Right hand fingerpicking technique: all five fingers

[Midnight Shadow]

When I started fingerpicking I didn't plant my little finger. Guess it never occured to me to do so. Then once I took this gutiar workshop and the instructor told to me work on planting my little finger. He said he couldn't see how anyone could get good at fingerpicking without planting. However, it seems just strange and harder for me to get the picking when I plant the finger. So I continue to not plant my finger and seem to be picking up the fingerstyle ok. Not great mind you but ok.

Midnight Shadow

[Phil R]

I'm working hard at developing my fingerpicking skills, and have instinctively not put my pinky on the top. I probably would if it were about an inch longer...as it is, it's just too much of a stretch.
Also, it seems much easier to keep the non plucking fingers away from the strings so as to avoid accidentally dampening the sound.

Martin Taylor plants his pinky on the soundboard, and I would'nt call him a bad technician! I've seen Neil Stacey (great jazz guitarist) actually using all five fingers on his right hand to great effect. I think it just needs, like the left hand pinky, progressive strength building to work, and a lot of practise. Remember how it felt the first time you tried fretting with left pinky? Pretty similar.

[kcollins]

To plant or not to plant? Pinky or no? In the world of acoustic steel string fingerstyle - there is no standard technique. What is required is comfort, the ability to reach the strings you need to reach and clarity at whatever speed you are playing. If, to achieve those goals, you need to plant your pinky on the sound board or use your pinky to strike the strings, then that's what you do. Fingerstyle comes with very few technical rules (which is probably what appeals to the anarchist in all of us).

Classical playing on the other hand requires that the pinky NOT rest on the soundboard. As a classical beginner, though, you will probably be instructed to plant until your right hand becomes familiar enough to not need a reference point. Your instructor will eventually make you lift your hand. By that time, you will most likely be so familiar with your right hand geography that it won't be a big deal.

Keep pickin' and enjoy

[UN2 the Lord]

I'm with Red; I use the Nashville hybred. I hold the pick between the thumb against the side of my index finger and finger pick with the other three. P-i-m-a still holds when reading music but you substitute everything down one digit; ie pick is used for thumb and i= m, m=a and a is the 5th digit or pinkey finger. True classical finger picking doesn't use the pinkey.

I'm a physical therapist and ergonomics is everthing. Therefore, I strongly recommend against bracing with the pinkey. Initially I gently braced my palm on the bridge and read it like braille. Eventually, as I utilized the hybred to go between flat picking, strumming and arpegios. Eventually, I discovered that I was no longer bracing. I discovered that given a couple of years I just knew the location of all the stings. Kinda like when you didn't have to look at your hand anymore. You could just feel it. Bracing with the pinkey will always slow you down when it comes to flat picking where speed is everything. The hybred allow the musician to go instantly between flat picking, to strumming to finger picking. Three in one, not a bad deal.

Now you may be saying why hold the pick against the side of your index finger. This allows better strumming and finger picking technique. If you pinch it againt the meaty part of your index finger this will cause rotation at the wrist and what you really want is up and down motion or what we therapist call radial and ulnar deviation. If you rotate the hand, then the wrist will fall or bend into flexion which will lock up your hand and close down on the carpel tunnel where the median nerve run through to the fingers. Wrist flexion also puts the finger flexor muscles at a shorted weaked range because the finger flexor muscle come from the forearm.

Finally come the way I hold my guitar. Classical style, with the neck of the guitar tilted upward at an angle will allow greater freedom with the left hand while making chords whether you are strumming or finger picking. If you use the standard style with the fret board horizonal to the ground then the left hand has to reach farther around the fred board. Also with the strings at the tilted angle near the sound hole you will find that your right hand is in ergonomic position to finger pick, relaxed with the wrist in neutral.

Ergonomics will allow you to play the guitar with the greatest of ease. Tension over time will cause repetitive trauma and nobody wants carpel tunnel. CTS or carpel tunnel syndrome will end your guitar playing days.

I'm sorry, we therapist are long winded, opinated and stubborn about technique.

Honestly, there are much better players than myself who use poor techinque. Pt if you are just starting out, try the Nashville Hybred style. Three in one. I works for me