Jean - Charles Dugain
Pioneer Of The Ergonomic Pick Since 1982
History
My vocation as plectrier started one day, a long time ago ...!
My brother Yann played guitar and often lost his pick, from the top of my few months I picked it up and gave him back tirelessly.
Later, playing myself of this instrument, the small plastic triangle was still as undisciplined, sliding out of my fingers, harming my concentration on the music. Years later, an afternoon, I borrowed my music teacher's pick and I forgot to give him back. In the evening, the fate wants that he died in a car accident and my grief was such that, in his memory, I planted his pick on his grave.
So over time, the plectrik seed has sprouted, the intimate and intense relationship between the guitar and I forced osmosis between the guitarist and his instrument. This link vital is born: the Dugain pick.
1968: birth of my passion for the guitar.
Shortly after, I am a very diligent learning with a master of the guitar and music: Joseph Dejean which disappear on June 9th 1976, therefore condemning me to continue my training as an autodidact.
At the age of 13, I gave my first concerts within a group in the houses of culture in Paris region and begins to teach guitar and music theory ongoing individual and collective.
1977: birth of the pick "DUGAIN.
Having encountered many years of problems with all picks on the market, particularly the grip problems due to perspiration of the fingers that hold it, I come to discover the non-slip qualities of wood which I produced my first picks 'House '.
Some guitarists colleagues therefore started asking me to make them.
1982: Birth of the ergonomic pick.
In view of the success and eventual commercialization of this new plectrum, I fills me with the INPI as to the possibilities of protection to which I aspire. The response was that there was no possible protection, the mediator already existed, the simple transformation of material is not patentable, should there is a transformation at the level of the form so that it can be subject of a patent application. It is after many cogitations that I view by making a pick in a piece of 4 mm thick, I could dig fingerprints on each of the faces and then was an optimum grip. The non-slip qualities of wood, allied with these footprints with a suction cup effect made a pick that could now be forgoten between fingers, considerable advantage when you know how it is difficult to maintain a standard plectrum in place.
It only remained to trim the tip for 4 mm thick should be reduced at least to attack the rope on the cutting edge of the pick. So I began to become specialist in the size of tips of picks discovering that every guitarist could need a different point according to its shape and also each shape offered a different sound, the hottest; thick tip, to the brightest; sharp tip.
May 1985: More than 2000 filings, I won the 4th Prize (out of 5) of the entrepreneurs contest organized by the Fondation Jacques Douce. I presented my «ergonomic picks» project but also a project of boxes in precious wood which inspired to me by the plectrum being quite adequate to be tightened in a pretty setting. I had previously filed another patent pertaining to a particular manufacture small boxes with hinged cut in the mass held by magnets and a system of closure also magnetic and invisible.
In 1990, I have about 40,000 picks distributed in several European countries, the United States, distributed by Jim Dunlop Co, the largest international distributor of accessories for musical instruments, to the Canada and the Japan.
Today, with my partner Isabel, we offer a varied catalogue that we will continue to add new models to satisfy a greater number of guitarists.
Plectrumly Yours !
My brother Yann played guitar and often lost his pick, from the top of my few months I picked it up and gave him back tirelessly.
Later, playing myself of this instrument, the small plastic triangle was still as undisciplined, sliding out of my fingers, harming my concentration on the music. Years later, an afternoon, I borrowed my music teacher's pick and I forgot to give him back. In the evening, the fate wants that he died in a car accident and my grief was such that, in his memory, I planted his pick on his grave.
So over time, the plectrik seed has sprouted, the intimate and intense relationship between the guitar and I forced osmosis between the guitarist and his instrument. This link vital is born: the Dugain pick.
1968: birth of my passion for the guitar.
Shortly after, I am a very diligent learning with a master of the guitar and music: Joseph Dejean which disappear on June 9th 1976, therefore condemning me to continue my training as an autodidact.
At the age of 13, I gave my first concerts within a group in the houses of culture in Paris region and begins to teach guitar and music theory ongoing individual and collective.
1977: birth of the pick "DUGAIN.
Having encountered many years of problems with all picks on the market, particularly the grip problems due to perspiration of the fingers that hold it, I come to discover the non-slip qualities of wood which I produced my first picks 'House '.
Some guitarists colleagues therefore started asking me to make them.
1982: Birth of the ergonomic pick.
In view of the success and eventual commercialization of this new plectrum, I fills me with the INPI as to the possibilities of protection to which I aspire. The response was that there was no possible protection, the mediator already existed, the simple transformation of material is not patentable, should there is a transformation at the level of the form so that it can be subject of a patent application. It is after many cogitations that I view by making a pick in a piece of 4 mm thick, I could dig fingerprints on each of the faces and then was an optimum grip. The non-slip qualities of wood, allied with these footprints with a suction cup effect made a pick that could now be forgoten between fingers, considerable advantage when you know how it is difficult to maintain a standard plectrum in place.
It only remained to trim the tip for 4 mm thick should be reduced at least to attack the rope on the cutting edge of the pick. So I began to become specialist in the size of tips of picks discovering that every guitarist could need a different point according to its shape and also each shape offered a different sound, the hottest; thick tip, to the brightest; sharp tip.
May 1985: More than 2000 filings, I won the 4th Prize (out of 5) of the entrepreneurs contest organized by the Fondation Jacques Douce. I presented my «ergonomic picks» project but also a project of boxes in precious wood which inspired to me by the plectrum being quite adequate to be tightened in a pretty setting. I had previously filed another patent pertaining to a particular manufacture small boxes with hinged cut in the mass held by magnets and a system of closure also magnetic and invisible.
In 1990, I have about 40,000 picks distributed in several European countries, the United States, distributed by Jim Dunlop Co, the largest international distributor of accessories for musical instruments, to the Canada and the Japan.
Today, with my partner Isabel, we offer a varied catalogue that we will continue to add new models to satisfy a greater number of guitarists.
Plectrumly Yours !