| By :
Robert Hinchliffe
Copyright (c) 2010 Robert Hinchliffe The first thing to note with this topic of how to finger pick guitar is that this particular technique is associated more with acoustic or electro-acoustic playing rather than with the 'solid' electric guitar. There are exceptions to this but it is in the idioms of folk and folk-rock where we would normally expect to encounter this technique. Classical guitar is also played using the fingers but that is a very specialist technique which I will not be dealing with in this article. Finger picking the guitar can be done on both nylon and metal strings, although I have to say that I much prefer to finger pick on the nylon strings of my Spanish guitar rather than on a metal-stringed instrument. Finger picking metal strings can get a bit uncomfortable after a while. When finger picking the guitar the sound will be clearer and stronger if the finger-nails are used rather than the fleshy pads of the fingers. Guitarists who use finger picking will normally have very short nails on the left hand, for negotiating the fret board, and longer nails on the right, with which to pluck the strings. It is a perennial problem for guitarists to try to keep the right hand nails trimmed to just the right length without breaking them. It is possible to buy plastic or metal finger picks which fit over the ends of the fingers, but I find these rather clumsy. They are quite useful, however, if you need to pick out a particularly aggressive lick for a specific piece or song. So, how do we actually use the fingers to get the effect we want? There are many different licks which guitarists use but there is a straight-forward, easy technique which will get you started on the right track. It works like this: There are 6 strings on a guitar; - the thumb is used to pick out the bass note of the chord on the bottom 3 strings whilst the next 3 fingers (index, middle & ring fingers) take a string each of the top 3 strings. The right-hand little finger is not used in guitar playing. The thumb will pick out a bass note on the strong beats whilst the other three fingers pick out the upper notes in between. One bit of musical theory is needed to help the selection of the appropriate bass notes to be played by the thumb. Most chords are made up of just three notes. These are the chord note (the named note) plus the notes three notes above and five notes above. The chord of 'C', for instance, is made up of the notes of C, E & G. The bass note selected should be one of these. C (known as the root) is the most important note and G (the 5th note) the second most important. It would be usual for the thumb to pick out these notes most of the time. The middle of the three notes, 'E', can be used, - but sparingly. So, looking at the issue of how to finger pick guitar, the above advice gives the basic technique to get you started. As you become more proficient you will be able to use more and more complex patterns. However, the method outlined above will always be the bedrock on which everything is based.
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