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Thought I'd share some thoughts on fingerstyle, since the "pick or fingers" topic comes up fairly often around here. When I first got into playing solo and chord melody guitar, I was faced with the dilema of whether to continue using a pick with this new style, or to drop the pick and rely solely on fingerpicking. For me, it seemed that going fingerstyle was the more interesting, musical route for what I was after, but was apprehensive about dropping the pick and sacrificing some of the speed that I seemed only to attain with the plectrum. In the end, I droppped the pick completely from my solo playing, I only use one occasionally, while playing with other people.
Years later, while I think I'm very capable with fingerstyle, it still yields new possibilities for me to explore, I haven't reached a plateau (as I had with a pick), and there isn't one in sight. And while I still can't play quite as fast as I could with a pick, I can play fast enough that I never find myself thinking that my playing would be more interesting or musical if I could play faster. In other words, playing any faster just wouldn't tastefully serve my purposes any better, for what I'm after.
Not suggesting that any one approach is better than another, but in this instance, the sacrifice is well worth it for me. Thought i'd share for anyone who's facing that dilema.
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07-30-2012 08:53 AM
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Cool reflecfion...i've thought about going "fingers only" from time to time, by a hybrid approach works best for me...i still really like holding a pick...
Joking a bit, but must we call it "fingerstyle?" I feel like I'm on the AGF and we're talking about some cat who slaps on his guitar while playing tuneless, new age tripe
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Haha, I agree that the candyrat stuff doesn't yield the kind of depth that I look for in music, it's not for me. Even so, it might be interesting to hear that approach from someone who is a bit more...interesting, for lack of a better term. In other words, if George Benson went candyrat, I'd check it out.
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Oh man, I'm glad I'm not the only person that feels that way about fingerstyle guitar. Did you know you can actually get a degree in that where I go to school?
Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
Joking a bit, but must we call it "fingerstyle?" I feel like I'm on the AGF and we're talking about some cat who slaps on his guitar while playing tuneless, new age tripe
That's another topic for another thread, I'm sure.
Anyway, I started out playing "fingerstyle" solo jazz guitar because my teacher strictly played without a pick and developed a system of fingering for his right hand that allowed him to play even faster than he could with a pick. So I did that for a few years, and on a whim, I decided to try playing solo with a pick. While it's not as versatile, and you can't individually grab as many notes, I still prefer the way it feels to me.
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That's funny, that the term "fingerstyle" is now used to describe the new movement of guitar slappers. I guess I hear "fingerstyle" and I'm more apt to think of players like Leo Kottke (say what you want about Kottke, but I think some of his later jazz and classical-inspired stuff is beautiful ( see the song "world made to order" for reference)). I never knew that the term had been hijacked by kids who don't know a guitar from a bongo. That's a shame. To each his own.
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I think it makes sense to do both. Actually, it's three for me, pick, hybrid, fingers. And for me that results in two different picking techniques, Benson style, and the more traditional style.
I'm faster with a pick. I'm still not fast enough for up tempo bebop regardless of how I pick. Bebop is my motivation for wanting to be faster although I really don't practice for speed.
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When it comes to technical things I like variety...I find some extreme advantages of pick, hybrid, and fingers only. They are very different, and I find musical situations for each.
What is nice about hybrid is that it's accessible...you don't have to put the pick away.
I like that I play quite differently in each three. I've been doing some solo shows lately and I like mixing it up (between hybrid/pick/fingers) because it forces me to play pretty differently...giving variety to the whole show.
A handicap for me is that I've been an obsessive nail biter. They are terribly short. I've had some success leaving them alone, but it's a real project.
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Wots it called when you keep the pick in the crook of your
index finger and use thumb + mid ring and pinky ?
(Hey thats a good name .... might use that)
I do that a bit but only for comping chords with
all notes speaking at the same time like an organ type thing
Ed Bickert is great at Hybrid , lovely balance oooooo
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Someone please start a thread on how to get a grip with hybrid picking. Fingers or pick, I got a handle on. Hybrid? Yeah, forget about it.
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Gustavo Assis-Brasil has a book on hybrid picking that is quite thorough. It focusses mostly on lines.
I use hybrid mostly for chords.
I got better at hybrid by simply forcing myself to do it as much as possible, using a metronome, and listening to my own dynamics. It was sloppy at first but wasn't hard to get the hang of. Still somewhat new to it, especially in using the pinky for four note chords.
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Interesting thoughts from the OP. My first thought, as a few other people here when I hear the term "fingerstyle" is from way before the slapping and tapping crowd. Like others here, I don't care at all for that music, but I do respect that others do and they put a lot of time and effort into learning to do that.
I have always gravitated to using my fingers to play, but used a pick when I played electric in bands. A pick just never felt natural to me. I think those who can do the hybrid picking (pick and fingers) seem (to me) to have the best of both worlds. I just could never get into doing that for some reason, but certainly see it as a desirable skill to have.
Tony
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So many players I've heard use hybrid picking with fantastic results. I had experimented with it, but I never found that I could get a very balanced tone or volume between notes picked by finger and with the pick. I also like to move the melody line around between different registers within the chord and found that I had a harder time thinking and emphasizing that way with a pick.
My main reason for this post wasn't to say any one way is better. I was more interested in expressing that between the different approaches, what we may percieve as advantages or disadvantages aren't exactly that. There are different ways on either side to accomplish the same thing, musically, so to choose one approach puts you at no discernable advantage or disadvantage over the other approach. Does this make sense?
For example, I can play a single line melody on a single string much faster with a pick. I can play a melody alternating between 2 or more strings much faster with fingers. So, which side has the advantage? Well, neither. They're both means to the same end. It just kind of means less to me even to say that either side has advantages and disadvantages, because even with something like speed, it all evens out.
FYI, this post is partly for the benefit of guitarists at the crossroads, facing the "pick or no pick" dilema, and hung up on the advantages and disadvantages on either side. It would have been beneficial to me, while at that crossroads, to see that there's no great sacrifice to choosing one side over the other, that you don't have to feel like you're "giving up" on anything either way. It would have saved me some hesitation and frustration to see things this way, but that battle was won for me over time.Last edited by amusiathread; 07-31-2012 at 12:12 AM.
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Interesting - I was just the opposite. I was a "fingers only" player when I started playing chord melody about 12 years ago. My teacher used the hybrid technique so i copied that. I left playing chord melody for a while and went back to fingers only finger style (which for me meant Fahey, Davy Graham, John Renbourn, Mississippi John Hurt, Rev. Gary Davis). When I returned to chord melody, I never went back to using a pick and I am more comfortable that way - using my fingers only. I've played for a total of 44 years, mostly with fingers only - so that is what works for me. I like the dynamics I can get with my fingers and there seems to be a better balance between bass and treble when I don't use the pick. I imagine that if I had started out playing with a pick, I would have gravitated towards the hybrid technique (Richard Thompson, who is one of the better hybrid players out there, describes it as a "bizarre" way to play).
Ken
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Something wrong with fingerstyle? Go listen to Martin Taylor and tell me he's aimlessly slapping the guitar. Or Gene Bertoncini, for that matter. Or even Jorma Kaukonen, if'n ya like fingerstyle blues...
I'm just yanking the chain. I know what you guys mean but I couldn't resist.
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I don't see it as a need to choose one or the other. Coming from a background in playing bass guitar, and playing rock and metal at that, playing with either one was a matter of tone. About six months into playing jazz guitar, I realized that I could use fingers to get away with more gain in my guitar signal without distorting, and get chords to play without any arpeggiation (which is what Ritchie Blackmore does for Smoke on the Water, so it wasn't an entirely unfamiliar idea).
Since I'm not an exclusively jazz player, I switch as the need suits me. I mostly play jazz with my thumb, using fingers for chords or when I'm playing something too fast for my thumb. Blues can be either, and rock/funk almost always with a pick.
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I'm currently trying to get used to using a thumb-pick. It's been a year or so, so far, and I've got to the stage where I'm happy with it on an acoustic. Now trying to work it into my electric playing where most of the time I simply lock my index finger onto it and hey presto! a regular flat-pick. Can't see a downside to this style/technique yet - it would seem to offer everything a flat pick does, plus the freedom to play fingerstyle. Only issue is the angle of attack is subtly different to a regular plectrum. It's rubbish for gypsy jazz, rhythm, too. I suspect I'll still whip out the flat-pick and the naked fingers often, too.
As regards what this stuff is called - I've often wondered whether there's a differentiation between jazz chord melody and jazz finger-picking?
Finally, re hybrid picking, in the UK there's a magazine called Guitar Techniques which this month has a cover story article by Guthrie Govan all about hybrid picking. I'm 99% sure it's a reprint of an article they did three or four years ago (I guess times are harder in paying for new material) and if so it's pretty good.
Kind regards,
Derek
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People have been disparaging the sort of "slapping" style fingerstyle guitar, but I think that's not really fair.
Michael Hedges, who started the whole thing, really, was an amazing composer. His music was amazingly deep. Not really jazzy, but good.
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Different players have different techniques. Joe Pass played chord-melody with his fingers and sometimes with a pick, although usually not a hybrid pick-and-fingers technique. George Van Eps played fingerstyle 7 string- heck, he invented the 7 string guitar for jazz around 1938 and his playing is nothing short of amazing. Ed Bickert played hybrid pick-and-fingers (getting the notes to sound the same whether picked or plucked, I don't know how he did it- the timbre of the pick versus fingers is always different for me) and Chuck Wayne taught the hybrid style in his books. Lenny Breau played with a thumbpick and long nails on both steel-string and classical guitars. Gene Bertoncini plays fingerstyle on his classical guitars and with a pick on his archtop and is a superb chord-melody player (and a marvelous accompanist for vocalists). And finally Johnny Smith played all chord melody stuff with the pick only and had a very strict and efficient picking technique. Originally Posted by digger
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I use a combination, not so much hybrid picking (though sometimes I do) but a quick change from playing with my pick to using my thumb or fingers to achieve the kind of tone I want.
For example, I play a solo version of Very Early by Bill Evans and I switch back and forth between the techniques to create the sound I'm looking for. That's what technique is for in my opinion, just a way to get the sound you're looking for!
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Adrian Legg is another extremely interesting and creative fingerstyle player who has little to nothing to do with jazz. Pierre Bensusan is another one of my favorites. Tuck Andress? I don't see how being close-minded can be helpful in attempting a supposedly creative art form. Originally Posted by Shadow of the Sun
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What an informative thread! I really enjoyed reading all your posts.
Thank you for sharing
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