Fingerstyle Guitar: Can You Do It?

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.

The OP in the Delcamp thread ("Modernising No-Nails Playing") is the same guy who wrote the first piece you linked. This seems to be a hobbyhorse for him, although NB that afaict he often doesn't play modern nylon-stringed classical guitars at concert pitch. (He posted a video of him doing so but the point was that he commonly does play historical instruments, e.g. lutes, gut strings, low tunings).

Tbc, I don't push nails on anyone who isn't planning to play classical guitar at a fairly serious level. I don't think there's really much of a debate within that context, though? xp

Oops. Sorry for not looking more closely.

I've finally started getting my head around fingerpicking and am quietly excited about how much I've progressed in the last six weeks (from utter simpleton to bungling halfwit, but I'll take it). I'm kinda clumsy and, as mentioned upthread, get bored quickly so rarely make it to mastery before moving on but hell I'm enjoying myself. Inveterate nail-biter so flesh over nails but intrigued to try the other way.

Good stuff. Started looking into theory?

anyone have any good resources for self-teaching fingerstyle? i found the nails v flesh stuff itt very interesting b/c i too am an inveterate nail-biter who forced myself to grow some right-hand nails for a while, but found them to be as tricky for developing a good technique as flesh is.

right now i mess around with some bert jansch tunes and have toyed with some of the easier fahey stuff but i'd love to take a more general approach than just learning songs if there were a way to do so.

Hey Sund4r - I think it'll be part of the process. I've got an intuitive (ish) understanding of the neck of the guitar but only slowly re-learning from scratch, making my way around triads and scales etc. It's amazing how much of this business is about engagement; simply practising and being with your instrument and how that leads to leaps of progress and understanding. That book you recommended elsewhere looks great.

Call all destroyer, speaking very much as a beginner, I've been using a fairly scattershot approach to it - finding videos, trying different things. I'd totally appreciate a more 'definitive' approach if anyone has one!

I play very chordally, and tend to think in terms of movable chord shapes and easily located arpeggios.

This approach makes right-handed picking accuracy less important - if all the notes I am fretting are potentially "right" - or, right enough by virtue of being in the appropriate key or chord - then I worry less about accidentally playing a "wrong" note.

(This may be because I am left-handed but play as a righty.)

Although I don't use it consistently, I find the CAGED system is very helpful for opening up the fretboard. When you start with cowboy chords you tend to over-rely on them.

The CAGED concept allows you to say, "welp, I'm already up here on the tenth fret and need to play an Amaj7. There isn't time to go all the way back down to my usual Amaj7, so I will find a voicing for that chord that is bear where I am."

Yr true CAGED-heads can associate the chord forms with scales and modes. The normal book for learning this is Fretboard Logic. Much of it is over my head (and overkill for my style of music), but it's pretty well-regarded.

That is *near* where I am.

Tl;dr: if your fretting hand is doing its job, then you have a bit more leeway in terms of what you pluck.

you might already know this, but using your thumb to fret the top string in barre chords is essential