How to Use Finger Picking in your Guitar Playing

Hi! Welcome to guitarlessons.com. In this lesson, we’re going to talk a little about finger picking and some of the basic things you need to know to get started in that style of music. The 1st thing I’m going to show you is the nails on my right hand. If you’ll look at them, they’re not too long but they’re just long enough to make more of a tag on the strings when I hit them. You don’t have to have this if you’re going to do finger style guitar. You can have no nails or you can have nails like mine; just extend it with both and see which tone you like better. if you have nails you’re probably going to get more brighter sound, if you don’t have nails you’re going to get a little darker of the tone but if you practice a lot that’ll kind of give way to a little bit brighter of the tone because you’ll start getting calluses on your fingers. Let’s take a look at our right hands 1st just to play some of this. There are two different styles of finger style guitar that you could choose to do. I’ll show you both of them. You could try both of them up and decide for yourself. The 1st one is more of a folk finger style guitar. That’s when you rest your hand on the guitar or rest your pinky on the guitar to have that kind of anchor point to kind of let you know where you are in your finger picking. It’ll help you navigate the strings a little bit better. I will give you some examples of that. If you’re watching my right hand, it's anchored here to the body— [Demonstration] Okay now, that way it's cool and a lot of people do it. It’s not wrong but I prefer the classical method of finger style guitar playing. That’s where you left your hand float freely above the strings; and the main reason I like that, is because it doesn’t stretch your arm out as much. You’re a little bit more relaxed instead of pushing down here and you feel a kind of stretch in your wrist. The classical method is where you just kind of bring your hand in and let it relax at the strings. That’s a lot more relaxing fro you, it's probably a lost more safer for you as far as tendinitis ans stuff like that. One thing you’ll notice when I bring my hand in is my arm is almost completely straight you know how it would be if my hand were just in my side or something. So, I like it completely relaxed in natural positions when it comes to the guitar strings. Let’s get out thumb working here. You’ll notice my thumb is pretty much straight as well in a nice relaxed position. Take your thumb down to the E string. If you have nails, the fleshy part of your thumb and the nail right on the string and press it down— [Demonstration] If you don’t have nails, don’t worry about it; just take your thumb and press down as well— [Demonstration] Here the nail again— [Demonstration] Here, it's just the flesh— [Demonstration] So you kind of noticed the difference in the tone there and a good way to get you going with your thumb is to just alternate between the 6th, 5th and the 4th strings with your thumb because those are the strings that you’re probably going to be playing majority of the time with just your thumb. So, you can just go ahead and do that a few times to get you used to that— [Demonstration] If you’ll notice when I play since I hit that 1st note my thumb’s coming right back to prepare to get that next note right here— [Demonstration] Same thing, next to the G string it's coming back to prepare and push down— [Demonstration] Do it again— [Demonstration] So, just experiment with that and get some more of those 3 strings are to where you don’t even have to think about it.— [Demonstration] That’s the 1st step to getting to know how to finger pick. Just getting those 3 base notes with your thumb. Let’s talk about the other 3 fingers on your hand. I’m going to cover two different types of strokes with your index finger, middle finger and third finger. The 1st one is going to be a free stroke, the 2nd one is going to be what we call a rest stroke. Most of this type we’re going to be using in the next few lessons will be free strokes. So, just keep that in mind. If you take a look in my index finger of my right hand, this is a free stroke. Okay, it comes. Prepare your finger; I’ll just use the G string just where the fingernail and flesh meet. Rest that on there and just pull away— [Demonstration] That’s a free stroke— [Demonstration] Do the same thing with your middle finger. Prepare it— [Demonstration] Make sure you’re relaxed— [Demonstration] And then, do the same thing with your ring finger. This is probably the hardest one to get used to it because this is probably your weakest finger when you’re picking. Just come down your E string— [Demonstration] Pull back— [Demonstration] Almost like you could just do that kind of motion right here— [Demonstration] The other fingers should move freely with your finger just during the picking as well. It shouldn’t be stiff. So, let’s look at a rest stroke now. The difference between a rest stroke and free stroke is that a rest stroke is if you come here to your G string with your index finger you can prepare just like what you did with free stroke only you’re going to back up a little bit with your hand. Pull it back on to where you get more pressure on the string and then push that string and come right up next to the other string. It’ll run right into it and then rest on the next string— [Demonstration] Now, you get more volume with a technique like this and a little bit different tones. A little bit harsher and brighter tones to kind of color using your palate of tones that you want to use them when your finger picking. Another good exercise, then you can go ahead and work on your rest strokes. It’s just alternating between your index and your middle finger just like this. It doesn’t have to be fancy just make it clean and even— [Demonstration] You’ll notice when I hit it with my index finger— [Demonstration] My middle finger is coming right back up there as soon as I play it to prepare to hit the next note— [Demonstration] Same thing, index finger is coming to prepare— [Demonstration] Okay, so the last thing you need to learn to get started doing finger picking is that the names of the fingers on the right hand when you’re looking at a piece of sheet music. The first one you’ll need to look at is the thumb. That’s a P, that’s indicated by a P. the next one, the index finger is indicated by an I, the middle finger is going to be an M and the last finger the ring finger is going to be an A. so keep an eye up for that in some sheet music or stuff. Some pieces of music that you might be learning and be aware of those letters indicate and what finger on your right hand that you need to use.