i've been playing guitar for a couple of years now, but i'm not very good at all. i've only been strumming and fingerpicking has seemed to be evasive to me...

a friend once told me that all you do to fingerpick is to form the chord with your fingers and then pluck random strings, but i think there's more to it than that... i've tried fingerpicking and just can't get it right. can someone (or multiple someones!) tell me how you fingerpick and give me any tips. i'd be so grateful! for example, if i wanted to play "heart of worship" by fingerpicking, how would i do that? (or any other song that you want to use to explain) could i see the chords for any song and be able to fingerpick it from that?

thank you!

[maadio]

well you could start out with tablature and see what strings people picked in what order to get some ideas... Take some song you really like and kinda know by heart and get the tab for it (not chords... actual TAB) and try to play it like it sounds... oh yeah... and pray!

thanks for your reply, plaid child.

i should have clarified that i do know how to read tab and can play things if i sit down with the tab and go through it... what i want to know, though, is how people can just look at the chords for a song and fingerpick it... like a friend and i were sitting down with our guitars last week and she didn't have tab or anything for a song we were playing. i told her what the chords were and she fingerpicked it while i strummed. that's what i don't get... is there a certain order you go in? help me!

[nate95366]

There are a couple of ways in which someone can just sit down and fingerpick chords without TAB. I don't read tab (except very slowly and with much pain), I DO read regular notes and rhythm charts, but enough about me...

Play an E chord. The notes you're playing are (from low e string to high): E, B, E, G#, B, E. Regular chords are built out of 3 different notes, Seventh chords are built out of 4. Each time you see a chord written down, there is a "code" left behind that tells you how the chord is built. "E" really means this: "Start at the note E - now think of the E major scale and play the 3rd and 5th notes of that scale along with the E, making sure that E is the lowest note that you play."

You may say, "Whoa.....that's a lot of information!" and you're right. But as a guitarist, just by knowing how to form a chord, you've already got all the notes there. B is the third note in the scale and G# is the fifth. You can find the lowest E on the sixth string (back where I listed all the notes out).

Ok. Now we get into rhythm and counting, having settled which notes you'll be playing and which one will be lowest (the "bass" note, technically). If you can count measures, this will hopefully make sense:

4/4 time can be counted: "1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and...." with each syllable representing one eighth note. You can tap your foot to a 4/4 song, and usually your foot will be on the floor for (1,2,3,4) and up in the air for (and, and, and, and).
When you're thinking about this way of counting and the notes that are in the chord you're playing all at once, you can say to yourself........hmmmmmm........"self, I think that I'll only play the "bass" note, with my thumb, every time I count "1," and every time I say "3" I'll play a different lower note, like the B on the 5th string...." and you develop a PATTERN by taking every one of those 8 "beats" and giving yourself a note to play during it. Try it. Develop a pattern. Most patterns use the bass note on beat 1 and let it ring out while they complete the rest of the pattern. Many simple patterns also play another low note (but not usually the bass) on beat 3. Most fingerpicking also uses the thumb to pluck the lower notes (always the bass note, even if you find that the bass note is on the 4th string as in the D chord) and your index, middle, and ring fingers to play the other strings. It can be confusing to add the pinky, but once you develop skills with the other fingers, you may wish to add some "tricks" for the pinky.

Hope this helps....

Nate

hey Nate
could you possibly write out a couple of patterns -- i.e. by string number?
thanks for whatever help you can give.
(fingerpicking eludes me too!!)

[maadio]

hey you know that rhythm stuff? that confuses me sometimes.

[4EverwITGoD]

ok all u need to kno is wit ur thumb pluck 3 stop bass strings and iwt the other ones pluck bottom 3

[nate95366]

ok....here's a quick recording of what I was trying to "talk" about up above. I'll count out a measure and then I'll play for a few measures beyond that, all on one chord, repeating the same pattern over and over (which I don't usually do, but it's easy to learn that first before you start putting variations in).

Nate

[maadio]

hey that was really pretty. what was that?

[nate95366]

That was my guitar (ok, captain obvious) and I wasn't playing any song in particular, but I guess I could name it "30 Second Study of the E Chord Fingerpicked" or something like that....

thanks

Nate

the mp3 files help a lot. (esp. like the strumdemo you did)

[froggee501]

actually that would have to be named "25 Second Study of the E Chord Picked", but oh well.....it does sound nice though!

hey, this is the original unregistered person. i haven't posted the last few unregistered posts, so i guess my post must have brought out some other anonymous people with questions

anyway, thanks very much for posting, nate. i still don't get it, though could you (or anyone else) explain it some more. for example, this song by waterdeep was tabbed out by t-rev and he just lists the chords and then says, "in D, fingerpicked". how do i know how to fingerpick that?? i'm so confused... heeeeeelp meeeeeeeeee! i want to be able to pick any song... if anyone can help me do this, i would be forever grateful (as would everyone else who hears me play )

[nate95366]

Original unregistered,

I think that it would be wise for you now to make a trip down to the music store and pick up a basic beginning guitar manual. Mel Bay teaches the P-I-M-A-S "method" of fingerpicking, which is what I use to a certain degree. Make sure that whatever book you buy also comes with a CD or tape that you can play and listen to the examples. If you go to a "good" guitar store, they should be able to help you find a book that teaches P-I-M-A-S. Take the book home and study, study, study!!!

Nate

[froggee501]

hey unregistered, do you know the song Breathe......as in "this is the air i breathe, this is the air i breathe, your holy presence living in me..."etc.? if so, I figured out a simple way of picking that....I can't finger pick, but my picking you can do with fingers or a pick(like you hold between your thumb and index).....so if you want it, let me know....you can e-mail me at froggee501@hotmail.com, or you can pm me if you get a screen name.