Tonefiend Forum

When I picked up guitar seriously in the mid 70's I actually started playing bass and I was heavily influenced by Jack Casady so I emulated his style. That came across to guitar rather readily for me. So I sort of naturally had that sort of hand position and angle when I began fingerpicking guitar. As for downstrokes I started by doing power chords using all my fingers together to strum across the strings giving a rather large sound. I never really did a lot of Travis picking except for a short while when I used a thumbpick but gave up the thumb pick due to the volume and tonal differences with the fingers. When I finally settled in to fingers only approach on guitar both of those techniques sort of gave me a leg up that allowed my full use of my fingers. Another thing that I believe really helped me was that my day job (and side job) were very demanding of manual dexterity (repair and maintenance of electronic and mechanical devices). When I am doing repairs I always use both hands equally and do some fairly small parts manipulation while also holding screw drivers, cutters, pliers or probes. I have had people watching me be amazed that I am able to do close work like that but for me it is second nature. My suggestion is to find another activity that requires deftness in the hands and fingers to do along with playing guitar as for me at least it really accelerated my capabilities. Once you develop manual dexterity in a variety of things it increase the muscle memory many times. I would also recommend playing bass with an exaggerated fingerstyle as it really helps develop those same muscles. One technique I also found to help the pinky finger is to practice playing chords fingerstyle and trying to pluck all the strings simultaneously as close as possible. If you do that with a distorted tone you can hear it readily because if you hit the strings exactly at the same time it minimizes the breakup of the notes and gives a cleaner sound. Then practice playing all those notes one after another in as perfect a rhythm as possible using the thumb and all four fingers. For me at least those two things really cleaned up my fingerstyle. I also think playing slide fingerstyle with those exercises helped me even more. I am not nor never will be a guitar teacher but those thing seemed to work well for me. I also use all parts of my fingers when playing but I don't use my nails as picks for plucking but rather use the nail on downstrokes for a different texture sort of flicking the strings with the nail rather than plucking them. I am sure that would put a classical guitar teacher on the ceiling but I always strove to be different rather than emulate others. I am sure others will have far better suggestions than this but I think really developing dexterity and strength in the picking hand is vital.

ok I dont know I couldnt start a topic but,I'll ask here...All My life I've been a Chet Atkins fan. And I've always had trouble tryining to get the jist of his fingerpicking technique...Anyone got any ideas your willing to share?

Quote from Oinkus on November 23, 2013, 04:27
When I met Chet at a meet and greet before a show they (Chet, Leo Kottke,Albert Lee) did a nice hour long chat. He does a ton of thumb and finger harmonics off of chords, as in he does the entire chord one note at a time quickly.That whole 5 finger string assault thing requires actual dexterity and a TON of practice,think it might be the whole 60 years of playing that makes it seem so smooth and difficult. Practice makes perfect. Watch some serious banjo players , Chet was based in country music but opened up to many different styles . Django was surely one of his guitar heroes. Hands down a phenomenal player with a great head on his shoulders for music.

Thank you,Oinkus. Im a pretty decent finger picker, My dynamics are very natural and Im quite melodic,I think anyway. Id say a split between technique and honest feel. I just have always admired that style and people like Joe, (the Boss) here. who articulate it so well. I'm totally thrilled by the fact the natives here are friendly and, help out the other natives so to speak. I've run out of thoughts or questions. Ive been up all night and I'm cashed LOL...thanks!...