. And I'm glad Black Mountain Picks reached out to me again to do a little video on this because I really think it's a great product. And I really like that the light gauge has a little bit more give to it for a strumming application. Now if you were going to do this for finger picking, where I found this, very helpful is because in live applications, you know when you're playing a finger picking song and you want to go from finger picking to strumming, you know, when you strum without a finger pick.

You can do it. It's really hard to get dynamic. So say I was just finger picking, you know, something.

And I wanted to start strumming.

Does it work? Yes, it's work. Could you get away with it? Totally fine. Now, if I were in a recording studio, I could stop playing and I could just hit the record button and pick up where I left off. But when you're playing live, you can't do that. So listen to the bass on this. When we put the thumb pick on, you start finger picking.

That bass note really starts ringing out a little bit.

Now, you guys didn't see this off screen. I actually switched out to the extra tight spring. This, this pick here says extra tight spring on it. Because I felt like with the finger picking, I just wanted to have a little bit of a better grip because I didn't have that finger to support with the strumming. You know, I feel like it's okay if the pick wiggles a little bit, but I feel like for the finger picking, I really wanted that extra tight spring. I felt like I have much more control over the thumb. Um, so just wanted to let you guys know that I did that off screen and just goes to show you, different things require different applications sometimes. So for the strumming, I liked the looser spring, but for the finger picking, I really did enjoy the extra tight spring. So if you guys are looking for an amazing guitar pick tool for finger picking and strumming, please go check out Black Mountain picks in the link in the description below. They are sponsoring this video and if you guys are interested in learning more about how to use a thumb pick while finger picking, then please go check out that video right right over there where I show you how I finger pick using the Black Mountain pick.