The way to learn fingerstyle guitar, also known as fingerpicking, is through tuition and practice. There is no other way. However, not just tuition, but visual teaching: you can’t learn fingerstyle from a book in the way that you can learn to play chords. Fingerstyle requires proper teaching and lots of practice.
In fingerstyle you use the fingers of your right hand to pluck the strings individually rather than using a plectrum (or pick). The usual rules apply here: you are assumed to be right handed. It is not only folk or classical guitarists that use fingerstyle: some of the best rock guitarists also learned this including Eric Clapton. Jimi Hendrix even learned ‘tooth-picking’, which gives a different meaning to the word ‘toothpick’!
One of the benefits of learning this style of guitar playing is that you open up a whole host of possibilities for yourself, no matter what style of guitar you play. Ask any bass guitarist: they use this style all the time! Fingerstyle lessons teach you a core playing style that will never leave you. You will benefit from it no matter what kind of guitar you play, and will also help you to understand more about the instrument you are playing.
Although fingerstyle appears to be a style in itself, there are many techniques involved in playing guitar this way. There are many positions and patterns involved, and there are also the two major styles, miles apart in the eyes of those less aware of how similar they are: folk and classical. There is also Spanish guitar which is a mix between strumming and fingerstyle.
Alternating bass is known as the ‘grand-daddy’ of fingerpicking styles, and then you have strumming styles and arpeggios, where a chord is played ‘open’ with the notes of the chord played individually, or you can play the various scales, such as pentatonic scales, up and down the frets as many of the metal guitar soloists do so impressively. It’s amazing what you can do with only five notes!
You also have various styles of tuning, starting with the basic open and drop tuning to more complex styles. You can learn with nylon strings or steel strings, although true non-classical fingerstyle uses steel strings. Fingerstyle is best played on an acoustic guitar, although many of the more technically capable popular guitarists can use the style more than capably with an electric guitar.
When you see a great fingerstyle guitarist at work you have to wonder how they learned to play like that. It looks impressive and sounds fabulous when done properly, and obviously you don’t learn how to play like that just by reading about it. In fact, it takes a lot of work – hard work. It isn’t easy to teach and even less easy to learn. So how do you learn? As stated in the first paragraph, through demonstration.
The obvious means of demonstration, other than having a private tutor, is by means of a DVD on which the techniques needed to play can be demonstrated. This is a particularly useful medium in that a DVD can be replayed as often as needed and also played in slow motion: as slow as needed to see exactly what your teacher is doing. It could be argued that a DVD is possibly even more useful than a live demonstration, since you play the DVD over and over again until you have perfected the technique.
If there is one thing about fingerstyle, it is that you have to practice time and time again until your fingers can do the job without thought. And if you think I am joking about your fingers thinking, it could be argued that they do. There is such a thing as ‘muscle memory’, when certain of your muscles can carry out certain movements without you having to consciously carry them out.
One example is brushing or combing your hair. You do that without conscious thought because your muscles know what to do. Watch a violinist or flautists: they are not thinking about their finger movements. That is muscle memory. Fingerstyle is another: it takes practice and that practice is best carried out by following a video that shows you exactly what you should be dong.
You can purchase videos teaching this style of guitar playing, or you could join an online membership site. The advantage of a membership site is that you can not only access it as many times as you want, as you can with a DVD but it is updated regularly with new material. Not only that, but you can probably find more than one guitar teacher on these sites that you can use, and change to that you prefer.
There are few doubts that if you want to learn fingerstyle guitar, an online membership site is your best bet, followed closely by a good DVD. It is very much a visual style of teaching that is required for this type of guitar playing, and if you get it right then your playing will be spectacular. Fingerstyle is not restricted to classical and country, but also many heavy metal and rock guitarist are adept fingerstyle players.
Fingerstyle guitar is impressive, so if you want to learn fingerstyle guitar then find the best fingerstyle learning system that suits you. For some it will be DVD but most should opt for a membership site that offers them much more variety and many more options of styles and teachers.
If you want to learn fingerstyle guitar using a membership site offering guitar tuition from professional teachers, then try http://www.ijamplay.com where you will find fingerstyle guitar tuition exactly suited to your needs.
