Fingerstyle Guitar: Can You Do It?

Most of those still seem to use nylon for the treble strings? I thought the basses are usually made of a nylon core wound with metal. Interestingly, though, Savarez Alliance are probably my favourite and they do seem to use some kind of carbon fibre for the trebles.

Unrelated but I recently switched to guy-based strings on my violin and it sounds amazing (but I have to tune it up a lot more— apparently the strings last linger tho?)

*gut *longer

Wrt fingerstyle, a local know-it-all told me to anchor my pinky instead of “floating” and I cannot, and I also don’t think it’s necessary? Idk.

With fingerstyle guitar?? That is bad advice.

Afaik, classical guitar teachers have been advising against anchoring the little finger of the right hand on the body of the guitar at least since I was an undergraduate. It reduces flexibility and introduces unnecessary strain. I'm more forgiving of it than many, esp considering that many great guitarists of the past did it or something like it, and might occasionally slip into doing it myself (although usually when using a pick). If you need an anchor, just resting the fingers on the strings you are not using works great. If you're looking for pointers on technique, I'll recommend Tennant's Pumping Nylon again.

I can't think of a situation where I'd anchor my pinky on the guitar's body when fingerpicking tbh.

leo kottke's RSI is the argument against anchoring, but I still find it helpful when ploughing through v rhythmic picking-pattern grooves

There are certainly people who do it but it is definitely not a practice that someone needs to be told to do if they have no inclination towards it.

Parkening playing a fast rhythmic picking pattern with no anchor: https://youtu.be/5YdPvM_xZg4

Close-up around 0:25

it's a q of what's easiest/realistic rather than humanly possible

i don't & have never felt the need to.

Fgti finds it easier not to anchor! I'm saying that is not only fine, but probably better. xp

If you want to anchor anything maybe it should be the thumb, like a bass player might

Not if the bass player doesn't want tendonitis.

I've never heard of a fingerpicker anchoring the thumb on the body of the guitar? Ergonomics aside, any fingerpicking style I can think of requires the thumb to be available to play bass lines.
xp

I was more thinking of resting the thumb on a bass string in between bass notes when possible

(xp)
C’mon, lots of bass players anchor. I almost never do so maybe I shouldn’t comment.

Love any story about Christopher Parkening.

Resting the thumb or fingers on unused strings between notes, when there is time, is what I do.

It also helps to mute those strings when they should not ring.

i anchor my pinky sometimes, and always understood it to be a bad habit. I also fret the bass string with my thumb, thanks jimi.

It also helps to mute those strings when they should not ring.

Although didn’t notice G making D ring nearly as strong, or the A making the E.

I use too many tunings. I only have maybe forty guitar-based songs but thirteen tunings all told :(

Sonic Goon - Experimental Flamboyant Tie Included

I haven't fucked with guitar in a while now, but I used to be pretty good at basic fingerstyle stuff. With respect to pinky-resting, if it's good enough for Daniel Bachman, it's good enough for me.
https://glasstire.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/daniel-bachman.jpg?x37511

Some people, Lenny Breau comes to mind, actually play with the RH pinky. Think its letter is ‘c’

Apparently he also anchored it so...
https://www.premierguitar.com/articles/28278-how-did-lenny-breau-do-that

Sorry for using a fellow Canadian against you guys

We claim him was he, really?

Born in Maine to Acadian parents, family moved to Canada when he was seven. His dad recorded for the Banff label, and Lenny taught Randy Bachman, how Canadian can you get?

He even had a show on CBC Winnipeg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44PDpwYpSEU

Did I mention that his first professional recording was with members of The Band?

Anchoring is bad news, generally, and lots of professional bassists have problems with their hands and wrists. I touch my thumb on the string lower than the one I am playing or touch the body on my acoustic bass guitar when I play the B string. I have a full-length thumb rest on my main electric which I really like for playing on the B string; something like that would be cool on the acoustic, but it would most assuredly change the sound of the instrument in not-good ways (mine is a luthier-built gorgeous thing I purchased from an estate that, unlike 90% of acoustic bass guitars, actually functions as an acoustic instrument -- it'd be pushing $4000 if I had it built today, and it did not cost me even close to that)).

Check out my bro Jackie's right hand -- she's touching the body (actually the pickguard here -- that's not her guitar, and her guitars don't have floating pickguards) with her ring finger, but there's no pressure on the finger -- the hand is floating and ready to move around as she needs it to. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRn75qFWyhE

I'm in the anchor camp... also in the "you only need 2 fingers" camp!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUK8emiWabU

So easy but effective (& topical):

(c/p for timestamp): youtu.be/Mu9adyYkIQY?t=123

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mu9adyYkIQY

I feel like I suffer from some extreme version of the 80-20 rule, maybe 90-10 or 95-5, where the last 5% of learning any song, where I can play without error most of the time, takes 20 times as long as my entire practice time up till that point. Or it's like a zenoan paradox where perfection (or a reasonable simulation of) is always an infinite number of steps away.

Suggestions for how to get over this are welcome - I have one idea, which is to stop endlessly practising the same songs with diminishing returns, and try new songs, but harder than the ones I already (can't) do. Suggestions for those also welcome, my current level of inability is somewhere around Don't Think Twice It's Alright, or Never Going Back Again.

I can't really say without seeing you play but, if general consistency is the fundamental problem, there are probably some basic issues with technique that could be addressed, possibly by working on focused exercises with a teacher. Playing progressively more difficult pieces is unlikely to help with that, I am guessing (although it may keep you engaged and challenged if you want to let go of the goal of consistently accurate playing). It might actually help to learn comparable or easier pieces and focus on making them consistent and just trying to learn faster(while also working on technique)? Have you tried "Country Roads"? The basic progression is easy but getting the picking totally right at tempo can take a little work.

I have the same problem so I have been taking virtual lockdown lessons from someone on this bor4d, someone on this thre4d (references provided upon request) and it seems to be helping a lot, although don't want to count my chickens, etc.
(xp)

(Lack of) focus is definitely a problem, and having never had a lick of professional instruction I'm sure technique is too. Unfortunately though everyone else seems to have oodles of free time in lockdown, having kids at home all day means a proportional increase in mess, tidying, and evening fatigue. Two drawing classes a week (with old friends so added social benefit) is about all I can squeeze in, and half of my wife's evenings are taken up by a waking baby so she wouldn't be a fan of me disappearing any more!

The theory behind trying more difficult pieces is to make the other ones seem easier but yes I can see how that might not improve consistency. Also it's my fretting that's worse then my picking, but I'll try what you say with Country Roads, thanks.

Gives Country Roads a go:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_vt1KIV8zQ

I get bored when I can kinda play something and don't push to be fluent. around the same level as you btw so bookmarking for tips

Haha. Depending on how you feel about sappy middle-aged Clapton, "Tears in Heaven" might not be bad for an easy-ish piece where there is room to work on fretting-hand clarity. It could also just help to practise changing arpeggio patterns with a metronome, focusing on the specific movements that give you grief and work slowly.

*working

Somebody posted this on jazz guitar group on Friendbook over the weekend:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0zLjeqbTuw

Thanks, that's a good breakdown of how it works and I'll refer to it when teaching. I do it intuitively; it helps to see it analysed and explained like that. It might help to be more conscious of it when playing really fast and busy things. Now I need to work out how to do it on piano.

Why is my D-string always the first to go? Oh, I think I know why. I feel a little weird because the guy whose company manufactured my strings passed away last year and I only have a few packs left- there is a picture of Paco de Lucia on the cover of the cover of the packets! That guy was kind of a NYC institution. Feel like I should post about him here. Believe he worked for Lufthansa and played for their minor league soccer team here before he decided to go into the string-manufacturing business.

I can't find it in the internet but I was told some reasonably big name classical and flamenco guitar players performed at a memorial for him.

His store used to be right next to Birdland on 44th, real quirky old school store, with some weird golden tourist gimcracks in the window, might as well have been Buddhas, don't know who ever bought them, until he sold it, think he owned the building, not sure, and moved to 24th Street.

I bought this cheap but playable classical guitar from him, maybe I should have bought a more expensive one!

https://classicalguitarmagazine.com/luthier-music-founder-string-maker-tony-acosta-passes-away-at-77/