The School of Feedback Guitar Blog

Guitar can be a futsy instrument once a person wishes to push it's boundaries. Fingerpicking is a natural fit for pushing the guitar's cabalilities without bankrupting a beginner's desire for learning, but there are difficulties particular to fingerpicking that naturally challenge the way a person had previously thought of guitar. What makes the guitar simple to learn is that there are a set number of chords that we can plug in and play as needed without worrying about what makes them sound good together. The tradition of acoustic guitar in pop music is one of easy to learn conventions, once a person gets the hang of it. Fingerpicking challenges those historical habits nicely. All of a sudden, the guitar is melodic instrument instead of one that is just supporting the rhythm.

Paul McCartney's Blackbird is a fantastic example of a melodic fingerpicking piece. To a music-nerd like me, there are three melodies: The bass line, the open G string that rings throughout, and the melody that is played mostly on the B string. Three melodies! If you like this song, you'd notice that there is an open, ringy, almost jangly texture to the guitar part. This is what it sounds like when these three melodies are connected. Each melody is unbroken and sing-able. When the melodies don't connect to each other, it's not quite as sing-able. It sounds spare and sparse, but not in the good way. It sounds like a bit more practice is needed! Connecting each melody is not something we guitarists are naturally adept at, but playing Blackbird puts us face-to-face with that limitation and gives us a chance to do something different.

Whereas the guitar is usually used merely to take up sonic space in a song, fingerpicking makes the guitarist completely aware that there is more to it than simply choosing a chord and keeping the strumming going. Guitar suddenly becomes an entire ensemble to manage. Managing it, in my opinion, is well-worth the effort.

This is a semi-geeky post. You have been warned.

Perhaps one reason classical guitarists, or classical musicians in general, are pretty anal-retentive is because this personality trait really lends itself to understanding the detail work of mastering their craft. Classical guitarists at some point in their development learn about how to use the fingers on the right hand, the plucking hand, as a system where everything works together as one. This also can apply to fingerpicking "Dust in the Wind," as well as many other popular fingerpicking songs. Luckily, we don't all have to be as detail oriented in order to make a smooth fingerpicking pattern happen.

The best way I can describe this "system" is through sharing my favorite analogy. If the fingers attack the strings individually, then the result is just throwing a rock up in the air and watching it come down in the middle of a huge, calm, pond. If the fingers work together, the result is like taking a skipping stone and skipping it right across the water, just barely touching the surface. Once they feel relaxed as a system, once it's like an impulse as opposed to concious motion, the result sounds smooth.

The reason I love this analogy so much is that it describes what someone has to do in order to really create something smooth sounding, if that's what they are after. Of course, disjointed music is fun too. When it comes to fingerpicking however, all of the fingers have to work together to create this skipping stone effect.

Oh, and the comment about classical musicians was not a knock. I can imagine one of them saying: "You say anal-retentive like it's a bad thing."

Fingerpicking guitar can be as easy as snapping your fingers.

Try this: Snap your fingers.

There are two movements. First is preparation, second is snap. That's it. This really is as simple as it sounds. When you load your finger for a snap, there is no tension present. It's just ready to do the job. For plucking it can be exactly the same. Your finger is prepared for the snap by resting on the string. It's ready to go. Then snap.

At the end of a snap, the finger is resting again. There is no holding onto the tension. It's gone. For plucking it is much the same. Tension, release.

Every snap, every pluck, rest. The fingers will get used to this in time. When they do, the hand works like a system. It's fun to observe patterns developing from really slow and pain-free to really fast and pain-free.

Give this a shot!