Home Forums Banjo Tips/Techniques Thumb pick hitting head

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    • #23824
      Anonymous
      Guest

      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!

    • #24475
      paulb
      Participant

      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

    • #27546
      tophatbanjo
      Participant

      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.

    • #28219
      Anonymous
      Guest

      Thanks for the advice, Paul and Top. I will try both and report back.

    • #30640
      Mike
      Keymaster

      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

    • #69265
      Avatar of martinbembee75
      Participant

      Earl Album Cover

      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. 🙂

    • #82077
      Avatar of obieObie
      Participant

      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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