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Old 01-01-2022, 06:06 AM
Robin, Wales Robin, Wales is online now
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Join Date: Nov 2019
Location: Eryri, Wales
Posts: 4,569
Default Fingerstyle v Fingerpicking

Having read through the recent thread on Fingerstyle on Dreadnaught Guitar, I got to thinking how, on many threads here on AGF, there seems to be a confusion between “fingerstyle” guitar playing and “fingerpicking” guitar playing.

I would say that I fingerpick sometimes but that I don’t play fingerstyle guitar.

I don’t have a definitive definition of either word, and I may be completely wrong on this, but I’d like to put the following up for discussion.

Fingerstyle Guitar: Playing the guitar with thumb and fingers to create a complete musical piece. The guitar is played as a solo melodic instrument. It would look like this:




Fingerpicked Guitar: Using the thumb and fingers to create a rhythmical accompaniment to a song. Refrains of the melody may be played during a piece but fundamentally the guitar spends most of its time as a rhythmic device for song accompaniment. It would look like this:



Feel free to shoot this down!
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I'm learning to flatpick and fingerpick guitar to accompany songs.

I've played and studied traditional noter/drone mountain dulcimer for many years. And I used to play dobro in a bluegrass band.



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