Right technique for hybrid picking (nails or fingertips?)

After hybrid picking day (luckily for me is just one day :p), my ring finger (right hand) ended like this:

I guess is my technique… As you can see, I have long nails and use them to play classic guitar, but as strings are very different, it doesn’t felt right when using nails in electric guitar, so I used my fingertips. Should I use nails? Or I just have to improve my fingertips technique? Anyone else got blisters when starting on hybrid pickiing?

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Are you giving us the finger :rofl:

I wouldn’t worry about it, I would stop when it’s painful but continue to include hybrid in your practice. Pretty quickly your skin will harden and you won’t feel them anymore.

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I am in no way qualified to answer, but I use the spot where the nail and the flesh meet. I have short, normal length nails.

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:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: it’s the ring finger not the middle :stuck_out_tongue:

Thanks for your advice, I’ll surely keep practicing hybrid as I loved what you can do with it

@alexanderrobert thanks for your comment :wink:

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Well… when i was at the beginning i used to have nails but after many months and increasing speed, nails make me play dirty cause nails hit strings and, with a lot of gain, they make a lot of noise. So i cut them.

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Yes, the same to me, feels dirty when playing with nails

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I went through a classical guitar period a few years back when I also studied a few Flamenco techniques and Sevillanas. That’s the only time I let my nails grow and even put some hardener on them :rofl: (which felt super weird but, believe me or not, the hardest part was actually to explain to my girlfriend that I did NOT want to let my nails grow on the other hand :joy::joy::joy:).

But during that time I also tried playing electric guitar and, honestly, in my experience, nails and electric guitar strings do NOT go well together :roll_eyes:… At least not past a very reasonable length. If I were you, I’d rather cut my nails and buy those “plucking rings”… I don’t know what they’re called exactly :sweat_smile: but that’s what they look like, rings with a kind of “claw-shaped” extensions, if you really want that sound. But you can also choose to play your nylon strings with no nails, a lot of classical players do it… You get a softer sound but it still works.

As for the blisters, @Giorgio is right. They are inevitable, no matter how you position your right hand :wink:. But your skin will eventually thicken.

Edit : I saw a few videos were you can see Mark Knopfler’s right hand and his nails seem to be cut. That doesn’t prevent him from playing electric guitar brilliantly!

This is sort of what I was thinking about but there are some other kinds… https://images.fr.shopping.rakuten.com/photo/lot-3-onglets-metalliques-de-doigt-metal-acier-9474-guitare-9474-banjo-9474-basse-1024402031_L.jpg

How would you recommend increasing speed for hyrbid picking? I’m stuck at the same tempo even after lots of metronome practice.

Not sure really. Perhaps the separate practice of finger picking (using just the fingers that you use with the hybrid picking technique) for a week or two with the separate practice of alternate picking. Then try hybrid picking once you’ve perfected those two techniques…
But that’s only a mere suggestion :roll_eyes: … Hypbrid picking is not a technique I’ve been practicing a lot over the last year.