Does anyone here actually use Ukulele picks?

I used them the first few times I picked up the instrument. After that, they just became another delay in my getting to play, so I gave them up. I realized, then, that I can do much more with the instrument with just my fingers.
 
I believe there are people who use picks and there are several performers like Brittni who prefer the use of a thumb pick. Others will use their fingers. IMO, comes down to personal preference.
 
This might be of interest to some. The following is an excerpt from an interview with JS back in '08 . . . the article can be found here.
“That’s because of Jeff Beck,” he says of the pick-less British guitar god. “I always used to use a pick — first flat picks, then thumb picks. The reason I liked the pick was I could get a lot more speed, real staccato. But then about seven years ago I heard Jeff Beck play, and I couldn’t believe he was making all of these sounds. He just brushes the strings with the palm of his hand, or he’ll use the side of his fingers. And he gets so much color. So that’s when I decided to throw those picks away and I started working on my hands, and that’s when my tone really started to develop.
 
Thumb pick

I use a thumb ppick, but it is cut down shorter from a guitar size. There are a number of great players who use a pick, and I include a long thumb nail. check out Herb Ohta Sr, Peter Moon.
 
I prefer to use my fingers, but sometimes a pick is needed, and if it is, I use either a Dava or a V-pick ultra-light medium curved tip.
 
No. But for me, that isn't a shocker. I have never been a much of a pick user, even when I played guitar.
 
When I first started to seriously practice my "strumming" first finger nail wore down and the flesh beneath started to bleed. At that time I bought one of the Fred Kelly freedom picks to wear over my first finger and loved it. I don't use it much anymore but if I want a really crisp almost percussive sound I use it and I carry it with me most of the time.

Nix
 
There should be nothing between you and the uke-the thumbpick can yield a lot of speed, though.
 
I use picks on guitar, mandolin, bouzouki, banjo...

But never on 'ukulele. :)
 
I strum the ukulele pretty hard and it wears down the nails on my index and middle finger as well.... I've been trying to work on my fingerpicking, but my brittle nails keep breaking, so I've been experimenting with fingerpicks. I've found that the Alaska Piks work really well - you can trim them down a shape them just like real nails. You do have to have a little bit of natural nail to get them to fit properly, but I've been really happy with them - they seem to work pretty well..... You can see them in several of my most recent YouTube clips. They really do allow me to get more clarity and volume, even strumming. Takes a few days to get used to them, but it's been worth it, for me, so far.....
 
I use a pick to play electric guitar. Never on the uke though. Using a pick on the ukulele removes too many picking and strumming possibilities. I feel like a pick is more like a handicap than an aid.
 
I don't, but if there was some technique or sound that I found I could only get with a pick, I might use it for that, and use fingers the rest of the time. That's what I do on bass. I used to play bass with a pick maybe 20% of the time depending on the sound I wanted (and how much I was pretending to be Chris Squire!), but for the past 10 or 15 years, I rarely play bass with a pick. I'm not even sure I could hold one for an entire song! But most of that is due to the type of music I play, which doesn't lend itself to pick playing so much.
I've messed with picks a little bit on ukulele, but not enough to discover anything really cool or useful that I can't do with my fingers. But as I said, if there was something I really liked that I could do with a pick only, I'd give it a shot.
 
Sungha Jung that Korean guy on youtube uses a thumb pick. He sounds pretty good...

Just saw him play a few hours ago. He was originally a guitar player gone uke player, which may be why he uses a pick. On a side note, the school girls in Thailand are absolutley crazy for him, like screaming Beatles crazy.

In it's hayday, good friend in my band (the infamous Khillbilly Caldera) often used a pick, it was a great contrast to the strumming.
 
There's an instructional video of the GREAT Peter Moon which shows him using a thumbpick, but it also looks like his index finger is taped up as well. Is it to secure a fingerpick, reinforcement of an artificial nail, or injury? He's getting pretty good index finger tone, so maybe there's a fingerpick too. (?)

Here's Mr. Moon playing Papalina Lahilahi on a 14 fret Martin tenor (Don't think of trying this on a 12 fret!). Anybody out there know why the finger is taped? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olOtWgQFhCo&feature=related.

Aloha.
 
I use thumb picks depending on what music I'm playing. I find thumb picks essential when I'm doing banjo runs / intro leads and I need quick punchy response from the G string
 
You mean felt picks? No. But, definitely picks. My favorite uke is a First Discovery kid's guitar converted to a 20" scale-length uke tuned linear ADF#B. I don't strum or grow nails, so a Zookies M-20 thumb pick and a shortened Dunlop finger pick on the index finger get the job done.

Doug
 
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I haven't up until now.
However, I now have a weekly gig where I have to play for three hours straight... And it's grinding my nail down to the quick, so I'm teaching myself how to use a pick. I'm messing around with different ideas of how to make something that slips over my nail, so I can play like normal, but until then...

I made a leather pick tonight out of an old belt and a whole lot of sandpaper to smooth out the edges so the sound is less clangy. It's working pretty well so far.
 
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