[MJ_Avalanche]

Originally posted by HeavenOnAStick
I'm trying to learn finger-picking. Any suggestions for stuff to practice?

Clapton's Tears in Heaven... Nuff said!

No other finger picking song has taught me so much... I learned inversions, finger picking and arpeggio type things all at the same time with that song!

[everyman]

The foundation of fingerpicking is learning how to control your right-hand thumb.

First, you want to be sure your thumb is hitting the right bass note for each respective chord. Next, try alternating the bass notes -- i.e., go back and forth between the root bass note and the adjacent string. Once you can do that without looking, the other fingers should fall into place.

To get started, I suggest that you pick up a book/cd set or video on playing folk-style guitar. Homespun Tapes has some very good instructional material available.

Here are some fairly simple fingerpicking songs you can learn: Simon and Garfunkel - "The Boxer"
Loggins and Messina - "Danny's Song"
Jewel - "You Were Meant for Me"
Peter, Paul & Mary - "Puff the Magic Dragon"
James Taylor - "You Got a Friend"
Eva Cassidy - "Fields of Gold" or "Over the Rainbow"

There's also a good magazine called Guitar World Acoustic Guitar that comes out with nice transcription of acoustic guitar songs.

[green]

Originally posted by JrnymnNate
Radiohead - Street Spirit has a cool sounding picking pattern.

*round of applause for mentioning this FINE fine band*

[Awzmgd117]

yeah picking is definatly a great skill to have but i don't know if i would recomed learning it though songs i've known people to do it that and they usually get stuck just with one or two patterns, try just finding a book or a web site with some basic patterns in it and learn those just pick it to chord progression of your choice something that requires no effort for your left hand, make sure you stay in time and once you have change it right away, modify it play with it make it your own, plant your pinky when you first start it will make a world of differnce and remeber you aren't limited to your fingers either why that certainly lets you run through things faster for a slower song you can pick with a imagine that Pick, this works well in worship say if your playing something like open the eyes of my heart (the upbeat version) and you want to bring it down into a more quiet reflective time, start picking pray and pick before you start the next song (practice that one first) you'll find that even when you think your doing it randomly your in some sort of pattern over time it will just more complex but a pattern is the only way it will sound right,
and hey if you don't want to put the work into getting good at picking then you can always just pick staight down and back up like strumming but emphasing each individual note
:kcool: