Fingerpicking

I ain't a master but I dig the sound of it nevertheless. :D You could start by browsing the song articles on this site, David covered a fair ammount of fingerpicking songs. Another thing would be to take the songs you learned and appergiate them. For example, let's take a song in 4/4, which means there are eight 8th notes in one measure. Grab a chord progression you like and use the following 'pattern':

bassnote-?-?-?-string above the bassnote-?-?-?

The ?-?-? part would be any pattern you'd like on the top three strings. For example, let's use a Em-C-Am-G pattern:

[C] [Am] [G]
E|----------------------------------------------------------------|
B|----0-------0-------1-------1-------1-------1-------0-------0---|
G|--0---0---0---0---0---0---0---0---2---2---2---2---0---0---0---0-|
D|------------------------2---------------2-----------------------|
A|--------2-------3---------------0-----------------------2-------|
E|0-----------------------------------------------3---------------|


Sounds sweet, right? And this works with every chord progression you like. You can change the ?-?-? pattern to any other thing you can come up with, and once you get the hang of it you can use some of the neat general tricks David shows in his lessons.

And once you're there you only need some lyrics and you've got yourself another original. :D

Here are a few links which may help you with fingerpicking:

http://www.tampaguitarlessons.com/intrototherighthand.htm

http://www.tampaguitarlessons.com/stringassignment.htm

Good Luck!

Many of us have used Mark Hanson's "Beyond Basics: Fingerstyle Guitar" book. It's not for absolute beginners, but if you can play a few chords and strum you should be able to get along with his lessons.

Many of us have used Mark Hanson's "Beyond Basics: Fingerstyle Guitar" book. It's not for absolute beginners, but if you can play a few chords and strum you should be able to get along with his lessons.

I have used many of Mark's books on fingerstyle....good stuff...I recommend them.

One thing I've found that really helped to improve my fingerstyle skills is taking songs you already know and playing them in a finger picking style instead of strumming. To begin with you will probably just arpeggiate (is that a word? :)) the chords, but with time and "the dreaded P word" you can start to throw in little bits here and there, a hammer on, pull off, vibrate etc. to really give it some feeling.

Other than that, create your own picking patterns / chord progressions and just play! I have found that playing something improvised in this way can lead to some very good (or very bad!) and very long pieces! :)

At present I am rather enjoying playing the following as fingerpicking;

Greenday: Time of your life (good riddance) (NB without any strumming, the whole song as picking :))
Bryan Adams: Summer of 69 (MTV unplugged version, again almost all picking)
The Who: Behind Blue Eyes

Have fun experimenting!

Pete

Thanks for the response people ..

Argen yeah mate that does sound sweet

I'll look up those songs you mentioned Pete

Thanks again

Sorry guys books I hate , ( I can't hear books )

Hilch :?:

Hi Hilch,
I didn't check out the websites posted and I haven't learned from a book or website. Someone showed me the classical technique one day and I learned a few songs and that was it so I'll give you fingerpicking as I see it. Before you start fingerpicking away, I think it is best that you decide what type of technique you want to use. Some people fingerpick with two fingers, three, four, and I am pretty sure flamenco uses all five. I am not sure if all of those are official techniques or just something people started doing for lack of a proper teacher. I would recommend to learn with what I am pretty sure is a classical approach which uses four fingers. The thumb gets the three bass strings, 6 5 4, the pointer gets the 3rd string, the middle finger gets the 2nd string, and the ring finger gets the 1st string. If you look at Arjen's exercise, you will use thumb, pointer, ring, pointer over and over again. The thumb will move around the top three strings. The vast majority of fingerpicking songs you won't have to break from this basic structure, you could even handle much of flamenco but I am not sure it is there proper technique and they do use for fast strokes multiple fingers on one string but that is pretty advanced and I would recommend mastering the basic classical style first. You want to get to the point where when you see the music you don't have to think what fingers play what strings. Another thing to keep in mind, when using a plectrum, people often anchor their hand to the pick guard via their pinky for more control, in fingerpicking you should never anchor your hand.

You may want to grow your nails long on your picking hand. Some people pick the string only with their fingernails. I prefer to pluck the string with my finger tip and finger nail - that sounds hard to explain. My nails are just a little longer than my finger tips, and I put the tip of my finger to the string and as I pull off the nail also strikes the string - only makes one noise. This way you can do even if your nail breaks but make sure you don't reach your fingers too far in between the strings just the tip of the finger. I do it this way because when I try to use just my nails there is a lot of extra sound and I lost some control.

Lastly, practicing by apregiating songs you already or your own chord progressions is good but make sure you keep learning new songs. Arpegiating There are plenty of songs that don't just follow going up and down arpeggios so keep challenging yourself. Also make sure you keep practicing your plectrum every day as well - from personal experience, you can lose that ability.

Happy Picking,
Purple

Thanks Purple

Here's a good site for fingerpicking lessons. It has great fingerpicking songs to check out. Video, Audio, Tab; just Great!

http://www.guitarforbeginners.com/forum/

Sorry guys books I hate , ( I can't hear books )

Me too - I only buy books that come with audio CDs.

As a beginner myself to fingerstyle I find the best place to
start was here of course! But another fantastic site is

http://www.ericlugosch.com/lessonhome.html

The first practice song is so cool and addictive to play.
Good luck and let us know how you do.

Stan