Fingerstyle Advice wan

[gracecovenant]

For the most part, I've focused on fingerstyle material that has only required thumb and index finger (i.e. Lightnin Hopkins, TVZ).

Now, I'm trying to introduce the middle finger for a song in a modified Travis style. I am curious about your approach to a technique issue because I don't want to pick up bad habits.

How strictly do you assign a finger to a string and hold to it without varying? Conversely, do you vary right hand fingers according to what is most comfortable or seems to fit the situation?

[Doug Young]

The usual starting place is to assign index, middle, ring to strings 3,2,1 and use the thumb to cover the bottom three strings. That works for fingerpicking patterns, but for playing melodies and more complex things, you need to be a bit more flexible and just find what works. Here' the Giuliani studios which are a great (if somewhat tedious) series of exercises for developing all fingers:

http://www.stormthecastle.com/classi...right-hand.pdf

[Kerbie]

Whether I use two fingers or three (excluding thumb) depends on the song. Particularly when I use two (the index and 2nd), I don't limit one finger to one string.

What I learned from people like Steve James and Scott Ainslie teaching Mississippi John Hurt style, is to marry those fingers to string pairs... not to one string only. In other words, when the index plays the 3rd string, the 2nd plays the 2nd string. And when the index plays the 2nd string, the 2nd finger plays the 1st string. That way, you always move those two fingers to string pairs (1st and 2nd... OR 2nd and 3rd).

Generally, when I use 3 fingers as Doug said, they usually stay on the treble strings. But I think you can always be flexible to whatever the song requires. I would try to change fingering because of the song's demands rather than the shortcomings of my fingers. Otherwise, my fingering techniques won't ever improve much.

[gracecovenant]

Much appreciated feedback from both of you. I knew I was being a little too inflexible but was didn't want to take shortcuts if I would regret it later.

The idea of string pairs describes exactly what I couldn't seem to put into words and helps with delimma I was facing.

Using three fingers to cover the treble strings is my next goal to get comfortable with the ring finger.

Then, finger picking lead lines is a skill I need to develop.

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by gracecovenant

Much appreciated feedback from both of you. I knew I was being a little too inflexible but was didn't want to take shortcuts if I would regret it later.

The idea of string pairs describes exactly what I couldn't seem to put into words and helps with delimma I was facing.

Using three fingers to cover the treble strings is my next goal to get comfortable with the ring finger.

Then, finger picking lead lines is a skill I need to develop.

Hi gc…

If you learn Thumb-n-three finger picking, it's easy to scale back and use less fingers when you need less. I start students with thumb-n-three, which most stick with. Skilled fingerstyle players become adept at using the proper amount of fingers for the task at hand.

Thumb-n-three is more flexible, and permits playing quick passages in a more relaxed fashion. Once you adjust to adding the ring finger, chords also expand to 4 notes when plucked or arpeggiated; bass note plus three fingers. Four note combinations present more options for chords than three note combos.

Learning to play fingerstyle melodies while handing off notes to other fingers/strings becomes second-nature once you master the thumb-n-three techniques.

And I sure wouldn't limit the use of the three fingers to only strings 1-2-3, as they can be shifted to strings 2-3-4 easily and split fingered a couple different effective ways (strings 1-2-4 or 1-3-4 combos).

Pete Huttlinger has a DVD titled "Essential Exercises for Fingerstyle Guitar" - and it is just what it purports to be. It's about building one's fingerstyle vocabulary. I go back and watch it a couple times a year to see where I need touchups and expansion.

To me a good approach is to start with a systematic understanding of patterned play, and then to spend some serious time playing repetitive learned patterns which then can be varied. Patterned play for my students includes scale work (open scales in first position for keys of C, A, G, E, D) both slurred (hammered) and articulated. It also includes some basic etudes in those same keys.

It also involves learning to incorporate plucked chords (in addition to strumming them).

This is where I point fingerstyle students, all while learning simple fingerstyle songs and moving on to more complex ones, and I expect them to adhere to the fingerstyle techniques they are learning.

What about thumb-n-two fingers?
There are a number of very skilled thumb-n-two finger players (Todd Hallawell, Pat Donohue to name some). I adapt some of their pieces to thumb-n-three. Actually I adapt everybody's songs to thumb-n-three.

So does Thom Bresh (his dad is Merle Travis). It's fun on his DVD about how to play his dad's style how Thom tries to adhere to Thumb-n-one but reverts very quickly to thumb-n-three finger techniques.

At different periods of his career Chet Atkins did thumb-two then expanded to thumb-n-three.

I find thumb-n-three the most flexible and adaptable.

[gracecovenant]

LJGuitar,

Of all the players here on the AGF, I probably have more respect for your opinion than anybody. You consistently give outstanding guidance.

Thank you!

[JonPR]

Excellent advice, lj. The "start with thumb-and-3, and scale back if necessary over time" is good.
After all, if one was copying Merle Travis himself, one would never move from thumb-and-index...

My personal (odd) preference is middle and ring, with index as my spare. But I try not to teach that way...

[LeftArm]

When I was learning Classical the emphasis was always on "alternating" the fingers. For instance in example 89 in the studies I would play the ii as im and cross the strings rather than play the same finger twice. It is also useful when a series of notes are all played on the same string.