I would call that Travis picking before I called it fingerstyle. The latter term isn’t well defined, as far as I know, such that all Travis pickers are fingerstylists but not all fingerstylists are Travis pickers. I know you know this, I realize it’s splitting hairs, and I wouldn’t normally correct anyone’s usage of the term, but since you corrected his with that example...
It seems to me that fingerstyle means two things: (1) in a very broad sense, playing the guitar with your fingers instead of a pick, and (2) specifically, a style of playing the guitar without a pick that was developed in the late 20th century and that combines several techniques and musical influences (examples of those techniques and influences would round out this definition).
And when I say pick, I’m referring to holding a plectrum between your fingers, so I’d (grudgingly) concede that fingerstyle includes the use of thumbpicks and banjo picks, although "fingerpick" would be a better term for that, in my opinion.
|