Alaska Pik Finger Guitar Pick Small

Most Liked Positive Review

Great for slide players!

I've been a guitarist for more than fifty years. All of my playing is fingerstyle. I never liked the sound or the feel of old-style fingerpicks -- they are uncomfortable, and they cover the soft part of your fingertips so completely that you lose all "feel" for the strings. Those "old style" fingerpicks can really limit your options if you play slide guitar. Whether you are playing Duane-style slide, lap-slide (including regular acoustic guitar, dobro, Weissenborn-style, or you're using a tone-bar on your Strat), damping the sound of unused strings is absolutely essential to getting a the best sound with your slide. Conventional "old style" fingerpicks -- whether metal or plastic -- cover the soft-pad of your fingertips, making fast, delicate individual string-damping nearly impossible with your right hand. I personally love the tonal range and "touch" of bare fingers and fingernails. Unfortunately, my natural fingernails are very brittle. They're thick and they grow fast, but my nail ends fray, split, and break very easily -- especially in the winter season. The best "fix" for this problem came along in the '90's, when fingerstyle guitarists began using the KrazyGlue/acrylic-powder method of nail reinforcement. If you're a gigging musician, though, and you also use your hands for real-life activities like athletics, working on your motorcycle, raking leaves, whatever, you are going to break fingernails. When your melody-line disappears behind a no-nail picking finger, your Saturday night audience just isn't going to buy your Saturday afternoon riff that "the dog ate my fingernail." Alaska Piks are a real gig-saver. It doesn't take long to get used to them, and once you trim and file a set to match your personal finger-ends, the feel and sound is very close to that of your natural nails. Best of all, since Alaska Piks leave the meaty tips of your fingers (and a good bit of your soft fingerprint) exposed, string-damping while you play slide-guitar is exactly the same with Alaska Piks as it is with bare fingers. I personally prefer the "harder" sound of a conventional plastic thumb-pick when I use my Alaska Piks on my fingers. Other players prefer an Alaska Pik on their thumb, too -- it's a close call, either way. A set of Alaska Piks is really inexpensive. If you are a fingerpicker or a slide-guitar player, give them a try. I keep a spare set on hand in case I lose or break one (hard to do: they're tough little rascals!) Can't say I always use them -- but I certainly "... don't leave home without them."