To Pick or Not to Pick

I absolutely hate using a pick, refused to use one much to the frustration of my guitar teacher years ago.  I do not even own a pick/plectrum and yet I have 3 guitars.
 
Are not a great guitarist though, as I play for pleasure only, and do not practice as much as I should, and are way out of practice, but when I do play I like to feel the strings, and keep it simple.  I do not play electric though, just acoustic, finger picking style, with little to no strumming.
 
My brother would always use a pick, but he was more into playing chords and a little bit of lead for 80's style rock band music with his electric guitars, when he was younger and at school he won some state music awards doing just this.
 
It all depends on what you want to do, and what works for you, that's my 2 cents worth.

Rob[atSound-Rehab]
IMHO it's all just driven by the sound you want to achieve; pick or not to pick makes a major difference, especially also for bass; even where the pick meets the strings has a very noticeable impact ...
 
sometimes the groove would be much easier to get without the pick, but the sound is not there, so you got no choice and use the pick until you nail it ... vice versa applies, too

+1 it definitely depends on what you are going for...Soft single string arpeggios...I typically do these without a pick...But there are also times when I want it very bright so the pick comes into play.  Also try picks made from different materials.  That changes the sound as well.  There are metal ones, wood ones, different grades of nylon & plastic and even stone picks.  I have mostly plastic, but if you want something extra bright, try these:
 
https://www.amazon.com/Cool-Picks-Ultra-Guitar-Pick/dp/B00ZSPQF9M/ref=pd_sim_sbs_267_3?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=E0SZR2AP6M3BMDACTJ9M
 
 

I abandoned the pick more than 20 years ago. It wasn't a conscious decision - I just found myself playing without one more often than not, then at some point realized that I preferred it. To me the main attraction is that you feel more "in touch" with the guitar - sorry for the imagery but when I play with a pick it almost feels like wearing a condom. There's that extra layer of plastic between you and the instrument. 
 
I find I can be more expressive with a pick, particularly in terms of dynamics. And because I feel psychologically closer to the guitar then it seems to facilitate the flow of musical ideas from my brain to the strings. 
 
For single note runs, I use a combination of my thumb and 2nd finger. I find I can play quite fast with them. It'll never be as fast as alternate picking with a pick, but once you add hammers and pulls you can play very fast legato runs along with the best of them. I don't play metal styles but used to in the past with a pick, and I feel quite confident that I could hold my own with a metal player (if not along the lines of someone crazy fast like Paul Gilbert). 
 
Another advantage of using fingers - you can break out into fingerstyle at the drop of a hat, and this adds variety and interest to your playing. I self-studied Bach on classical guitar for years and so my fingers are quite adept at playing independent lines simultaneously - sometimes I'll subconsciously drop a bit of Bach style counterpoint into a lead line. I don't think I would be attempting that if I was using a pick. 
 
Playing with fingers is also great for sweep picked arpeggios and rakes. Again I feel like you can do it with a lot more expression when playing fingerstyle. You might also find that you develop your left hand technique in other directions in order to take advantage of your right hand fingers. For instance, I play a lot of three or four note runs which involve contiguous scale tones played on adjacent strings, sometimes utilizing open strings in the process. Take the pentatonic scale, there are a number of positions in which it's quite comfortable to play 3 contiguous notes of it on the G, B and E strings as long as you're comfortable with a bit of a stretch. I've developed that technique to involve the lower strings as well. If you really study it, you can play whole scale runs using a combination of adjacent and open strings, and you get a really nice harp like sound as some of the notes run into each other. You'll find yourself playing runs that would be extremely difficult with a pick. Danny Gatton was the master of this three finger "roll" technique. 
 
As for hard versus soft, well I keep my fingernails short, but just long enough so there's an edge on them to give a bit of a percussive bite. I used to grow them longer for classical playing but found that they broke too easily when I switched to steel string. When they're short they break less easily. And there is a strumming technique which utilizes the nail surfaces, giving a sound that is every bit as percussive as pick strumming if you stick at it. You strum down with the top surface of the fingernails of the first three (or four) fingers, then strum up with the top surface of the thumbnail. Bit of a flamenco style strum. When you develop your fingers in this style you can play anything a pick based rhythm guitarist can, including high tempo funk. 

Slugbaby
Both!
I saw a guitarist in New Orleans that used to be a street magician.  He would alternate between using a pick and his fingers incredibly quickly.  Apparently he "stores" the pick between his fingers while fingerpicking, using the same technique he learned "hiding a quarter."  Brilliant.

I do this also...when certain parts of the song call for "fingerpicking" I fold the pick up into 
my fingers and fingerpick, then, when done, drop it right back into position...

Guys,
 
Thanks for hard core perspectives on this, and the principle that it doesn't have to be all or none. Learn both.
 
One of my favorite CD's given to me by a late relative was Fingerpicking Styles. Was some kind of contest where they collected one song from the winners and published. Instrumental only. Ground rules were that it had to be an acoustic guitar. No pick allowed. No effects, just an acoustic and a microphone.
 
Some beautiful pieces, and just went to tear down the false concept that girls can't play guitar.
 
John

 

Dammit Guys,
 
Gimme a break...
Have a whole day off full of projects to do, had a whole day anyway...
First you all start into the poetry. Had me all choked up and emotional for several hours. Just about had it back together enough to do house repairs, then Bit puts links to YouTube clips. One song leads to another and another. Before I know it it's 6:30 and nothing got done.
 
Wife glaring at me with the hedge trimmers in one hand, and soon to be my neck in the other.
 
It's all you guys' fault that my front yard still looks like a jungle.
 
John

The first time I saw Clapton he had Knopfler as his second guitarist. I had heard and read so much about Clapton that there was no way this guy was going to live up to all the bs hype.

When they were playing "Wonderful Tonight" the hair on the back of my head was standing up. My wife looked at me and said "The hair on the back of my head is standing up!" I knew at that moment I was witnessing great guitarist delivering the goods.

Saw Clapton several years later and it wasn't the same. Him and Knopfler were pushing each other.

I just had to share.

Trying to give up the ole plastic crutch ..huh ? John ....IMHO that may be too extreme a way to approach it ...
 
I have my right hand developed to a pretty high degree just from having practiced certain things along the way ....
 
A very natural way to incorporate playing with out a pick can be achieved by backing off on the goals and expectations in the first place ...
 
By that I mean kick back , grab your guitar noodle around by grabbing some chords first and play the whole chord at once with your fingers ...then play it again this time repeating a bass note while letting the chord ring ...
then play a chord and play a lead or a melody over it while still holding the chord .....
take a chord progression you like of a tune and play it very slowly and do little variations ...
do little run through s where you hit the chord and then play a little run over that chord in the progression ..
do that for all the chords in the progression ....
play the first chord as a chord , play the second chord as a run , play the 3 rd chord as a bass part , play the 4 th chord as an arpeggio ......make a game out of it and just have a little fun doing it 
I used to love doing that to a tune called Little Wing ......
 
Another thing you can do is if you practice your scales , spend a little time doing them only with your fingers ...
the thing is not to compare your finger style approach to your picking approach ....
doing that is like telling a person why can't you be like your ( fill in the blank -------) he or she can bla bla bla
it just doesn't work ....a blade of grass grows a days worth of growth in a day
 
I've been face to face with all the musicians that have been mentioned in this thread so far once upon a time  
that and two bucks will get me a cup of coffee ......
 
In my past , the people that impressed me the most were the Jazz players ...some of those guys could play faster and cleaner w out a pick than I could play with a pick ...
 
Joe Pass is a perfect example for playing finger style and blazing leads ....
George Benson , had his thumb doing octave stuff while he was up picking leads at the same time .....
Some of Jimi's  best playing was done w out a pick ...
Tommy Emmanuel has very high skill in fingerstyle and holly cwap lol when he does those harp harmonics ...
 
There's probably dozens of players I could mention in all genre's of music that can do some real tasty playing w out the use of a plectrum ....
 
I can't speak for any of them , but I can tell you this ...in my case I happen to enjoy playing with out a pick often only because it helps me achieve a certain tone and feel I can not get when I'm playing with a pick only ...
the same is also true for me when it come to using a pick  over just the fingers ....
don't even get me started because my normal way of playing involves me playing with a pick and fingers at the same time
 
good luck man hang in there ,
 
Flying Fingers Fernandez
 
 

This subject can be very serious ... here's one for a little comic relief  ..
 
  
 
Kenny

Gothrie Govan and Frank Gambale use a pick and look at how good they are. I think if you are into sweep picking then the pick is the only way.
 
I used to play with a bass player in a Jazz ensemble many years ago who played electric bass instead of acoustic bass and he used a pick too. It was a sound like no other. Incredible. It suited the drum sound I was making at the time too.
 
It shouldn't really matter in the end. It is how the music moves you. It either does or it does not. Pick or no pick. Sounds like being able to do both opens up more possibilities. Form a sound engineers point of view though plectrum playing for (acoustic) rhythm parts often records better.
 
 

Hey John ,
 
Here's a laid back finger style thing where you can see the right hand and what it's doing
every thing I did was pretty much mentioned in my other post ...
 

 
Kenny