Guthrie Trapp shares the picking hack that could help you play faster – and sound better

The guitar is an incredibly personable instrument, and picking techniques are one of the most unique aspects of playing of them all – there’s no ‘official’ way of attacking the strings.

Joe Satriani picks in a way that means he’s had to add a pickguard to the horn of his recently modded EVH Frankenstein. The Edge and Billy Duffy, meanwhile, are known for using the shoulder of the guitar pick, and Jeff Beck and Matteo Mancuso are two players who ditched the pick entirely.

Now, Nashville session heavyweight Guthrie Trapp has brought his oddball-but-effective picking method to the table. It’s one that he believes makes him play faster, and one that is crucial to his tone.

Trapp shared his picking hack during a recent appearance on Beato’s YouTube channel. And, much like the techniques adopted by his U2 and The Cult peers, the shoulder of the pick plays a key role.

“For electric I love the .70mm,” says Trapp. “The first person I saw do it when I was a kid was Sam Bush on the mandolin and he would use a Fender Heavy. When all these other people in bluegrass were using really thick picks and tortoise shell copies, he used a Fender Heavy with the round shoulder.

“I realized, not only does it sound a lot better to me, I think it's more direct contact. It's more surface are – you're not hearing the click of the pick as much, and there's less dipping down into the strings so I'm able to float across the strings a lot faster.”

As the guitarist developed his technique, a love for country music saw his pick attack get augmented by hybrid picking, which helps add even greater speed to his right hand.

“When I started listening to the country guys these fingers [talking about his second, third, and fourth digits] started slipping in,” he explains.

When asked by Beato whether he plays with long nails, Trapp explains it's actually the opposite for him and that he plays with “regular nails… I do a combination of, it's the flesh [of the finger] and the nail sort of reinforces it”.

Guthrie Trapp released an instrumental bluegrass record, In Stereo, with Tom Bukovac on May 1. It's the first time the players, who regularly star on each other's YouTube channels, have penned music together.

The record is out via Baked Alaska Records, with vinyl available to pre-order and CDs and digital downloads available today.