Fingerstyle vs Fingerpicking

[phoeneous]

Originally Posted by dweezil

Fingerstyle guitar is the technique of playing the guitar by plucking the strings directly with the fingertips, fingernails, or picks attached to fingers, as opposed to flatpicking (picking individual notes with a single plectrum called a flatpick) or strumming all the strings of the instrument in chords. The term is often used synonymously with fingerpicking (although fingerpicking can also refer to a specific stylistic subset; see below). Music arranged for fingerstyle playing can include chords, arpeggios and other elements such as artificial harmonics, hammering on and pulling off with the fretting hand, using the body of the guitar percussively, and many other techniques.

Fingerpicking (also called thumb picking, alternating bass, or pattern picking) is a term that is used to describe both a playing style and a genre of music. It falls under the "fingerstyle" heading because it is plucked by the fingers, but it is generally used to play a specific type of folk, country-jazz and/or blues music. In this technique, the thumb maintains a steady rhythm, usually playing "alternating bass" patterns on the lower three strings, while the index, or index and middle fingers pick out melody and fill-in notes on the high strings.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fingerstyle_guitar

Works for me. Thanks.

[Howard Emerson]

Originally Posted by Frosty

I though you folks "down south" were poised for more than here in northern New England this time..? Kin in the DC area and in N. Carolina report 12+ inches and power outages.

Just back in from a walk with my dog. Light and lovely snow falling right now. Maybe an inch or two today.



This is an interesting point of view. I am a fiddler, and good fiddling is all about the bow - bowing in a way that creates a good rhythm to propel dancers. Left hand issues like precise intonation and ornamentation, do not figure as importantly as they do to a violinist. If the bowing isn't compelling, it's not useful fiddling. Likewise, one could say that while Cannonball Rag is played by both John Renbourn and Merle Travis one rendition, I would assert, offers a more compelling rhythm.

Merle, of course, is a master of the Kentucky thumbstyle form of finger[picking/style] guitar. Which I would agree is a unique subset.

Hi Frosty,
We got about 18" here in Huntington Station, on long Island. Patchogue got over 27"..............It just took a little while longer to start and most of it dropped over night.

I finally got to REALLY use my snowthrower!! It was perfect snow for doing that!

HE

[Herb Hunter]

Originally Posted by hnuuhiwa

Fingerstyle is what I do on my guitar and I think finerpicking is what my eight year old does to his nose

I was about to make a very similar distinction between the two terms but as I was coming to the thread after three pages of posts, thought I should check to make sure someone had not beat me to it. It's a good thing I decided to check.


All joking aside, ultimately, the terms are synonymous.

[drbluegrass]

I always thought finger picking had to do with one's posterior and that finger style had..to...do....with.....OK, I'll go away now.


Tom

[stoney]

"The Day Fingerpickers Took Over the World" is an album by Chet Atkins and Tommy Emmanuel, it that helps.

[Frosty]

Originally Posted by stoney

"The Day Fingerpickers Took Over the World" is an album by Chet Atkins and Tommy Emmanuel, it that helps.

And "Finger Style Guitar" was an album released by Chet in 1956!

[kydave]

Fingerpicking is usually in normal tuning or maybe a drop D.

Fingerstyle is frequently in tuning du jour.

Seriously, I'd never heard "fingerstyle" until recently. To me it encompasses really good players doing instrumentals that would have been done primarily on nylon string guitars in decades past. Now it is that and really amaturish noodling in open tunings and everything in between.

Fingerpicking is an alternative to strumming which includes fingerstyle.

[Howard Klepper]

Originally Posted by JWU53

...the same as the differences between a violin and a fiddle.

Actually, violins are a subset of fiddles.

[JWU53]

Originally Posted by Howard Klepper

Actually, violins are a subset of fiddles.

Come to think of it, you're right -- double basses are sometimes called "bass fiddles" (I'm feeling a possible Emily Litella moment coming on)...anyway here's this on "Fiddles" from Wikepedia:

Various clichés describe the difference between fiddle and violin:

"When you are buying it, it's a fiddle. When you are selling it, it's a violin."

"What's the difference between a violin and a fiddle? About $10,000."

"The difference is in the nut that holds the bow."

"The violin sings, the fiddle dances."

"A fiddle is a violin with attitude."

"No one cries when they spill beer on a fiddle."

"The difference between a violinist and a fiddle player is $100 a night, and a tux."

According to the performer Shoji Tabuchi, the difference lies "in how you fiddle around with it."

[12 string]

"Bass fiddle" is a misnomer. Those things are actually viols. 'Cellos, on the other hand, are fiddles. Fiddles have squarer shoulders and are tuned in fifths.

' Strang

[Herb Hunter]

I've always thought a fiddle was either a violin or viola. According to the dictionaries I've consulted a fiddle is either a violin or a viola or, from one source, any instrument from the violin family. So a bass fiddle could mean an upright bass or contrabass. None of the sources I checked mention tunings or the form of the shoulders.

[Frosty]

The same physical instrument could be called a violin or a fiddle, with the exception of maybe a flatter bridge on the fiddle to promote drone playing. But the fundamental difference between the two is how the instrument is played.

[12 string]

Originally Posted by Herb Hunter

I've always thought a fiddle was either a violin or viola. According to the dictionaries I've consulted a fiddle is either a violin or a viola or, from one source, any instrument from the violin family. So a bass fiddle could mean an upright bass or contrabass. None of the sources I checked mention tunings or the form of the shoulders.

Herb, I don't know anything about your dictionaries but please be assured that I have the academic credentials and professional experience to speak authoritatively about this. Your one source absolutely nailed it exactly when it said "any instrument from the violin family". The bass viol is not a member of the violin family! The viols are a separate family unto themselves. They are historically more closely connected to the lutes and guitar-like instruments. The viola da gamba is tuned in fourths with a third in there, and has frets. It is believed to be descended from a plucked instrument. The viola d'amore has similar tuning, but higher, has no frets and is positioned under the chin like a violin. It also has sympathetic strings. Both these instruments have a body shape more like the bass viol rather than a fiddle. Other viols are similar. These days you don't see them much outside of early music ensembles and music graduate schools. These two families of bowed string instruments have separate evolution and history in addition to having different body shapes and tuning. The continuing use of the bass viol is the last vestige of a very long coexistence of the two families. The violins won out because the viols just didn't have the power to compete in a world being taken over by noisier instruments and larger ensembles.

Lots of people call a bass viol a bass fiddle. Who cares? My basic point, a minor one, is that that term is a misnomer. I stand by it.

Sorry about the veer. Maybe we can veer it back by speculating as to whether those predecessors to the viols were fingerplucked or styled some other way.

David

Originally Posted by Frosty

And "Finger Style Guitar" was an album released by Chet in 1956!

Interesting note, because it makes me wonder if this album name might be the source for the term. The term "Bluegrass" comes from a Bill Monroe album (although the genre of music extends back hundreds of years) and it would be interesting to find out if the popular term "Fingerstyle" originated with this Chet album . . .

[Herb Hunter]

Originally Posted by 12 string

Herb, I don't know anything about your dictionaries ...

The dictionaries I used were the Oxford American Dictionary and the American Heritage Dictionary. The other source I used was Wikipedia. Subsequent to posting, I checked the Random House Dictionary. It had this definition:

1. a musical instrument of the viol family.
2. violin: Her aunt plays first fiddle with the state symphony orchestra.

I am somewhat familiar with the viol family, at least to the extent that I knew, or thought, they evolved from the vihuela. Nevertheless, the term, fiddle, seems to have a rather imprecise meaning as it is applied to any bowed, violin-like instrument.