What is fingerstyle guitar

A prominent master of modern jazz guitar finger playing was Wes Montgomery He was known for using the fleshy part of his thumb to provide the bass line while strumming chordal or melodic motives with his fingers.

This style, while unorthodox, was widely regarded as an innovative method for enhancing the warm tone associated with jazz guitar. Ken Hatfield and Joe Pass have been mentioned in previous posts. Earl Klugh has also recorded several fingerstyle jazz projects on the solo guitar. Charlie Byrd played fingerstyle in a latin american style on the classical guitar. There is no single technique of fingerstyle jazz, but players generally avoid the use of capos and altered tunings.

Once you become familiar with this technique, you should be able to play chords, melodies, percussive guitar and unique rhythmic patterns. The main difference between strumming and fingerstyle is that strumming is a very simple guitar technique in which we strum brush the strings with the finger or guitar pick up or down. This technique is perfect for beginners who want to play simple chords and songs. With fingerstyle guitar you will pluck the strings with the right hand fingertips so the beginning could be more challenging than strumming as we have to decide which string to pluck.

In the lesson 2 we will have a look at how to pluck the strings correctly. But in general in my opinion , fingerpicking is harder.

However, the most effective exercise to develop your fingerpicking skill is to just sit and play. What matters is that after some time your fingers will adapt to that style of playing. Our brain loves recognizing patterns. You, alone, will develop your own fingerstyle patterns that will sound great. Just sit and enjoy playing your guitar with your fingers.

It is impossible to know the exact number of fingerpicking patterns. You can even invent your own fingerpicking patterns. Flatpicking means holding the guitar pick when you play. It is different from fingerpicking, since you use only your guitar pick to make the sound out of your guitar. You should do both. Flatpicking, fingerpicking — both ways are great, and it would be a shame to not know one way of playing.

Moreover, the goal of learning an instrument is to learn how to play it differently, with many ways. Imagine how much more creative you would get if you learn to play your guitar both ways. Since you can play fingerstyle on virtually any guitar, every guitar is good for fingerstyle. However, if you particularly like fingerstyle, maybe the best choice is a classical guitar.

Classical guitar is played fingerstyle most of the time, so yes, classical guitar is probably the best choice for a fingertsyle. However, there are exceptions. For example, a famous guitar player, Chet Atkins often played electric guitar fingerstyle. So, the bottom line is this: Do whatever you want. There are many ways you can strum your guitar using only your fingers. For example, you can strum it with your thumb only.

On the other hand, you can strum your guitar with all of your fingers. That technique is used excessively in flamenco music.