Traditional musicians in Northern India originally fashioned picks from coconut shell to play the Sarod, a multi-stringed fretless relative of the sitar and the rebab. In later years, the picks have been reduced in size and many players of the modern sarod have abandoned the coconut picks in favor of a new, more compact, pick made from ebony or rosewood.

European and American musicians traveling in India in the sixties brought these unique picks back with them and soon guitarists were discovering that they made superb picks for jazz! The tone that they produced was full and rich and immeasurably stronger than that produced by a celluloid, nylon--or even a tortoise-shell pick.