Fingerstyle Guitar: Can You Do It?

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/

Maybe I already posted all this upthread, if so sorry.

No, doesn't look like he owned the building.

Did so! https://www.voanews.com/arts-culture/tony-acosta-artist-behind-guitar-strings

This seems to have been quoted in the first obit I link but has some other stuff they didn't quote as well as pictures: http://www.juliacrowe.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/5-07lfny.pdf

I see, I posted the obit when he passed but not the other links and didn’t type anything either except his name and the name of his business.

TS Nails vs. Fingers
https://rmclassicalguitar.com/tarrega/

Another one of my neighbors weighs in, although he has since moved:
https://www.adamrafferty.com/2012/03/19/guitar-right-hand-technique-nails-vs-flesh/

Hm, doesn't seem like there's much there in the way of modern classical players who don't play with nails? Somewhat interesting that Sor didn't play with nails, although I doubt his instrument was the same as the guitars we play now - were strings still made of gut then? The Tarrega thing is interesting, though.

Doesn't one of those links say Pepe Romero had his (Thornton) students play with flesh for a year or two and then gave them the choice afterwards?

Here's another discussion I just glanced at: https://www.classicalguitardelcamp.com/viewtopic.php?t=121220

Didn't see that. Romero def plays with nails himself: https://www.facebook.com/peperomeroguitar/photos/getting-my-nails-ready-for-another-double-concert-night-in-hamburg-elbphilharmon/10158317321822782/

More discussion here. Seems to say that Pepe's father made him play without nails for a while but not so clear that Pepe did this with his own students. https://www.classicalguitardelcamp.com/viewtopic.php?t=81344

I've heard that for years too. My friend asked Scott Tennant (who was Pepe's student) in a master class if Pepe ever had his students play without nails, and he said not that he knew.