Sticky fingers

The only way I know to learn a song is to start slow. Indeed I remember reading an Irish mandolin tutorbook once that said "... if you can't play it slow - you can't play it fast!" Now that made sense to me and so I tried it with mandolin nad guitar and ... Hey presto! Things started to change. Now I don't beat myself up for taking my time and as a result the repertoire is beginning to increase. More importantly I am having a bundle of fun and it doesn't cost money!!!!! :lol:

Stick with it and don't worry about the speed just concentrate on accuracy. Once you have that you can speed up later.

D

Thanks for that Welshman. The only thing is that it's extremely slowly. Taking my finger off bit by bit so that the note does not ring out.

Sounds like you are doing it the right way to me. Better to get the tune right and be slow than screw it up but move around the guitar like Steve Vai. Mind - I'd be content to just be able to look like Steve Vai ... just once ;-)

One thing you might want to consider is playing alongside a metronome - after a while you should find your speeds starting to pick up

D

Thanks again. I'll keep plugging away. Maybe I should try to find a finger picking song that requires the root note to be plucked last :lol:

Sometimes fingers get a bit sweaty/sticky and taking your finger off a string will pull it enough to sound. When I get to that point I go and wash my hands, dry them then try again.

One other thing that happens sometimes, is that the finger tip goes off sideways just a tiny bit as it's lifting from the string and actually 'plucks' it a tiny bit. If it happens even when you're not holding the other notes of the chord down, it could be a sweaty fingertip; if it happens mostly when you're holding the rest of the chord down, then maybe that finger is going sideways as it's lifting.

You might also 'half-lift' the finger off that note so that it's already muted when you change to the next chord.

Also, since it's fingerpicking, you could sort of 'roll' the side of the picking thumb against the string as you lift off of the note. It just takes a quick little contact to mute, and then you're on to the next chord. One way to get a feel for that is to suspend the fingerpicking pattern for awhile, and just pluck with all your fingers at the same time, mute those strings with those same fingers by just putting them back on the strings, pluck, mute, etc., then hold the next chord, pluck, mute, pluck, mute. You're not doing the fingerpicking pattern now, just plucking all 3 or 4 notes simultaneously, then putting your fingers back on like you're going to pluck them again-except you wait a half a beat before plucking again.

You'll develop a feel for controlling the starting/stopping of each note, letting a string ring when you want, keeping it from ringing when you don't.

Best

I also play Everybody Hurts. For that particular chord change, I slide my fretting hand thumb up and hook it over the neck during the change from G to D - the thumb mutes the 6th string.

Wow. I've always been impressed by the knowledge of people when I've been a lurker at this site but that is some reply. Great tips - I can't wait for my work day to finish to give them a try.

Some of the suggestions are obvious when you think about it - mute the string - a half lift.

I had tried washing my hands so had actually discounted the 'sticky' theory but it was the only idea I had.

I guess I was concentrating on gtting it 'right' rather than how to deal with theconsequences of the problem.

Thanks a lot Demo and Colorado.