Fingerstyle Guitar: Can You Do It?

You could always glue on fake nails for your guitar gigs and take them off for your bass gigs but I imagine that would grow tiresome.

j/k

Have a good book to recommend to beginners, if anyone is interested.

yeah sure!

Fingerstyle Guitar From Scratch, by Bruce Emery.

I will check it out. I often practice from this. But as the reviews say, you learn from playing the songs with very little instruction.

(Xp) Or Travis-Style Guitar From Scratch, by the same author.

looks intersting, thx

i'm a lefty, play guitar righty, and find it easier to play fingerstyle than with a pick. i played piano for many years before picking up guitar, which may have helped.

Lefty too. Have had a lot of trouble taming right hand since I came over from bass and at some point was playing mostly one finger at slow-medium tempos. And no ring finger obv.

I'll keep that in mind for guitar students, thanks. What are its strengths iyo?

Strengths of being a lefty? For fingerstyle guitar? Not aware of any.

Ha, no argument there! What are the strengths of the Emery book?

Emery books strengths are

• Stresses the need to develop a strong, independent thumb that will keep good time no matter what the other fingers are doing above it

• Helps the learner do this by taking a half-dozen or so old, familiar out-of-copyright tunes and cycling through them gradually adding more and more syncopation to the mix

• has a jokey conversational style, but one that is genuinely engaging and informative, instead of off putting and digressive.

• no staff notation, only tab

• aimed at folk- and country-based popular music styles, no classical études

re: Being a lefty: one might think it would help the left-hand technique but I haven't found it so- still often feels like I am trying to jam some of the fingers into too small a space and stretch the others more than they want to go. Also losing the groove on the right hand is embarrassing, I mean discouraging or can be, bringing the whole thing to grinding halt. Right hand fingers tend to collapse, although my understanding is proper technique is to keep the shape of the finger and do the work from the top knuckle, or something like that. Best way I have found to train my right hand fingers is not to 'prepare' the string but actually to 'bounce' a little, like it was a trampoline.

Pro-tip: in Portuguese common way to refer to a lefty is "canhoto," which can also mean "devil."

One other thing: in those books he says to use your left thumb to fret certain bass notes, like an F. Obviously I've seen people do this and I've seen it recommended elsewhere, in the Arnie Berle book for instance, but I can't physically do it, so end up having to play the F barre, which is my least favorite barre chord.

Since I learned trying to play from an axis bold as love songbook, I use my thumb for practically everything. It often causes trouble for me when playing more complicated finger style stuff bc my other fingers are often not arched enough to produce clear ringing notes. I'd suggest toughing it out with developing a good 6 string barred technique.

I have no idea what kind of students you have, whether they are part of some program at your university or private

I teach guitar lessons privately, from home and at a private music school. I'm pretty much fine for resources to teach classical. (The Royal Conservatory makes that pretty easy up here.) However, I can always use more resources for teaching non-classical students, i.e. the majority of guitar students. I mostly just use popular tunes to teach fingerpicking ("Landslide", "Dust in the Wind", "Freight Train", "Blackbird", etc); a good method book would be very useful.

I found this some time ago: http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/product/9781423487432-item.html?s_campaign=goo-PLATest&gclid=CMOOy9Tj9L0CFa5DMgodhj8Akw

It's for intermediate-level players but it's not bad at all, especially for its price.

No classical player frets notes with his or her thumb btw, except maybe as a special technique for some modern piece. I think you're fine without doing this.

I also use some of the Giuliani exercises just to build fingerpicking technique even for non-classical players.

Thanks. The two Amazon reviewers hated that Blues book but I'll take your word. Looked at the Giuliani book-one guy said get Pumping Nylon instead but hate both the title and the cover.

Not fingerstyle but this guy has some good stuff for jazz guitar. Plus he's Canadian. http://www.mattwarnockguitar.com/beginners-guide-to-jazz-guitar
http://www.mattwarnockguitar.com/category/front-page

Pumping Nylon is essential if you're learning classical guitar imo. You get the Giuliani exercises in that book, actually. I wouldn't buy a book that was just the Giuliani exercises.

Are you studying classical guitar? I'd seriously recommend seeing if you can find some of the Royal Conservatory's books (http://bookstore.rcmusic.ca/books.html?cat=14). They provide a gradual, progressive method that is used nearly universally across this country: repertoire, studies, technique. At the very least, the technique book would be useful. (Their theory method is also good if you want to learn the basics of classical theory.)

xpost Btw, I'm not an expert on blues guitar per se so those Amazon reviewers may well be right that there are better books. I liked that book because it's i) cheap and ii) easy to learn from for not-very-advanced players. I also have a book of 'authentic' Robert Johnson transcriptions but those are much harder.

Studying Brazilian/Jazz, so there is lots of overlap with classical.

Recently got a book called 50 Classical Guitar Pieces by Joseph Harris which seems to have a lot of nice intermediate arrangements, although I haven't really made a dent in it. Also, guy seems to think Galileo's father was his son.

Some of the arrangements really pretty easy but they all sound good, at least the ones I've attempted.

there is lots ofsome overlap with classical.

Just got this DVD ¡Guitarra! a documentary with Julian Bream playing everything in sight although in the first episode he just plays the vihuela. Just saw some 16th Century tablature. I guess you can watch this thing on YouTube if you want.

Lenny Breau documentary The Genius of Lenny Breau has gone off of Youtube because of you, but trailer you can still watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeFD1oz4BuY

Forgot to remove the 's' sorry:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeFD1oz4BuY

But this Chet Atkins documentary that I was unaware of until just now is up:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEJOily0AcA

Maybe documentary is the wrong word. PBS performance.

Version of "Come On In My Kitchen" in that book sounds more like John Lee Hooker than Robert Johnson but still kind of cool.

The book Guitar: An American Life by Tim Brookes, has an alternating chapters structure- I skipped the ones about him getting a guitar built by a luthier- but the historical stuff in the other chapters is very good.

Version of "Come On In My Kitchen" in that book sounds more like John Lee Hooker than Robert Johnson but still kind of cool.

The book I mentioned? Yeah, that's not authentic at all to Johnson's style but that's part of what makes it easier for students to learn from. The version of "Spoonful" is pretty good for getting a feel for the style and playing something that sounds decent.

Anyway, imo Pumping Nylon is great for anyone playing/learning nylon-string guitar.

Got that one too. How do you suggest I should approach it?

Wow, that was fast. Definitely read and try to apply the general principles in the "Dos and Don'ts", "Left Hand", and "Right Hand" section. (Maybe it's all familiar for you? The way they break things down was eye-opening for me. I had developed some horrible painful habits previously.) As exercises go, I'd recommend using ones that are relevant to the techniques you're most concerned about. "Odair's Favourite Drill" (on p 21 in my book) is good. I used the slur drills on pp 50-51, the "Synchronization" drill on p 65, and the Giuliani Studies that start on p 80. (I might just use sequential planting as opposed to the full plant/sequential plant method they suggest.) I'd recommend starting with just a couple of those studies at a time but I don't really know what your current level is.

My current level can probably best be described as "my mind is writing a check my fingers can't cash."

And thanks for the advice, I'll take a look.

Also, what do you do about nails?

Not sure what you're asking, sorry. Are you asking what a good nail shape is?

My current level can probably best be described as "my mind is writing a check my fingers can't cash."

If this is the case, you will probably find Pumping Nylon useful (if possibly gruelling).

Yes about the nails. Just saw guitar player filing his before he went on.

Just got back to my own neighborhood and stopped off to see some Latin Jazz but meanwhile Indian guitar master and composer Prasanna is playing behind singer doing "My Favorite Things."

Sorry wrong thread.

Note that I am not actually familiar with this guitarist except for the brief bit I heard tonight. I just saw those words on the website, probably should have put them in quotes.

Had another book before by an author I usually think is pretty good but in this case I was disappointed. More later.

Don't see "Spoonful" in that book, see "Stormy Monday."

Book I was disappointed in is Beginning Fingerstyle Blues Guitar by Arnie Berle and Mark Galbo. Exercises which take up most of the book are insufficiently bluesy. But there are six transcriptions at the back and the only one I really looked at, because it was the only sing I recognized, "32-20 Blues," is awesome.

Disappointed because I found another Arnie Berle book, Chords and Progressions For Jazz and Popular Guitar, very useful.

Remembered the main thing I've been working on recently is just to get strict mi alteration in the right hand. Previously I had been mixing in one finger stuff and/or raking.

I mean if a fingering was written out I would play that but otherwise sight-reading a melody I would play whatever I wanted.

OK, looking backward through the Berle blues book, I see that the I was being too harsh. The section on playing inversions of the 7th Chord is good, as is Picking-Hand techniques. Book starts to really pick up, as it were, around page 47, when Blue Notes are introduced.