Originally Posted by
dhergert
I just got back from a long weekend of jamming, and have firmly decided to change how I hold my pick. This is after having jammed the high first string into the quick under my index fingernail 4 or 5 times while playing tremolo, leaving my index finger bleeding and sore enough that I had to put the mandolin down and play banjo and double bass instead for a while.
I had been playing with a somewhat clenched hand where the thumb was holding the pick against the 1st joint in the index finger, and the index fingertip was pointed up toward the strings. In tremolo this position allowed me to shift the pick so a wider area hits the strings, allowing extremely easy double and triple stops. Most of the time when I wasn't playing tremolo this was not a problem but in tremolo the index finger was just naturally dropping and getting mixed in with the strings, and then suddenly OUCH!!! It was literally torture.
So, now, the right hand is in a relaxed half open position, the thumb and the index fingertip more casually holding the pick, with the fingertip pointing mostly downward, more perpendicular to the string, and protecting the quick and fingernail area.
This does change the pick angle and it makes the transition from single picking to tremolo very smooth. It also produces a more clear tremolo and it allows more clear fast melody picking within tremolo, which I really like. Double stops are still pretty easy to do, but it does make triple stops more difficult, something I'll be working on for the next few months.
I think what I like the best about this new right hand picking posture -- aside from not jamming the high #1 string under my fingernail anymore -- is the relaxed posture. It feels much more comfortable and easily sustained, and tension while I'm doing tremolo is pretty much gone.
Everyone's hands are different and what works for me may not work for other people... It's very possible that this pain driven change is going to be a very good thing for me in the long run. There's a learning curve to making this kind of change, but it's already showing a lot of promise. And my index finger feels much better.