It's a hot tune, and you tap your foot and drum your fingers to the music. They're both natural rhythm instruments. You're about to discover a third.
Run your finger the seam down the outside seam of the right leg of your jeans. It's stiff and easy to locate without looking. Since you're sitting down, reading this, the seam on your thigh is horizontal. Pull out a flatpick and snap it down across the seam, as though the seam were a string. Satisfying snap, right?
Spend a minute playing with that, finding different sounds you can make, then turn on the music.
Blue jeans are the perfect, portable musical instrument. The seam's always there, and the coin pocket holds your flatpick when it's not in use. You don't have to pick them up or sling them across your shoulder, you're wearing them. When you're not, you're probably also not playing music.
What it adds, over tapping your feet, is a way to get more comfortable with your flatpick. Particularly if you're new to flatpicking -- if you're coming from the fiddle or finger-style guitar -- it lets you get hours in with your pick without having to have an instrument in your lap. No one thinks you're odd, and it's unobtrusive. Your right hand can work out the pick directions for the melody in your head without picking up anything with strings.
