Which open A fingering do you prefer?

[Turi]

I do it depending on what's coming up next.. usually, it's 1-1-1 for me.
Sometimes 1-2-3.

I do like 2-1-3 because there's some nice hammer-ons and pull-offs easily accessible.. depends on what I want to do.

Most of the time though, 1-1-1.. like a mini-barre chord of sorts.

[sinistral]

Originally Posted by Bob from Brooklyn

He talks a little about his A and D chords within the first minute of this clip.

At around 1:30 in this lesson, he goes from a 3-2-1 A chord to a 3-2-1 E chord to a G chord with the 3 and 2 on the 6th and 5th strings.



It actually is very economical in its movement, but I would play the A and E chords differently out of habit.

[jeanray1113]

That’s how Mary Flower does it. I took a workshop with her once and she explained that this is just the way she does it. She didn’t say that was the right way to do it, just how she does it. People have different ways of playing chords. Some teachers are okay with thumb overs, some are not. Some people play first position G with first, second, and third, some use second third and four. The first is more common, but the second affords some advantages in chord changes. It’s really a matter of what works for you.

[turtlejimmy]

I always do this A as 234. My fingers fit nicely that way. If they were fatter (my fingers), I'd probably do 213.


Turtle

[Horseflesh]

Thanks to the advice in this thread, I have tried a bunch of alternate fingerings, but I keep coming back to 2-1-3.

The mini-barre is very promising but it will take some more work to get there.

[davidbeinct]

Originally Posted by Horseflesh

Thanks to the advice in this thread, I have tried a bunch of alternate fingerings, but I keep coming back to 2-1-3.

The mini-barre is very promising but it will take some more work to get there.

The mini barre is worth having in your bag of tricks. There are lots of licks in fingerpicking that use various combinations of the “long A,” the A7, the A6, and the A. Getting the open e to ring out with the mini barre can be a challenge but often times you can cheat by just lifting your finger all the way off for a second.