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

Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka hur elgitarrlärare går tillväga när de undervisar i elgitarrspel med plektrum och vilka de största tekniska utmaningarna är som uppkommer för studenten. Datainsamlingen har genomförts genom kvalitativa intervjuer med tre erfarna elgitarrpedagoger. Studien utgår från ett hermeneutiskt perspektiv. Resultatet visar att de tre pedagogerna till stor del låter eleverna själva välja hur de ska spela. Pedagogerna nämner några vanliga fel som eleverna gör, till exempel: de förankrar inte fingrarna eller handen i gitarren, plektrumet trycks för långt in mellan strängarna och att de håller plektrumet för hårt eller för löst. / The purpose of this study was to investigate how electric guitar teachers go about teaching plectrum techniques and what the greatest challenges are for the student. The data collection has been conducted through qualitative interviews with three experienced electric guitar teachers. The study is based on a hermeneutic perspective. The result shows that the three educators largely allow students to choose how to play. The pedagogues mention some common mistakes that the students do, for example: they do not anchor their fingers or hand to the guitar, the plectrum is pushed too far in between the strings and that the plectrum is held either to firm or to soft.