Is It Okay To Play Banjo Without Picks?

Those metal fingerpicks dangling from your fingers are a serious nuisance in the beginning.  They are uncomfortable, feel strange, and poke out.   Do you HAVE to use them?  Are they required to play banjo?  Let’s dive into this question.

Can I Play Banjo Without Picks?

As someone who plays both with and without picks, I feel qualified to answer this question. 

The answer depends on some important context.  A few questions to ask yourself before making the decision to put them on or toss them out:

• What styles of music are you trying to play?
• Whose playing would you like to emulate?
• What sort of sound do you want?
• What are you trying to achieve?

Can I play Bluegrass Banjo without Picks?

No, you can’t. Sorry if I’ve bursted your bubble. Why?

• Tradition
• Tone
• Speed
• Volume

You can play without picks and call it bluegrass banjo, but it isn’t informed of the tradition. Genres have a historical tradition and there are confines within that tradition. Earl Scruggs, J.D Crowe, Sonny Osborne, Don Reno, Sammy Shelor, Allen Shelton, etc. The list of players that used picks in bluegrass goes on forever.

The list of bluegrass players that don’t use picks? I can’t think of any famous ones. There may be a handful over the years. Most didn’t play with a traditional bluegrass band.

If you are trying to emulate the sounds of Earl, Reno, or Crowe, it’s not going to happen without picks. First and foremost, you can’t get bare fingers to approach the sound of metal fingerpicks. After all, one of the most important characteristics of bluegrass banjo is the tone. For example, there’s no way to sound like Ralph Stanley on “Clinch Mt Backstep” without picks.

Bluegrass banjo is often SUPER fast. Playing at these speeds without picks is difficult. The metal fingerpicks, when shaped right, will glide right off the strings with less resistance than your bare fingers. Sure, you can play really fast without picks; however, you can’t play fast and maintain the bluegrass tone mentioned above.

Picks have more volume than playing with the flesh or nails of your fingers. As someone that has attempted to play bare fingers in a loud bluegrass jam, I’ll tell you, your fingers will be a mess after a few jams. Even the old classic style players that used gut strings had finger problems when trying to play at louder and louder volumes. Instead of “You’ll shoot your eye out”, it’s more like, “You’ll tear your fingers off!”

If you want to play BLUEGRASS, go ahead and suffer through the fingerpick oddity. I know they hurt in the beginning. You’ll get used to them and save yourself the time and trouble of having to re-learn later on.

Can I play Other Styles/Genres Without Picks?

You betcha! I do it ALL THE TIME.

Want to play some slow jazz ballads on the banjo? You don’t need metal fingerpicks for that. Want to play some popular Beatles tunes on the banjo? Once again, picks aren’t necessary.

Is your goal primarily to accompany yourself as a solo singer-songwriter? Then picks aren’t necessary. However, I caution you making a definite decision about picks in this scenario. You might want to have a larger band later on and picks can come in handy. Maybe you’ll want to play a variety of music on the banjo? Once again, picks come in handy.

If you want to play old-time two finger style, you certainly don’t need picks.

If you want to play clawhammer, then you don’t need a pick or picks either.

However, what if you want to play like Bela Fleck (I’m calling Bela non-bluegrass because he is most of the time)? Look at Bela Fleck’s right-hand, what do you see? A thumb pick and two fingerpicks. This decision is easy. Look at the people whose sound you are drawn too. What do they do? Do that.

If I want to sound like Morgan Sexton, I’m not going to do something completely opposite of what he does and hope to achieve that sound.

Hopefully, this helps answer this question. Whether you should use picks is not some yes or no question regardless of the context. Now, onto another question I get about picks:

I’ve decided to use picks, but can I practice without them?

Be careful here young Skywalker.  I’ve played a lot with picks and a lot without them.  Here is what I observed after thirty years of doing this:

• Playing without picks for too long will mess up your pick playing
• Playing with picks has less of an affect on pick-less playing

What I mean is, if I practice without picks for days, when I go to put the picks back on and play bluegrass, I can notice a difference.  Not one for the better.  My advice: If you’re going to play bluegrass and commit to picks, make them a REGULAR CONSISTENT focus of your practice.  

If I notice that after thirty years of playing, then a beginner student is going to experience even worse.  You are better off committing to playing with picks most of the time while throwing in bare-finger playing a few times a week.  

On the other hand, if you learn to play without the picks in addition to the picks, I’ve found that playing with my picks doesn’t mess up my bare finger playing.  Hope that makes sense!

Wishing you the best on your banjo journey.  Speaking of such, consider signing up for my BANJO JOURNEY NEWSLETTER.  I’ll send you notifications when I update the blog or post new TAB offerings.  I also send out FREE TIPS.  It goes out three times a month max.

More on fingerpicks- How to wear Fingerpicks.