The aim of this study is to contribute with knowledge about how guitar teachers converse about the importance of the guitar pick in electric guitar studies and how the guitar plectrum mediates actions and knowledge.The research questions are the following:What comes across as being characteristic in guitar teachers ́ discourse about the guitar plectrum in electric guitar studies?Do guitar teachers describe their students ́ use of the guitar plectrum to be decreasing, if so, how?

The method for the gathering of data was semi structured qualitative interviews. The informants consist of four guitar teachers, three of which currently teach or have taught at upper secondary school. The fourth teacher currently teaches at a music collage and has previously taught at a post upper secondary school education known in Swedish as “folkhögskola”. The criteria for someone to eligible as an informant in this study was that they had to have taught guitar between the ages of 15-19 which all the informants have. Terms from the sociocultural perspective were used to analyze the result. What stood out as characteristic in guitar teachers ́ discourse about the2guitar plectrum in electric guitar studies was that their experience of the usage of the guitar plectrum were similar to one another in the sense that they do not consider the plectrum a necessity in guitar playing and that they consider the use of a plectrum in contrast to the use of fingers to be equally important in terms of playing technique. According to the guitar teachers ́ experiences their students ́ use of the guitar plectrum has remained unchanged. The choice of either choosing to play guitar with a plectrum or with fingers does not seem to rely on one technique being better than the other but rather seems to be affected by the type of person, situation, preferences and individual cause. The reason for the guitar teachers ́ similar experiences of the plectrum and their experiences that their students ́ use of the guitar plectrum has remained unchanged may have its explanation in the guitar ́s history, culture and in music teaching traditions in Sweden.

Keywords: plectrum, plectrum usage, guitar, guitar teacher, mediating, tool