Fingerstyle as solo instrumental

[EllaMom]

There is another thread here on fingerstyle, with a post by JonPR that says:

"There's basically two kinds of fingerstyle - OK, more than that, but two in this sense: (1) a way of breaking up chords to accompany a song (vocal); (2) instrumental pieces for solo performance (no vocal).

Most of the lessons you've seen are probably on the kind of patterns you'd use to accompany vocals (type (1) - so they would usually have no melody (because you'd be singing that)."

Me, the OP again. What JonPR posted was very helpful, and helped me understand why I'm so frustrated. I'm spending too much time on my own studying things like Travis picking, when in fact I am only interested in playing fingerstyle as solo instrumental. No singing. Just me, alone. I don't know whether fingerstyle patterns, including Travis style, even pertains to what I want to do!

I don't want to learn classical pieces, either, so classical guitar lessons aren't what I am looking for. I'm also not much interested in old blues. I want to recognize and love the songs I learn. My interest is the Great American Songbook: Moon River, Autumn Leaves, Over the Rainbow, etc., and possibly some golden pop standards that have beautiful melodies: Tears in Heaven, Imagine, etc.

I have lots of songbooks that have tab along with notation. They are supposedly easy arrangements. But I struggle, especially with figuring out fingering on the fretboard. Tab doesn't provide fretboard fingering. I try to take a cue from the underlying chord, as listed above each measure. But that doesn't always work out. So then I wonder if I need to go back to basics, at which I turn to Justin Sandercoe online, or my fingerstyle exercise books. But these resources seem to be focused primarily on picking patterns used when fingerstyle is an accompaniment to singing. So It's not as helpful as I want.

When I get stuck, I turn to one-on-one lessons. The teachers I've have each helped me grow, somewhat. But there's always something missing, primarily a curriculum that builds on itself.

AAACCCKKKK!!!! I'm stuck and I'm frustrated as heck.

Thanks!

[dkstott]

I too play fingerstyle solo guitar.. no voice... While you may never get a lot of gigs doing it... it's what I enjoy!!. I switch from Jazz standards, Beatles tunes, semi-classical pieces... Anything that peaks my interest.

Check out Rolly Brown's lessons over on Stefan Grossman's sight... Rolly teaches jazz standard fingerstyle on several of his DVD lessons.

[Pitar]

Fingerpicking instrumental solos are scads of fun but they are also fairly complex. Teaching them would be a fete accompli and take a whole lot of time.

I didn't take any formal lessons, in the conventional sense. I listened to songs, repeatedly, and worked them out note-for-note. After that was accomplished I rendered them to my own ear. I started out fingerpicking and went from songs to instrumentals of them, meaning, I rendered the lyrical melody score with additional embellishment to fill in the spaces. For me it came easily so I never thought of the complexity of it. Now, you are looking to play in a similar manner and my first thought is how to teach something like that.

It would be daunting to teach, I think, because we're assuming the skills needed are ready when they're not. Such skills naturally come from evolving as a player, and predominantly from instrumental solo work and not before.

I think what I'm trying to say is if you desire to play instrumental solos you first need to develop the skills to render them and, by that time, you're already playing them.

[Wyllys]

EllaM...

What song/tune have you known your whole life? Try using that one deepest, most familiar melody as the doorway to the kingdom.

I was once called on to play for a young couple who were taking their first "trip" together and it was not going well for them. When I got to the house they were clinging to each other and had pretty much lost it. I sat down and quietly started finger-picking "Shortnin' Bread".

They calmed down fairly quickly and I started to play something else, but they went back into a panic, so...more " Shortnin' Bread". I played, re-played, improvised, transposed and re-nobberated that tune for over three hours until they could cope without the music.

I found more in that one tune than you'd believe and can still go back and find more. It's what I call one of my "coat hook" tunes, one to which I can return regularly and incorporate interesting things I find in other tunes. Having a couple of these "reference tunes" has helped me build a style and repetoire which I find very satisfying.

And it's only taken five decades of having fun to get here...

Good luck. Enjoy playing daily, critique yourself every three or four years.

[tbeltrans]

If you can learn the HOW behind putting these arrangements together for yourself from Steven King, that might be the way to go.

Another possibility is Adam Rafferty: www.adamrafferty.com

I have not studied with either, but did attend a few Taylor sponsored seminars with Steven King. I watched some introductory videos from Adam Rafferty on his site. Two different approaches.

In the absence of that, you can learn to work them out yourself. Here are a couple of quick guidelines:

1. The melody is the top note and should therefore be on the top two, and sometimes, third strings. You may have to transpose the melody to get it to fit. On the guitar, for fingerstyle, using open strings where possible takes advantage of the full sound of the guitar. The keys of C, A, G, E, and D are good to aim for if you want to do that (I am not talking about the CAGED system here, that is something else altogether).

2. Be able to play the melody on its own smoothly and with expression, as fi you are singing it. get to this point before trying to add anything else.

3. Put a bass line under the melody, typically on the 6th and 5th strings. Start simple with just the root note of the chords on beats 1 and 3, and then start playing around with other ideas from there. Listen to bass players (i.e. pay attention to that instrument when listening to music) to get a feel for what you are trying to accomplish (in a simplified manner) on the guitar.

4. When you have the melody and a reasonable bass line under it, all going smoothly, you can start fitting some harmony in between those two lines.

In general, this is the idea for a fingerstyle arrangement.

Another approach is what is called "chord melody". In this approach, you will still have the melody on top as before. but instead of building a separate bass line, you will be voicing chords under the melody notes, and pretty much moving from chord to chord. Listen to the jazz chord melody players to get a sense of this.

Between these two approaches, there is a lot of ground for developing your own unique style.

You mentioned Travis style picking. You can play a lot of tunes using that approach. Again, the melody is on top, but under it, you have that alternating bass banging back and forth, back and forth. Listen to Chet Atkins and his adherents for many examples of that style.

Other than a decent fakebook for the lead sheets for the tunes you want to play, you really don't need books to learn to do this. You do need to know the notes on the fretboard and how to spell chords though.

Tony

[TBman]

I think your fingering problems may arise from a simple lack of playing experience. It comes. Practice playing triads all over the neck, look for shapes in your music and match them up. Mark Hanson has a book called "Triad Power." Good one to have.

Below is the type of finger style I like to play. I'm playing an arrangement by Toby Walker of an old classic. You have bass going and melody at the same time. You'll see by watching that the positions are just triads with a couple 4 note positions thrown in. (Note the alternating thumb pattern also):




I also like Woody Mann's stuff as well (his stuff can be a little tough at times).

Toby sells his arrangements with video lessons that are inexpensive and also some dvds on Homespun, (which might be good place for you to shop). Here's Toby's lesson page also. The bonus with Toby is that he is a member here as well and will answer questions via email and here sometimes:

http://www.tobywalkerslessons.com/

Keep in mind that finger style is not easy. You will not learn it over night. I takes me weeks to get a tune playable so that I can enjoy playing it even at a reduced speed and then even longer to play it naturally and at the right speed. But when that happens it is so great.

You might want to review this recent thread where the time put into a piece of music is discussed.

http://www.acousticguitarforum.com/f...d.php?t=461085

[tbeltrans]

It took me an entire summer of very focused practice to get that "independent thumb", so that my thumb could continuously bang back and forth between root and fifth (Travis style) while my fingers played a melody. I learned from an old Happy Traum book on fingerpicking.

Tony

[jeanray1113]

Ella mom...

I can relate. While I do also enjoy accompanying myself singing, I also love playing fingerstyle solo pieces. While rewarding, it is a lot of work. For me, though, it is work that is relaxing. In another thread I read today, the op talked about getting bored with practicing the same thing over and over. This is rarely a problem for me; working on a piece I love almost becomes a meditative state. I have learned(finally!) that working on a phrase--maybe just two measures or even one--SLOWLY--then getting it up to speed--then the next phrase, then putting them together--yields far more fruit than trying to learn a piece by playing it all the way through over and over. For one thing, there are always motifs that are repeated throughout the piece, so once you get a phrase down, you've essentially learned much of the whole piece. Secondly, there are always the hard parts that take more time and effort, and this is where the bulk of your focus needs to be. Once you've learned those hard parts, the piece will really start to come together.

You need to find some arrangements that you both enjoy and that are not overly challenging. One book I recommend is Fred Sokolow's Fingerpicking Beatles. The arrangements are fairly simple, but very pretty. They are largely based on first position chords.

Another book that I have learned a great deal from over the years is Bruce Emery's Christmas Fingerstyle Guitar Plain and Fancy. Now, I know it's the wrong time of year, but there is much to be learned from this book beyond the Christmas arrangements. There are three levels for each song, with the first starting out pretty basic, with mostly a simple bass line and melody notes, second incorporating some harmony, and the third being a fairly complex arrangement, with more movement up the neck, embellishments, and jazz chords. Each piece is really a study in how to take a melody and go from a simple arrangement to something fairly sophisticated. The author includes some performance notes for each piece that are really helpful. He has a whole series of books that you may wanr to check out as well, at his website www.skepticalguitarist.com.

Two websites that have some nice fingerstyle arrangements are www.guitardownunder.com and www.guitaralliance.com. There is also much to be found on YouTube. There are some very detailed lessons that take you through an arrangement measure by measure. Many of these are done by instructors who do sell dvds and/or downloadable lessons. This is a great way to not only find some great free material, but to get a feel for whether or not an instructor is a good fit for you before making a purchase.

I know this post has got really long, but I do want to close by saying that I have made a lot of progress since starting Skype lessons with this forum's own stringfive, aka KC Craine, www.MovingHandsMusic.com. You might want to check out his website. Kevin is a great teacher and a really nice guy.

Good luck on your guitar journey! Feel free to pm me anytime.

[RodB]

I have singled out the following from your post:

Originally Posted by EllaMom

....I have lots of songbooks that have tab along with notation. They are supposedly easy arrangements. But I struggle, especially with figuring out fingering on the fretboard. Tab doesn't provide fretboard fingering. I try to take a cue from the underlying chord, as listed above each measure. But that doesn't always work out......

Given your have already got the picking hand working on various patterns, and IF you know your way round the fretboard, I would say you are already on the right track doing this. By knowing the fretboard I mean the ability to play chords - just triads even - in various positions / inversions, and be able to pick out a melody that you are familiar with without too much trial and error. I looked back at a previous statement you made recently that suggests you find this difficult. whilst you can hear when you play the correct note, an ability to hear the interval between notes is important, and where you will find this interval on the same or adjacent strings.

It might be worth concentrating on thiese aspects first, and a good teacher should still be of value if you explain your needs.

Then, as already mentioned in this thread, it can be a matter of breaking the piece down into phrases, one at a time, and slowly building up fluidity moving through the piece. The knowledge of the shapes you have should suggest which fingers are best used.

I can still remember how frustrated I was working through my first bit of tab - it was not easy for me, and I had already been playing (flatpick) for many years.

Maybe your frustration arises from an expectation that you should be further along the road. I suggest to enjoy the journey...

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by EllaMom

My interest is the Great American Songbook: Moon River, Autumn Leaves, Over the Rainbow, etc., and possibly some golden pop standards that have beautiful melodies: Tears in Heaven, Imagine, etc.

Sounds like the tradition you should be studying is jazz chord melody style: solo guitar arrangements of (typically) tunes from the Great American Songbook.

Of course, the best known examples tend to require high levels of technical skill... (I guess you're not Joe Pass any more than I am.)

Originally Posted by EllaMom

I have lots of songbooks that have tab along with notation. They are supposedly easy arrangements. But I struggle, especially with figuring out fingering on the fretboard. Tab doesn't provide fretboard fingering. I try to take a cue from the underlying chord, as listed above each measure. But that doesn't always work out. So then I wonder if I need to go back to basics, at which I turn to Justin Sandercoe online, or my fingerstyle exercise books. But these resources seem to be focused primarily on picking patterns used when fingerstyle is an accompaniment to singing. So It's not as helpful as I want.

When I get stuck, I turn to one-on-one lessons. The teachers I've have each helped me grow, somewhat. But there's always something missing, primarily a curriculum that builds on itself. One teacher hated every arrangement in my songbooks, so my lessons were spent with him re-writing the arrangements. Not very helpful, and a huge waste of lesson time. Another teacher didn't mess with the arrangements, but spent too much time figuring out fingering in songs from MY songbooks, during the lessons. He also encouraged me to memorize and then improvise. That, too, is frustrating, as I don't yet have the foundation on which to improvise!

AAACCCKKKK!!!! I'm stuck and I'm frustrated as heck. How do I find a teacher or teaching resource that can teach me what I am wanting to learn: fingerstyle instrumental solo?? Preferably songs that I recognize and enjoy.

I agree with the advice about picking one tune that you really like - and finding any way you can to make it work. Take any arrangement you can find and adapt it any way you want.

My suggestion would be to learn notation (if you can't already read), get hold of some kind of jazz Real Book (this edition is probably the most suitable one for you - https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Books/Sta...her/1883217091) - which contains vocal melodies and chord symbols.

Learn to play the melody first - this is why you need to know notation, as it's hard to find jazz standard melodies in tab. You may need to transpose to a key more suited to guitar. And you should try to ensure that the melody can be played on strings 3-2-1, to leave the lower strings free for bass notes (and maybe a chord tone or two).
Then see how much of each chord you can fit in around the melody. It may only need to be a root note. It needn't require much technical skill at all.

I have one or two of my own simple(ish) arrangements for solo guitar - much simpler than the average Joe Pass - so p.m. me if interested. (No charge for my existing examples - if you want me to make you one for a tune of your choice, we can discuss terms .)

[Wyllys]

Check out Tim Lerch from Seattle:

http://timlerch.com

Subscribe to his YouTube channel as well. Tim is a good person to listen to for inspiration on working up your own harmonic statements of your favorite melodies.

[Bikewer]

I'm pretty much doing nothing but fingerstyle solo guitar..... But in quite a different style from what most are discussing here...
Jazz chord-melody.

This is taking either standards or pop tunes and "harmonizing" most or all of the melody notes so that it's a constant stream of chord changes and chordal runs, usually with at least some single-note lines thrown in.

Now for me, this has been a work of years. I played briefly with the form back years ago but I was playing a big Martin dread at the time and that's not exactly the most congenial type of axe for such work.
Now I play nylon strings almost exclusively.

There are many fine chord-melody players.... Currently one of my favorites is Earl Klugh. Interestingly, Klugh burst upon the scene back in the 80s or so playing very much in the style of Chet Atkins.....

[Doug Young]

Check out mark Hanson's books and videos at accentonmusic.com. He's targeting exactly what you describe, and he's a very good teacher. (Does skype lessons too)

[EllaMom]

Thanks, everyone, for your responses. Very VERY helpful. And encouraging.

I do know how to read notation....somewhat. Took 5 years of piano as a kid. If the key has too many sharps or flats, however, or chords have more than 3 notes tho...all bets are off! Notation is super helpful in learning note duration (half note, etc.). That I recognize.

I have not yet learned my way "up and down the neck" in any meaningful way. Which means I can't find, say, the C chord anywhere but the first position, although conceptually I understand how barring and sliding up the neck changes, an Am to A#m, then a Bm, etc. I've tried to grasp the CAGED system, but some previous teachers thought it was a silly system, so no consistency.

I do best learning primarily from books, actually. When a teacher demonstrates something to me I just can't see it as easily "in their hands" as looking on paper. That might be partly because I'm a lefty, or it might be just how my brain works. But teachers are DEFINITELY helpful in playing something so I can hear HOW it should sound (correct notes, nuances, timing etc.).

In short, I like structure when it comes to learning. So, for example, a comprehensive lesson plan that might include: learning the fretboard (show me the best way to do this); finding chords up and down the neck (what system is best?); timing (one teacher insisted on a metronome, another hated them!); fingerpicking patterns (TITM, TITR, and why it's useful to know them and when to apply them); improvising (how to find passing notes, how much is TOO much accompaniment between/with melody notes); figuring out fretboard fingering from TAB; and finally, just learning some good songs!

I LOVE the idea of a songbook that presents a song in easy, then intermediate, then advanced versions. That's prezactly what I would love to find. Will look at the Christmas book for that.

My mother always said the first two words out of my mouth were "NO" and "WHY"!! And shortly after that...."HOW"! I want to learn HOW to play guitar, but I also want to know WHY this works better than that, or NO, I won't be as inclined to practice! HAHAHA

Thanks again.

[Hatter]

Originally Posted by EllaMom

There is another thread here on fingerstyle, with a post by JonPR that says:

"There's basically two kinds of fingerstyle - OK, more than that, but two in this sense: (1) a way of breaking up chords to accompany a song (vocal); (2) instrumental pieces for solo performance (no vocal).

Most of the lessons you've seen are probably on the kind of patterns you'd use to accompany vocals (type (1) - so they would usually have no melody (because you'd be singing that)."

Me, the OP again. What JonPR posted was very helpful, and helped me understand why I'm so frustrated. I'm spending too much time on my own studying things like Travis picking, when in fact I am only interested in playing fingerstyle as solo instrumental. No singing. Just me, alone. I don't know whether fingerstyle patterns, including Travis style, even pertains to what I want to do!

I don't want to learn classical pieces, either, so classical guitar lessons aren't what I am looking for. I'm also not much interested in old blues. I want to recognize and love the songs I learn. My interest is the Great American Songbook: Moon River, Autumn Leaves, Over the Rainbow, etc., and possibly some golden pop standards that have beautiful melodies: Tears in Heaven, Imagine, etc.

I have lots of songbooks that have tab along with notation. They are supposedly easy arrangements. But I struggle, especially with figuring out fingering on the fretboard. Tab doesn't provide fretboard fingering. I try to take a cue from the underlying chord, as listed above each measure. But that doesn't always work out. So then I wonder if I need to go back to basics, at which I turn to Justin Sandercoe online, or my fingerstyle exercise books. But these resources seem to be focused primarily on picking patterns used when fingerstyle is an accompaniment to singing. So It's not as helpful as I want.

When I get stuck, I turn to one-on-one lessons. The teachers I've have each helped me grow, somewhat. But there's always something missing, primarily a curriculum that builds on itself. One teacher hated every arrangement in my songbooks, so my lessons were spent with him re-writing the arrangements. Not very helpful, and a huge waste of lesson time. Another teacher didn't mess with the arrangements, but spent too much time figuring out fingering in songs from MY songbooks, during the lessons. He also encouraged me to memorize and then improvise. That, too, is frustrating, as I don't yet have the foundation on which to improvise!

AAACCCKKKK!!!! I'm stuck and I'm frustrated as heck. How do I find a teacher or teaching resource that can teach me what I am wanting to learn: fingerstyle instrumental solo?? Preferably songs that I recognize and enjoy.

Thanks!

You and I are in the same boat. Thats what I asked in my thread about fingerstyle but you put it just perfectly,I dont have such a good way with words I guess haha. I dont have a problem with picking hand either,it knows its way around,but the fretting hand is the problem. I think we got the answer from RodB here. Its the slow practice of phrases,and learning the chord shapes all over the fretboard.