Fingerstyle v Fingerpicking

[Aimelie]

Originally Posted by tbeltrans

This post brings out (in my opinion) some very important points. Where you are (i.e. geographical region) can have a lot to do with what various terms bring to mind. Therefore, discussing what a particular word means in a forum with global participation, will bring out a discussion with various interpretations based on where a person hails from, whether that is pointed out as Brent so clearly does here or not.

Tony

Truth! (And bolded for posterity. )

[Italuke]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

...it's not like there's some authoritative definition.

Most important line in this entire thread. We always feel the need for black/white, but much of the world is grey. Or gray.

[Andyrondack]

Originally Posted by Aimelie

Truth! (And bolded for posterity. )

Not sure I agree with that, I don't think that most Americans ( of the USA variety) understand just how ubiquitus around the globe their culture is just as most Brits don't realise how many people around the world can speak good English irrespective of their native tongue.
Case in point.. I was once in a hostel in Chile where a nylon string guitar was left lying around for the travellers to play, I picked it up and started doing some Travis alt bass style
picking when an Italian sounding tourist nudged her friend and said 'ah he is fingerpicking'.

[tbeltrans]

Originally Posted by Andyrondack

Not sure I agree with that, I don't think that most Americans ( of the USA variety) understand just how ubiquitus around the globe their culture is just as most Brits don't realise how many people around the world can speak good English irrespective of their native tongue.
Case in point.. I was once in a hostel in Chile where a nylon string guitar was left lying around for the travellers to play, I picked it up and started doing some Travis alt bass style
picking when an Italian sounding tourist nudged her friend and said 'ah he is fingerpicking'.

I have certainly been around the world through Europe, England, Japan, etc. So, yes, I do know and agree that American culture is well known. Very typical back in the 80s and 90s before satellite conferencing and equipment interconnectivity via the internet became common, for software engineers to travel all over. Before that, many of us in the military did likewise though probably not to as many different destinations.

However, when I posted, it was in response to what Brent said about how his location uses the terms. I think he brought up an excellent point worth the discussion. It is likely that in the SF Bay area, the terms may not be so well defined as Brent indicated in his area in the south, as an example. So even within the US, different areas could put different meaning, or at least, different emphasis on the terms being discussed.

Other countries will likely use the terms in whatever manner they were exposed to, which again could be determined at least in part by where the Americans came from that influenced them.

With regard to global implications, England certain has had a long, healthy fingerstyle/fingerpicking culture, so however they would use the term would also be an influence to other countries. I never thought about this before, but on my trips to England for work, the subject of guitar playing never came up so I remain ignorant of typical British use of these terms. I was always there on one contract or another, with little time for other things so I made it a practice to stay over a few days to wander around on my own.

Edit: This part of the discussion could well broaden out, on thinking about it a bit more because we in American tend to have an American-centric view of the rest of the world, embarrassing as that can be. Other cultures could well have their own terms for using fingers to play guitar. Ours is a relatively young culture compared to much of the world. As a close-to-home example, Hawaiians had the term "slack key guitar" long before we arrived on the scene (the Portuguese cowboys apparently left guitars with the Hawaiian people to figure out what to do with, so they came up with various tunings), but I don't know (I could be wrong) that they specifically had a term for playing with the fingers. Of course, in Europe they had the classical guitar which, by its nature, is played with the fingers though other of their styles may or may not necessarily do that. As far as I know, there is no "fingerstyle" term associated with that style of playing, nor with flamenco. Anyway, this could be a whole other area for us to learn more about. My knowledge of it is certainly quite limited as I am sure my comments here indicate.

Tony