Home › Forums › Banjo › Tips/Techniques › Thumb pick hitting head
- This topic has 6 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated 5 years, 4 months ago by Obie.
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April 26, 2018 at 11:51 am #23824AnonymousGuest
Hi, all. I’m looking for advice. I’m constantly hitting the thumb pick on the banjo head when picking the 5th string. I use a Golden Gate thumb pick that I’ve trimmed off about an 1/8″ and I don’t feel I should trim any more. I believe I either need to study/adjust my hand placement OR my picking motion, but would like some guidance from anybody who may have had this problem before and what he/she did to fix it. A picture is worth a thousand words so I will try to take a video and post a link within the next few days. Thanks in advance!
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May 2, 2018 at 12:20 pm #24475paulbParticipant
MtWawase, there is no need to trim the thum pick, I have been playing just over eight years and it
tookme awhile be for my thumb would not hit the head, just take is slow and easy if you try and rush
what you are playing the thumb will hit the head. it take,s time to train the thumb, the slower the
better, start with something simple alternating thumb roll ,forward and back word rolls ect, hope
this helps paul -
June 1, 2018 at 8:50 pm #27546AnonymousGuest
Hi, MtWawase. I just joined, so maybe you’ll not get this response, but I had the same problem. I fixed it by raising the armrest just a wee bit at a time until I found just the right height.
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June 8, 2018 at 12:07 pm #28219AnonymousGuest
Thanks for the advice, Paul and Top. I will try both and report back.
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July 2, 2018 at 3:28 pm #30640MikeKeymaster
There’s some good advice already mentioned here.
What I would watch out for with your thumb is making too much of a circular motion when bringing your thumb back up to play the next note. This is usually when your thumb pick hits the head, it’s when your coming back up after playing a note.
Try to work on bringing your thumb straight up after playing a note.
But if you can record a video that’d be great and I can take a look and comment further. Thanks!
-Mike
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April 5, 2019 at 11:26 am #69265embee75Participant
It usually gets better with time. But even the great ones hit their thumb pick. See the mark above the 5th string on Earl’s album cover. 🙂
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June 30, 2019 at 7:35 pm #82077ObieParticipant
I used to trim my thumb picks down too. Not sure if this will help or not, but I recently changed to a ProPik thumb pick and really like it.
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