Beginner Advice

[Rharris53]

Ok, just retired at 64 and finally getting to my bucket list! Have always wanted to play guitar and now going to get my chance. First, is it reasonable to try to learn fingerstyle from beginning vs. strumming. I just enjoy they way fingerstyle sounds vs strumming. Any other advice would be welcomed as I don't know what I don't know! Thanks for your help.

[reeve21]

Originally Posted by Rharris53

Ok, just retired at 64 and finally getting to my bucket list! Have always wanted to play guitar and now going to get my chance. First, is it reasonable to try to learn fingerstyle from beginning vs. strumming. I just enjoy they way fingerstyle sounds vs strumming. Any other advice would be welcomed as I don't know what I don't know! Thanks for your help.

Hi Rhariis,

Great question.

Based on my own experience, I would encourage you to get a teacher.

I am a self taught strummer, off and on for several decades. I just recently started teaching myself to finger pick using resources I learned about on AGF. I don't think I could have jumped right into fingerpicking without my strumming and chord knowledge, but that's not to say it is impossible. Toby Walker is a sponsor on here and he has a very reasonably priced finger picking intro video.I didn't find it easy, that's for sure.

I think the first thing to do is to learn some chord shapes and how to play a steady rhythm, which are skills necessary for both strumming and picking.

Do as I say, not as I do--do yourself a favor and take some lessons. If you are bent on doing it yourself a lot of people like Justinguitar, you'll find him on the net. I've not used him myself but he gets good reviews.

Best of luck, and have fun!

[jimrivera]

Originally Posted by Rharris53

Ok, just retired at 64 and finally getting to my bucket list! Have always wanted to play guitar and now going to get my chance. First, is it reasonable to try to learn fingerstyle from beginning vs. strumming. I just enjoy they way fingerstyle sounds vs strumming. Any other advice would be welcomed as I don't know what I don't know! Thanks for your help.

Beginner and intermediate courses at:

www.justinguitar.com

Buy the beginner songbook, follow the courses.

[Wyllys]

Fingerstyle. It all starts here: https://youtu.be/EqLak8XqN94

Look for all the takes you can find on this simple song. There's no changes for the LH, so you can learn alternating bass in he context of a good song.

I learned this over 50 years ago and still find it fun to play and full of opportunities for advancement.

Have fun, good luck and enjoy the trip.

[The Watchman]

Sure. If you don't play music that you like to hear, you won't stick to it. I wouldn't want to waste time on learning what you won't want to play. But you will need to know strumming too, eventually, especially if you want to sing along. Strumming helps you learn rhythm, which some of us don't naturally have.

[colchar]

Classical players learn to play with their fingers right away so there is no reason why you can't.

[Kerbie]

I see no problem with that. I started by learning a little of both... worked fine.

[Pitar]

Finger picking. Honestly, strumming might take some tempo-matching toe-tapping but I would not call it something to "learn" if a recreational hobby is the goal. I was strumming songs as soon as I could manage chord changes. Finger picking is what I focused on, though. It took me about a year to be able to finger pick and sing along with it. It was a roller coaster of both inflating and deflating my ego but eventually everything worked out. I taught myself. A book of chords and a book on Travis Style picking were my tutors.

[srick]

Hi R -

You'll find many other folks of our vintage on the AGF. I started playing ten years ago and have to tell you, it's been a blast. I've worked my way up to doing a few open mikes and have even written two songs - amazing. When our family gathers for holidays, my nephews bring their guitars and we jam. You'll love it.

Get a teacher, because you need to get to first base. Once you are there, plenty of online lessons await, BUT nothing beats playing guitar with other people. And nothing beats the feedback from a good teacher.

AGF is full of advice, most all of it pretty decent. Don't be afraid to ask stupid questions. Get a decent guitar (there area a lot of them out there) and make sure that it is set up properly. Then - rock on you rusty diamond!

best,

Rick

[SprintBob]

My experience as a self learner was to work through two beginner guitar courses, one on Jamplay and the other was the JustinGuitar beginner course. Took me about two years and I really enjoyed the course work as both gave me a good taste of strumming and introductory fingerstyle and flatpicking technique. Both also provided structure and a path that helped me determine (like you) that I wanted to focus primarily on learning to play fingerstyle guitar. I then progressed to working through Mark Hanson's Contemporary Travis Picking course and I am currently working through his Art of Solo Fingerstyle course. Both books have tab and notation as well as audio practice and play along CD's to all the songs and examples. As I finished the first Hanson book, I added a teacher to my learning schedule (we meet every 3 weeks). I play most of the songs in the Hanson books but I've also added some other solo fingerstyle arrangements to my work load (or whatever you want to call it) that are songs I really like and that my teacher had good fingerstyle arrangements for.

Hope this helps you plan your learning path. Truefire, Homespun, and Peghead Nation also have great fingerstyle learning resources for whatever playing level you are at. Have fun and good luck.

[TBman]

Originally Posted by Rharris53

Ok, just retired at 64 and finally getting to my bucket list! Have always wanted to play guitar and now going to get my chance. First, is it reasonable to try to learn fingerstyle from beginning vs. strumming. I just enjoy they way fingerstyle sounds vs strumming. Any other advice would be welcomed as I don't know what I don't know! Thanks for your help.

Fingerstyle is fine, that's all I do, but you need chord knowledge and the associated dexterity. Lessons would be good as they would give your learning guidance and structure.

[Wyllys]

Originally Posted by TBman

Fingerstyle is fine, that's all I do, but you need chord knowledge and the associated dexterity. Lessons would be good as they would give your learning guidance and structure.

Originally Posted by Wyllys

Fingerstyle. It all starts here: https://youtu.be/EqLak8XqN94

Look for all the takes you can find on this simple song. There's no changes for the LH, so you can learn alternating bass in he context of a good song.

You can start out on something that uses good technique and coordination without any "changes" and go from there, believe me.

[KDepew]

Hi Rharris53. First of all congrats on the retirement! Second of all I don't think that there is a better thing to spend some time on! Such a rewarding thing, playing the guitar.

I echo some of the great advice here. You could certainly dive into the finger style work. But you might want to get some chords and rhythm and a little theory under your belt.

I have a website for "second halfers" with free lessons to help get people started. You should check it out!

[SunnyDee]

Originally Posted by Rharris53

Ok, just retired at 64 and finally getting to my bucket list! Have always wanted to play guitar and now going to get my chance. First, is it reasonable to try to learn fingerstyle from beginning vs. strumming. I just enjoy they way fingerstyle sounds vs strumming. Any other advice would be welcomed as I don't know what I don't know! Thanks for your help.

Of course, learn what you want to play. It's a little hard from the comments to tell if people are referring to "fingerstyle" as just picking patterns with fingers, meaning you still start with chords, anyway, or if they mean playing melodies, etc, as classical guitarists do. The downside of starting with fingerstyle over chords is that it's a good deal more challenging to fingerpick over chords when your chords are still not perfect, so, if you go that way, just know that, and don't get frustrated with buzzing and such. There's nothing wrong with starting with chords, strumming with fingers, and knowing you're really headed toward fingerstyle. I'm a late beginner, too. Just to give you a sense of one path, I started strumming with fingers but always brought in fingerstyle patterns, too, and it took a few months to get going decently, but after a year, I can do both and feel good about it. I don't use patterns much anymore. I've now developed my own blended style, sort of fingerstyle-strum. I don't like using a pick, so I don't. I can play, and that was the goal. Good luck!

[reflected]

Hi Rharris,

I would recommend you start with strumming. Why?

Strumming with your right hand is relatively easy, as long as you have a sense of rhythm. The challenge will be your left hand, i.e. learning chords, changing from one to another fast, eliminating buzzing, etc...It's plenty enough to keep one busy.

If you want to learn fingerpicking from the start, you'll face 2 difficult challenges at the same time, and it will be more frustrating.

One more piece of advice with regards to strumming: always keep your right hand/ wrist moving up and down at the same pace/ rhythm.

What does this mean? when they want to strum different patterns that aren't just "down up down up" many beginners make a mistake. They strum down, and keep their hands there until the next strum comes, then they strum up, etc...The time between these changes, so they have to constantly accelerate/ stop their right hand which makes keeping the rhythm very difficult.

If, however, you keep moving it up and down at a steady pace, then it's only a question of actually touching the strings during that movement, or moving the pick above them. An example in practice. Underlined means actually touching the strings, not underlined means not touching them:

D U D U D U D U

And your right hand still moves at the same pace.

Sorry for wandering a bit off topic, but I find this a very common mistake, and I thought it might save you some frustration. Getting a teacher definitely accelerates the learning, but we have plenty of tutorials online as well.