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I would like to know if you guys have any tips for developing right hand technique for fingerstyle playing. I just started working through Ted Greene's book, "Modern Chord Progressions," and I like the idea of playing fingerstyle to clearly hear every voice in the chord. I am a big fan of the idea of playing fingerstyle, I just am used to playing with pick and fingers so my thumb and index finger are not at the same chops level as my middle and ring fingers.
As I'm working through this, I'm thinking, Joe Pass, Ted Greene, Lenny Breau, Ralph Towner, wow all my favorite players play fingerstyle. It only makes since that I get more proficient with this, my question is how?
So what has helped you fingepickers build your right hand chops?
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09-09-2010 11:39 AM
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You might want to check out Martin Taylor
Home | Martin Taylor Guitar Academy
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I studied classical for a few years, so that is what did it for me. However, Scott Tennant's book, Pumping Nylon, is one of the best I have seen for getting your right hand together for fingerstyle. Comes book or book/dvd.
Amazon.com: Pumping Nylon (0038081111148): Scott Tennant: Books
Keep in mind, Lenny's right hand was inspired by Chet/Merle, and his later flamenco studies. Joe always said he didn't bother with his right hand, but just let it do what it wanted. Ted Greene had a classical background also.
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Maybe working some classical into my repitoire would be a good idea. I statred off playing classical when I started at 8 years old but haven't done anything with it in many many years. I kind of remember PIMA, but I think you are on the right track. That would also help other things too. Maybe I should look into that...
Originally Posted by derek
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Absolutely agree with Pumping Nylon. I began (when I started taking the guitar seriously) with 'classical' lessons for three years or so just because I wanted to play finger-style, and these were enormously helpful; but there are other routes via blues or even folksy-style fingerpickin' that develop the right hand if the classical format is too formal. I kept falling foul of an awful lot of 'rules' in classical guitar. I liked and appreciated the discipline, but kept getting told not to swing ... which I took as a complement.
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definitely correct.Keep in mind, Lenny's right hand was inspired by Chet/Merle,
a great way to start with fingerstyle is to learn as accurately as possible, some tunes by Chet Atkins.
Mr. Sandman for instance. great arrangement by Chet.
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Besides the classical approach I can really recommend Martin Taylor. In his fingerstyle-DVD's he breaks down his approach to which finger he uses for what, and why. He also gives tips for walking bass fingerstyle comping including the addition percussive sounds to sound more like an upright player etc. etc.
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I did get a chance to check out Martin Taylor's site, and I think that it is right up my alley. Watching a couple of the sample lessons, he really breaks things down so it is easy to understand the method to the madness.
Having said that... understanding and ability are two different things... Haha!
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Giuliani arpeggios are the best place to start imho.
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They're listed in the back of 'Pumping Nylon' (p79ff) - just remember to swing 'em. Originally Posted by Old Feller
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No one has mentioned Samba, Bossa, or any other brazilian guitar styles. Check out...
Baden Powell
Joao Bosco
Filo Machado
Guinga
Romero Lubambo
Yep... good stuff.Last edited by timscarey; 09-13-2010 at 07:17 PM.
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However, I did hear Joe Pass say, at a clinic in Boston, that he had played through the Carcassi classical studies book. Originally Posted by derek
Steve
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get the thumb into the game for singl;e string lines use "down up " type picking with thumb and index or thumb and middle
it is much better for jazz line articulation than imim
also more fluent
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Yep, I think is better if you have some classical guitar lessons. You will study giulliani, carcassi, bach.... Be carefull...studying by yourself in the beginning...it´s very easy to position the hand in the wrong way and you will have a bad sound and things will be hardest then they should be. I gave classical guitar lessons for some years and all my students have the same problem (i also I have it when i studied). Between classes, studying alone, the right hand is going to position wrongly.
Good luck
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Well here is where I am at. I am going through Ted Greene's Modern Chord Progressions again, which helps in so many ways other than just right hand, and playing through everything fingerstyle. I am also going through the intermediate Christopher Parkening classical book which is cool, the only thing is that it is a little vanilla. It just sucks that my classical chops are not as good as my jazz chops... oh well, what better time to work on it? I also got a book from Giulliani on the way from Amazon, that is exercises for right hand technique. I think that will really help, the I will start working more on classical repitoire again.
I hadn't really considered the Brazillian aspect, but that is a great idea. I think the thing that is really big there is right hand finger independence with all of the syncopation and rhythmic stuff so that is another area that I can definitely work on.
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Never knew that Steve, thanks for the info. Originally Posted by SteveCarter
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I've got a serious interest in right hand fingerstyle. It's called "Travis pickin' " a lot where I live -for obvious reasons- as well as "thumbpickin.". I expect I'll go the folk/blues route, since I live in the middle of it. The goal for me is to be technically adept and doing that with a music I can identify with and enjoy might take a lot of the "chore" out of it.
The style out in Western Kentucky actually originated in the Piedmont of Virginia and the Carolinas. This earlier style is known varously as East Coast Blues, Piedmont blues, or Piedmont fingerpicking. It's more akin to ragtime, so it's not as "strummy" or single note based as Delta blues. I had the good fortune to see Etta Baker, for a long time the purest practitioner of it, at an Appalachian studies conference. The style migrated to the Western Kentucky coalfields when Piedmont natives migrated to seek work. A black man name Arnold Shultz was important. A local, he was born in Ohio County, Kentucky. An itinerant worker, Shultz traveled far and wide. He broke the color line as well in western Kentucky square dances and gave Bill Monroe his first paying gig. Many of the locals learned from him- passing it on to Travis, Ike Everly (Phil and Don's dad), and Mose Rager, who made careers of it. Eddie Pennington out near Owensboro, Kentucky leads in keeping the thumbpickin' style alive.
There is a difference between Chet Atkins' and Merle Travis' style. Travis used two fingers. Not knowing the difference since he was emulating Travis from radio broadcasts, Atkins used three
For my return back to playing, i hope I can re-establish contact with my old professor in musicology at the University of Kentucky. I can find out what all is going on as he's well known in the study of folk music of the Southern Mountains of the US. And who knows- maybe Eddie Pennington gives lessons?
For a real initiation into this style, I'd recommend Merle's album "Walkin' the Strings". It was recorded in the late 1940's when Travis was height of his powers and is all acoustic. A favorite of many guitar players, it's predominately instrumental- and Chet Atkins' favorite record! It's available on Amazon MP3.Last edited by dixiehwy25; 10-06-2010 at 03:02 AM.
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