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How Long Does It Take To Play Finger style Guitar

By Mike Hayes | August 2, 2010

One thing I have noticed over the years as a guitar teacher is
that there is a lot of confusion about learning finger style
guitar; I’ll often receive a phone call from a potential student
who will say they want to learn classical guitar, in the past I
simply used to tell them that whilst I love listening to good
classical guitar playing and classical music, learning to play
classical guitar is a specialized field and then I would proceed
to recommend a good classical guitar teacher.

These days I have learned to ask a few more questions as 99% of
the time the student does not really want to play classical
guitar in fact most of them haven’t heard much classical guitar
playing at all, I generally find that they either (a) want to
play single note melodies or (b) play finger style accompaniment
of the guitar.

In this article I will focus on the finger style accompaniment
type of guitar playing.

Guitar techniques for finger style

Essentially the left hand fingering of your chords (I’m assuming
you are a right handed player) will primarily remain the same as
if you were strumming although sometimes you won’t have to use as
many fingers (that’s good news).

Finger style skills to learn (right hand)

Most of the techniques will be done with your right hand.

Basically your thumb will play either the fourth, fifth or sixth
string depending on what chord you are playing e.g., if you are
playing a ‘D’ chord your thumb will play the fourth string whilst
if you were playing an ‘A’ chord your thumb would play the fifth
string.

The idea is for your thumb to play a bass note of the same letter
name as the chord you are playing.

Here is a simple table for you to practice, I’m going to call it
our ‘rule of thumb’.

A, Am, A7 = 5th sting

B, Bm, B7 = 5th

C, Cm, C7 = 5th

D, Dm, D7 = 4th

E, Em, E7 = 6th

F, Fm, F7 = 6th

G, Gm, G7 = 6th

Your remaining right hand fingers will play as follows;

First finger (right hand ) plays the third string

Second finger (right hand) plays the second string

Third finger (right hand) plays the first string

These fingers play the same strings regardless of whatever chord
you are playing; it’s just the thumb that changes; I know it
looks a lot more complicated than that and it can be more
complicated however if you are just staring and want to get a
‘feel’ for what is involved in this style of guitar playing this
is a great way to get started.

How to practice:

Start by playing only with your right hand, no left hand
fingering, begin by playing the following:

Thumb plays sixth string; first finger plays third string; second
finger plays second string; third finger plays first string;
second finger plays second string; first finger plays third
string.

Repeat this sequence over and over preferably while watching
television, your fingers will do all the necessary repetitive
work while your eyes will be watching the television all the time
you will be become more comfortable playing this style of guitar.

You will need to learn the following guitar skills

Finger style skills to learn (left hand)

* hammer-on’s

* pull-off’s

* slides

How long will it take? The basic guitar skills will only take a
few weeks, however since you will be using the ‘pads’ of your
right hand fingers you will need to allow time for your right
hand fingers to develop calluses, you will achieve the best
results by many short practice sessions rather than long sessions
particularly when you are starting out.

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