Guitar pick
At that point, the shift towards what became the superior plectrum material took place; the outer shell casing of an Atlantic hawksbill sea turtle, which would colloquially be referred to as tortoiseshell.
[4] In 1896, a Cincinnati man (Frederick Wahl) affixed two rubber disks to either side of a mandolin pick, which made it the first popular solution to the problem.
[5] Over the next two decades more innovations were made, such as corrugating the rounded surface of the pick or drilling a hole through the center to fit the pad of a player's thumb.
[6] A more notable improvement was attaching cork to the wide part of the pick, a solution first patented by Richard Carpenter and Thomas Towner of Oakland in 1917.
Eventually, pickers realized that all they needed was something to sink their fingerprints into so the pick wouldn't slip, such as a high relief imprinted logo.
[8] From the 1920s through the 1950s, D'Andrea Manufacturing would dominate the world's international pick market, providing to major businesses such as Gibson, Fender, and Martin.
The practice of using Hawksbill turtles for their shells would become illegal in 1973 as a provision of the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), forcing musicians to find something else to pick with.
Though originally meant as a replacement for ivory billiard balls, celluloid began being used for many things for its flexibility, durability, and relative inexpensiveness, making it a natural candidate as a material for guitar picks.
[10] Later, other materials, such as nylon (and less commonly wood, glass, or metal) would become popular for making guitar picks for their increased grip, flexibility, or tonal qualities.
[25] Some metal picks are even made from coins, which give players a unique tone as the alloys used in various coinage from around the world vary greatly.
[28] Each guitar pick made of wood has its own unique properties and signature sound as a result of differences in density, hardness and cellular structure.
[29] To withstand the rigors of picking and strumming only the hardest woods on the Janka scale are used for picks—including hardwoods like African Blackwood, Bocote, Cocobolo, Lignum vitae, Rosewood, and Zebrawood.
Glass is relatively hard and heavy in comparison to metal or plastic and therefore produces a greater range of tone[30] than these materials.
Likewise, factors such as size, shape, and weight have a much more dramatic effect on the overall tone making each individual glass pick sound and feel unique.
Some picks have small protrusions to make them easier to keep hold if the fingers start to sweat, which is very common on stage due to the hot lights.
His manic, aggressive picking style would wear through pickguards in short order, and wore a groove in his Fender Stratocaster, Number One, over his years of playing.
