Tonefiend Forum

Man, I am having a hell of a time getting comfortable with this one very particular fingerstyle technique. See, most of the time I play with sort of a classical-guitar-style right, plucking up toward my thumb with my fingers. But sometimes I strum down with the back of several nails, sort of like what banjo players call "frailing."

But here's where I get stuck: If I'm trying to play a melody by plucking downward with my thumb, while raking my nails against the strings as a backbeat, it's almost impossible for me to thumb-pluck and finger-rake together on the same beat. Weird. I don't know why it's so hard.

Sounds like whenever I tried drumming. My foot and right hand were always linked. Couldn't move one without the other.

Quote from joe on July 28, 2012, 23:35
Man, I am having a hell of a time getting comfortable with this one very particular fingerstyle technique. See, most of the time I play with sort of a classical-guitar-style right, plucking up toward my thumb with my fingers. But sometimes I strum down with the back of several nails, sort of like what banjo players call "frailing."

But here's where I get stuck: If I'm trying to play a melody by plucking downward with my thumb, while raking my nails against the strings as a backbeat, it's almost impossible for me to thumb-pluck and finger-rake together on the same beat. Weird. I don't know why it's so hard.

I will risk asking a potentially stupid, obvious question here: when you're trying this technique, where's your anchor point?

It could be that when you're frailing with your fingers, you're using the thumb as an anchor point on the guitar (and vica versa) so that trying to do both at the same completely changes the feel of the technique.

Steve Baughmann had a book about frailing with the guitar, focusing on replicating various banjo strumming patterns on the guitar... worth a look.

If I understand correctly, my question is, what is your wrist/arm usually doing? Does your wrist usually stay fixed and you are lightly rolling your forearm when you alternate between thumb-beat and frail-backbeat? (kind of like the motion of a 'hang loose' sign), OR does the whole arm stay fairly straight and your fingers are 'kicking' the frail out? When I do a move similar to what you're describing, I usually just use thumb and pinky and most of the movement is a rotation of the upper arm with a little kick of the pinky. While I usually use the last two or three fingers for frail type stuff, for a motion like this, the pinky is far more flexible and independent on its own so I think it is helpful to just use pinky-nail and thumb and do as much of the work as possible in the rotation of the upper arm. Keep the other fingers out the way because the more that are actively involved in the motion, the more difficult it becomes to syncopate (at least in my hand). I hope that made some sense.