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Learning To Play Guitar – Finger Picking Techniques

By Mike Hayes | March 7, 2010

Sometimes a song demands a different treatment on guitar, certain
songs sound better when they are finger picked, generally songs
with romantic lyrics benefit from a more gentle, softer,
sensitive approach.

Finger style guitar playing has been around for a long time,
classical guitar has always been played with the right hand
fingers on guitars that are strung with nylon strings. But it’s
not only soft, romantic or classical music that lends itself to
finger style playing just about any style of music can be play
with your fingers.

When you watch a skillful player playing finger style it does
look complicated, but what if there was an easy way to master
this style, the good news is there’s lots of ways to get into
finger picking here is just a few tips to get you started.

Finger picking tip #1: Bass notes – rule of thumb

In the following descriptions I’m presuming you are a right
handed player if you are left handed simply substitute left hand
whenever I refer to right hand.

Your right hand thumb can play either the fourth, fifth or sixth
string depending on what chord you are playing. The idea is for
your thumb to play a bass note of the same name as the chord
e.g., if you were playing a “D” chord the bass note would be the
note “D” therefore your right hand thumb would play the fourth
string open.

Here is my “rule of thumb” approach for finger style guitar.

Chord of A, Am or A7 = thumb plays fifth string

Chord of B, Bm or B7 = thumb plays fifth string

Chord of C, Cm or C7 = thumb plays fifth string

Chord of D, Dm or D7 = thumb plays fourth string

Chord of E, Em or E7 = thumb plays sixth string

Chord of F, Fm or F7 = thumb plays fourth string

Chord of G, Gm or G7 = thumb plays sixth string

I’ve listed the most common open string chords for chords played
in the first position if you need to play any other bass note
e.g., Bb all you have to do is locate a Bb note on either the
fourth, fifth or sixth string, in this instance Bb would be
located on the first fret, fifth string therefore your right hand
thumb would play the fifth string while your left hand fingered
the Bb chord shape.

Finger picking tip #2: Right hand fingers

We’ve covered the thumb what do we do with the other right hand
fingers?

1st finger plays the third string regardless of the chord being
played.

2nd finger plays the second string regardless of the chord being
played.

3rd finger plays the first string regardless of the chord being
played.

Finger picking tip #3: Finger picking patterns

Most popular songs are either in 4/4 or 3/4 time … here are my
favorite picking patterns for both time signatures.

3/4 = finger picking pattern code: T 12321 = 1 bar

Translated this means the T 12321 code is the finger sequence for
your right hand e.g., if you were playing a “Em” chord

1. your thumb would play the sixth string,
2. your first finger would play the third sting,
3. the second finger would play the second string,
4. your third finger would play the first string
5. then, your second finger would play the second string
6. next, your first finger would play the third string.

4/4 = picking pattern code T 121 3 121 = 1 bar

another variation in 4/4 is …

T
4/4 = picking pattern code 3 121 3 121 = 1 bar

T
In this example you will notice 3 which means you would play both
the bass note and the first string simultaneously.

This pattern works well in 4/4 when there is only one chord per
bar e.g., G /// | C ///| etc

In musical situations where there are two chords per bar e.g.,

G / C / | D / C / | etc

I would use this variation …

Two chord to the bar finger picking pattern:

T T
4/4 = picking pattern code 3 121 3 121 = 1 bar

As always experiment and see which pattern(s) suit your style of
guitar playing.

Topics: Beginner Guitar Lesson, Finger Picking, Guitar Tips | No Comments »

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