Size matters

This is pretty much the only Black Friday deal for me this year. Good discounts happened at Gravity Picks so it was an easy decision since I'm a fan. I'm currently favouring the 003 XL version (left), this time I spec'd a smaller manifestation very close to a Jazz III, devoid of any grip enhancing features. The objective was to find out if size enhances grip. If it does, grip enhancements are unnecessary.

Verdict: Size influences grip. Two things: 1) Psychology 2) Picking style. 

• I'm too used to bigger picks so half the battle here was telling myself it isn't difficult dealing with something smaller, something out of my comfort zone. I failed miserably. Even before any picking happened, I dropped the darn pick.
• Many of us get along with the Jazz II-esque picks (regardless of the brand) because of our playing style. If you are not peddling bass notes furiously all the time, it would be a winning outcome. It was definitely not the case for me. More energy was expended trying to hold the pick in place & I got tired very quickly.

The circumstances discussed above might not hold true for some of us because we were conditioned to prefer a certain pick type regardless of our music genre. This is especially true if we started with a certain pick type & went on with it for a very long time before trying something else for variety's sake. For my case, I was with the Stubby 2mm for a long time & moved on to the 3mm version. Then on, I couldn't get along with something thinner or smaller. 

Might be giving away those failed picks 😔

Wrenches

If you do your own truss rod adjustments (to cure excessively bowed necks), be aware of the different wrench sizes needed to work on American (A) & non-American (B) instruments. If you have misplaced your wrenches then this is a reminder that you need to purchase the correct version for the guitar to be addressed. Do not blame the shops for selling you the incorrect version, you should know what to purchase.

Of frets...

The metal fittings in our guitar fingerboard, are the frets. The typical cross-section of a fret is pictured above. If you view your guitar neck from its sides, you'd see the above profile, less the barbs, which are hidden by the board's wood. The function of the barbs is to hold the fret in place after it's pressed/ hammered in. This leaves the bead/ crown exposed to come into contact with the strings. 

Before the frets reside in our guitar necks, they are cut from a very long piece of metal also referred to as the fret wire.

However, it's more convenient (not to mention economical) to sell fret wires in an already cut-up form as practiced by Dunlop, the leading fret wire manufacturer today.

When we talk about fret sizes, we are referring to the measurements pertaining to the crown's height & width. The exact size references are numerically assigned as depicted above. The layperson references are simpler; 'vintage' being the most restricted & 'jumbo' the most generous of them all. The contemporary electric guitar sports a fusion of both ends, the 6105 size is rather popular as it allows a good grip & not being overwhelming in feel, Joe Satriani has this in his Ibanez JS models. 

There are endless debates in countless forums lobbying for the 'best' fret size but it's all a matter of preference, much attributable to the individual's playing style. On a personal basis, I am adaptable to all fret sizes but inclining towards the jumbo & its derivatives- these supplement fast playing styles especially so for us dweebs with light touches.