Fingerstyle Guitar: Can You Do It?

Haha. Depending on how you feel about sappy middle-aged Clapton, "Tears in Heaven" might not be bad for an easy-ish piece where there is room to work on fretting-hand clarity. It could also just help to practise changing arpeggio patterns with a metronome, focusing on the specific movements that give you grief and work slowly.

*working

Somebody posted this on jazz guitar group on Friendbook over the weekend:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0zLjeqbTuw

Thanks, that's a good breakdown of how it works and I'll refer to it when teaching. I do it intuitively; it helps to see it analysed and explained like that. It might help to be more conscious of it when playing really fast and busy things. Now I need to work out how to do it on piano.

Why is my D-string always the first to go? Oh, I think I know why. I feel a little weird because the guy whose company manufactured my strings passed away last year and I only have a few packs left- there is a picture of Paco de Lucia on the cover of the cover of the packets! That guy was kind of a NYC institution. Feel like I should post about him here. Believe he worked for Lufthansa and played for their minor league soccer team here before he decided to go into the string-manufacturing business.

I can't find it in the internet but I was told some reasonably big name classical and flamenco guitar players performed at a memorial for him.

His store used to be right next to Birdland on 44th, real quirky old school store, with some weird golden tourist gimcracks in the window, might as well have been Buddhas, don't know who ever bought them, until he sold it, think he owned the building, not sure, and moved to 24th Street.

I bought this cheap but playable classical guitar from him, maybe I should have bought a more expensive one!

https://classicalguitarmagazine.com/luthier-music-founder-string-maker-tony-acosta-passes-away-at-77/

Maybe I already posted all this upthread, if so sorry.

No, doesn't look like he owned the building.

Did so! https://www.voanews.com/arts-culture/tony-acosta-artist-behind-guitar-strings

This seems to have been quoted in the first obit I link but has some other stuff they didn't quote as well as pictures: http://www.juliacrowe.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/5-07lfny.pdf

I see, I posted the obit when he passed but not the other links and didn’t type anything either except his name and the name of his business.

TS Nails vs. Fingers
https://rmclassicalguitar.com/tarrega/

Another one of my neighbors weighs in, although he has since moved:
https://www.adamrafferty.com/2012/03/19/guitar-right-hand-technique-nails-vs-flesh/

Hm, doesn't seem like there's much there in the way of modern classical players who don't play with nails? Somewhat interesting that Sor didn't play with nails, although I doubt his instrument was the same as the guitars we play now - were strings still made of gut then? The Tarrega thing is interesting, though.

Doesn't one of those links say Pepe Romero had his (Thornton) students play with flesh for a year or two and then gave them the choice afterwards?

Here's another discussion I just glanced at: https://www.classicalguitardelcamp.com/viewtopic.php?t=121220

Didn't see that. Romero def plays with nails himself: https://www.facebook.com/peperomeroguitar/photos/getting-my-nails-ready-for-another-double-concert-night-in-hamburg-elbphilharmon/10158317321822782/

More discussion here. Seems to say that Pepe's father made him play without nails for a while but not so clear that Pepe did this with his own students. https://www.classicalguitardelcamp.com/viewtopic.php?t=81344

I've heard that for years too. My friend asked Scott Tennant (who was Pepe's student) in a master class if Pepe ever had his students play without nails, and he said not that he knew.

The OP in the Delcamp thread ("Modernising No-Nails Playing") is the same guy who wrote the first piece you linked. This seems to be a hobbyhorse for him, although NB that afaict he often doesn't play modern nylon-stringed classical guitars at concert pitch. (He posted a video of him doing so but the point was that he commonly does play historical instruments, e.g. lutes, gut strings, low tunings).

Tbc, I don't push nails on anyone who isn't planning to play classical guitar at a fairly serious level. I don't think there's really much of a debate within that context, though? xp

Oops. Sorry for not looking more closely.

I've finally started getting my head around fingerpicking and am quietly excited about how much I've progressed in the last six weeks (from utter simpleton to bungling halfwit, but I'll take it). I'm kinda clumsy and, as mentioned upthread, get bored quickly so rarely make it to mastery before moving on but hell I'm enjoying myself. Inveterate nail-biter so flesh over nails but intrigued to try the other way.

Good stuff. Started looking into theory?

anyone have any good resources for self-teaching fingerstyle? i found the nails v flesh stuff itt very interesting b/c i too am an inveterate nail-biter who forced myself to grow some right-hand nails for a while, but found them to be as tricky for developing a good technique as flesh is.

right now i mess around with some bert jansch tunes and have toyed with some of the easier fahey stuff but i'd love to take a more general approach than just learning songs if there were a way to do so.

Hey Sund4r - I think it'll be part of the process. I've got an intuitive (ish) understanding of the neck of the guitar but only slowly re-learning from scratch, making my way around triads and scales etc. It's amazing how much of this business is about engagement; simply practising and being with your instrument and how that leads to leaps of progress and understanding. That book you recommended elsewhere looks great.

Call all destroyer, speaking very much as a beginner, I've been using a fairly scattershot approach to it - finding videos, trying different things. I'd totally appreciate a more 'definitive' approach if anyone has one!

I play very chordally, and tend to think in terms of movable chord shapes and easily located arpeggios.

This approach makes right-handed picking accuracy less important - if all the notes I am fretting are potentially "right" - or, right enough by virtue of being in the appropriate key or chord - then I worry less about accidentally playing a "wrong" note.

(This may be because I am left-handed but play as a righty.)

Although I don't use it consistently, I find the CAGED system is very helpful for opening up the fretboard. When you start with cowboy chords you tend to over-rely on them.

The CAGED concept allows you to say, "welp, I'm already up here on the tenth fret and need to play an Amaj7. There isn't time to go all the way back down to my usual Amaj7, so I will find a voicing for that chord that is bear where I am."

Yr true CAGED-heads can associate the chord forms with scales and modes. The normal book for learning this is Fretboard Logic. Much of it is over my head (and overkill for my style of music), but it's pretty well-regarded.

That is *near* where I am.

Tl;dr: if your fretting hand is doing its job, then you have a bit more leeway in terms of what you pluck.

you might already know this, but using your thumb to fret the top string in barre chords is essential

as for nails vs flesh, i gave up on nails and developed a more percussive style with my fingers. there are also "open" finger picks which are kinda the best of both worlds

Can that thumb-fretiting thing be down with every kind of neck? Don't think so.

maybe not a classical guitar? it was my understanding that fingerstyle generally referred to steel string acoustic

I get bored every once in a while and try playing upside down just to really reformat my brane:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUK8emiWabU

So many years of conditioning makes it hard to break routine but it helps rediscover playing by simply turn the instrument over, switching hands and unlearning habits.

I'm just kinda ambidextrous yet not nearly enough to really be able to just let it all come out smoothly and effortlessly.

I pretty much never thumb-fret, partly because I keep hearing that good form requires the thumb to be on the back of the neck, and that the overhanging thimb indicates sloppiness.

I do make exceptions for songs where there is a specific bass run on the low E, and the thumb is most convenient fingering, because reasons.

An example is "Driver 8." I think I have used my thumb for the bass notes of "Driver 8."

Specifically D with an F# in the bass

It is completely possible to play barre chords (xp or inversions) without ever thumb-fretting ftr.

Which songs would you recommend learning as a progression to get to:
https://tommyemmanuel.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/chet-atkins-walk-dont-run2.pdf

Sund4r is correct that thumb-fretting is never a necessity. There are a few situations where it might makes l sense (for me, the D with F# in the bass a la Driver 8). But if pressed I could use a different fingering, no prob

Interesting. If Elizabeth Cotten is playing upside down à la Jimi Hendrix, then she is not thumbing her bass notes.

if a la Jimi Hendrix, she would have reversed the string order though

Oh right. In fact that is what it looks like she was doing.

Do people actually play fully upside down?

a left-handed high school friend exclusively played his epiphone SG fully upside down. it freaked me out.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_musicians_who_play_left-handed#Left-handed_with_strings_backwards

from Dick Dale to Gruff Rhys

My brain can't do the mirroring properly so I couldn't see that Elizabeth Cotten was playing fully upside down.

Lol, I was going to say something rude to you but I'm happy we're now all on the same page.

From Sufjan's list: Laetitia_Sadier

I had no idea, and I'd seen guitar-era Stereolab more than a few times!