Bluegrass stalwart Molly Tuttle knows a thing or two about the genre: she has, after all, firmly established herself as bluegrass’ premier young talent, with her sizable repertoire winning accolades (and Grammys), and her flatpicking, clawhammer, and crosspicking prowess earning her fans that extend beyond the genre’s circle.
For those who are still dipping their toes into bluegrass techniques, Tuttle’s plectrum recommendations may prove useful, especially as the style requires flatpicks that enhance articulation and volume while facilitating faster playing.
“This is kind of an uncommon one to use, but I have a Dunlop Jazztone 208 – it’s really thick, and so a lot of people don’t like them, but that’s just kind of what I’ve been using since I was 10 years old,” Tuttle tells Guitarist.
“A lot of people who play flatpick guitar love the BlueChips. And those are a little more expensive, and they make all different shapes and sizes. I think they’re handmade, so you get really nice bevel on the pick. It’s more of a handcrafted type of pick. These [referring to her Dunlop pick] are more mass-produced.”
However, Tuttle asserts that she doesn’t “have a specific recommendation” – but recommends that players flirting with the genre keep an eye out for their plectrum’s thickness.
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“I think if your pick is too thin, it’s going to sound really floppy, and you really need to be able to get a lot of volume. So that’s why I use the thicker picks. That’s not going to like bend when I’m hitting the strings really hard.”
Elsewhere in the interview, when asked how one can master improvising, Tuttle looks back on her own journey and reveals that she started by learning “a bunch of fiddle tunes”.
“I just found tiny ways to vary them,” she explains. “So if I remember, one of the first tunes that I learned to play was called Salt Creek [a standard bluegrass fiddle tune].
“[I was] adding in little things like sliding up to the first note, and then maybe adding a pull-off, stuff like that, [that] can make the song sound a lot more kind of exciting. And you’re still basically playing the melody, but you’re just adding in a little tiny variation here and there.”
Ahead of last year’s EP release, Tuttle shared her thoughts on the differences between metal and bluegrass shredding – and why improvisation remains at the center of her live set, and even in the studio.
