Back to Playing Just With My Hands

[Jaden]

Another bare finger picker and strummer here. With electric and good clean strong amp gives me lots of flexibility, power and sustain when required and really beefs up spare arrangements. I’m also building up the flesh on the side of the thumb a la Wes Montgomery resulting in ‘the sky is the limit’ on inventiveness.

[donlyn]

Originally Posted by Methos1979

Another no-pick, all-finger player here. Except with me it's the opposite from a lot of you in that I started with a pick but I could just never learn to play with one. It was a true impediment to my finally learning how to play well. The pick for me always made for a feeling of disconnect from the guitar although I didn't know it at the time. Then one day I started to just pluck strings with my fingers and it as a true epiphany moment. I instantly felt a connection. It took about 3 months to really start to be able to play again back at the level I was with a pick but from there is was a revelation.

I pluck and strum now. Some songs just don't work fingerpicked. It took a bit of experimentation with how to get good strum tone without a pick but I've got a bunch of little techniques that I now employ and I'm coming up with new ones all the time as I grow as a player/performer. Every once in a while I'll grab a pick and try it again. I love the shear volume you get from a pick (especially for playing unplugged) but like before it just feels wrong for me. So fingerstyle it is.

Methos1979,

I too started playing with a pick, mostly on electric guitars, but never met a pick I liked. For nearly the last 40 years I have been fingerpicking, almost exclusively with acoustic guitars. My fingernails are my picks.

So about pickless strumming. I don't strum often, but when I do, I use my nails to strum. My nails are shaped, extending out at about 1/8" for the thumb and 3/32" for 3 fingers. (Pinkie is almost down to the quick.)

My variation on a strum: I use all 3 finger(nail)s to collectively and consecutively strum the strings, both up and down. Kind of sounds like 3 picks one right after another. (Can be also used like a flamenco style fanfare on a downstroke.) I usually combine this strum with using my thumb to pick a bass note. So by alternating thumb and strum, this approximates certain flat-picked rhythms.

Anyway I can strum this way not only throughout a piece, but also for effect in parts of some more complicated arrangements. This can make for a wall of sound using a 12 string, or for some special effects on a 6 string, including using a thumb and (up to) 3 fingers to 'pinch' and vary the result. In all cases, my left (fretting) hand drives the train, while my right hand keeps it on the tracks.

Don

.

[menhir]

You can pick your friends and you can pick your nose but...
...but I digress.

Another bare-finger player here. I rarely pick guitars.

I not against using a pick if it gets the result I want, and I still experiment from time to time with new ones, (currently trying out a leather pick) but my default method is pickless.

Like Methos, I tend to use a sort of flamenco technique in some of my strumming too. It's a carryover from when I first was taught rhumba strums used by some folk players when I first started learning to play.

[Davis Webb]

Originally Posted by colins

Funny you should mention JB, as he was my first thought when I saw this thread (with Mark Knopfler being the second thought).

Don't want to derail the thread but can you tell us a little more about the documentary?

Sure

https://www.crave.ca/movies/jeff-beck-still-on-the-run

[Methos1979]

Originally Posted by donlyn

Methos1979,

I too started playing with a pick, mostly on electric guitars, but never met a pick I liked. For nearly the last 40 years I have been fingerpicking, almost exclusively with acoustic guitars. My fingernails are my picks.

So about pickless strumming. I don't strum often, but when I do, I use my nails to strum. My nails are shaped, extending out at about 1/8" for the thumb and 3/32" for 3 fingers. (Pinkie is almost down to the quick.)

My variation on a strum: I use all 3 finger(nail)s to collectively and consecutively strum the strings, both up and down. Kind of sounds like 3 picks one right after another. (Can be also used like a flamenco style fanfare on a downstroke.) I usually combine this strum with using my thumb to pick a bass note. So by alternating thumb and strum, this approximates certain flat-picked rhythms.

Anyway I can strum this way not only throughout a piece, but also for effect in parts of some more complicated arrangements. This can make for a wall of sound using a 12 string, or for some special effects on a 6 string, including using a thumb and (up to) 3 fingers to 'pinch' and vary the result. In all cases, my left (fretting) hand drives the train, while my right hand keeps it on the tracks.

Don

.

I use a couple varieties of strumming. Basic strumming where I don't need volume or dynamics is done with with side of my thumb on the bone of the knuckle area. When I need some strum volume I'll hit the flat on my index nail on the downstroke and the flat of my thumbnail on the upstroke. When I need some dynamics like with palm muted downstrokes I'll tightly press my thumb and index fingers together and create a pressure point to get that needed tone.

[rokdog49]

Whatever gets the job done.