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Location: Utah | I've been working on fingerstyle and it just seems impossible. Especially the stuff with the right thumb picking a bass note and the other fingers playing other notes not in sync with the bass notes. It is starting to seriously frustrate me! How many years does it take to get an independent thumb?
How would you rate the difficulty of the intro to this song? Beginner, moderate, expert? I can't even play it along with a "how to play" video lesson. :(
Youtube Miranda Lambert House That Built Me |
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Posts: 4536
Location: Flahdaw | Try this one
good lesson |
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Posts: 4081
Location: Utah | That's the one I've been swearing at. The guy is good at teaching, I'm just bad at learning. This lady http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BYE8R5qXRY has a good angle on her hands but it isn't helping. |
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Location: Flahdaw | In truth, the 1st and 2nd strings are more important on that intro. Get those right and don't sweat the thumb,...the audience won't notice. |
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Posts: 2985
Location: Sydney, Australia | Without looking at the lesson (Youtube is a no-no at work), my advice is to break it down to the most basic component and play that r-e-a-l-l-y s-l-o-w-l-y over and over and over and over and over and over and over (x lots). Sometimes this component will be as little as 3 notes!!
As we get older, our ability to learn slows down, so we need more reps to achieve the same amount as a ten year old.
I find it really useful to have an electronic source to play along with. Amazing Slow Downer (for PC/Mac/iPhone) lets me slow down an mp3 and play just the section I want on endless repeat. Another tool is Garageband (for Mac users), as you can program the exact notes you want and get it to loop that at whatever speed you want. (This is useful if the mp3 has other instruments that drown out the guitar part).
I find it useful to plug my guitar and computer into a cheap mixer and output it to headphones, so I can balance the guitar and the computer/iPhone volumes until I hear exactly the right amount of each without drowning out the other. If you are really struggling you could have a different one going into each ear. It's like a really patient teacher. |
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Posts: 616
Location: cincinnati, ohio | There's an old adage - walk before you run. About 40 years ago, when I'd been playing for about a year and a half, I got hold of a book on fingerpicking. Like you, I'd been frustrated trying to learn Travis style, with the alternating, syncopated bass thumb. I especially liked Gordon Lightfoot's fingerstyle tunes, which employed that style a lot. Here's how they broke it down into some simple baby steps:
1. Finger a simple chord shape; first position garden variety "G" chord is good.
2. Just play an alternating thumb part (T) - no fingers involved yet. Play your 6th string (fretted at the third fret) and then your fourth string (open). 6-4-6-4-6-4, etc. Play as slow as you like, and gradually work up a little speed. You should hear something like bum-ba-bum-ba-bum-ba... Play it until you're sick of hearing it.
Do the same thing with a first position "C" chord - 5th string (fretted at 3) and 3rd string (open). Same thing: 5-3-5-3-5-3... Just the thumb.
Then try a "D" - 4th string (open) and 3rd string (fretted at second fret). 4-3-4-3-4-3... The idea is to get your thumb used to going where it needs to go.
3. After you've done this until you're blue in the face and are comfortable with it, try throwing the index finger (I) into the mix. Play your "G" chord again. Play your alternating bass pattern with T, then pick the 2nd string (open) with your index finger after your thumb goes back to the 6th string and before it goes to the 4th string again. Here's your pattern ( 6T = 6th string played with thumb; 4T = 4th string with thumb; 2I = 2nd string played with Index finger):
6T-4T-6T-2I-4T-6T-4T-6T-2I...
That's it. Keep your steady bass pattern going as before, and, as I mentioned, pick the second string with the index finger after the thumb goes back to the 6th string and before it goes back to the 4th string again. Just pick it right in between the two bass notes. It should sound like "bum-ba-bum-BE-ba..." You're starting to sound like your fingerpicking. Try doing the same thing with the "C" and "D" chords. For now, just pick the 1st string with the Index finger on the "C" and "D" too.
4. Once you can play this mini-pattern in your sleep, you're going to put a SECOND treble note in there. Same pattern, but now you're going to throw in your middle (M) or ring finger (R)- your choice - to pluck the 1st string (fretted at the 3rd fret). I usually use my Middle finger. Here's how:
6T-4T-6T-2I-4T-1M-6T-4T-6T-2I-4T-1M...
Just keep repeating it. This time, pick the 1st string after your thumb goes to the 4th string and before it comes back to the 6th string again - right in between the bass notes. You are now playing a basic Travis picking pattern. This is the basis for most folk-rock style picking (Lightfoot; Jackson Browne; Simon & Garfunkel; Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young). Once you master this basic pattern you'll start throwing in fills and alternating bass notes.
Once I realized how the baby steps all came together, I started basic fingerpicking in one night. I went, "Why did it take me so long to get this?" Once you get it, you'll really start having some fun.
One thing I've always done - and a lot of people will tell you not to - is anchor my picking hand by bracing my pinky finger against the top. It's always worked for me, and I feel like I have more control.
Good luck, and if you have any questions, let me know... |
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Location: SoCal | Rick really nails the explanation. There's a video of Tommy Emmanuel on youtube teaching this. He calls it the boom-chuck method. He says to, if I remember right, to just practice with the thumb for about 2 weeks. You have to be able to do it w/o thinking about it.
And Rick, Chet Atkins anchored his right hand with his little finger on the guitar. You're in good company.... |
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Location: cincinnati, ohio | ..and I would give that pinky finger to be able to play 1/100th as good as Chet did. |
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Location: cincinnati, ohio | Oh, and FlySig - one of the neat things about fingerpicking is that most of the time you're using easy, first-position open chords - cowboy chords, basically. They just sound better in that style because they ring. Stephen Stills' "Helplessly Hoping" uses an Am7 - Am - C - G - D progression. All basic first positions. Lightfoot's classic "If You Could Read My Mind" album has six songs that are basically G - C - D/F# with a capo on the 2nd fret. Great songs all - and easy to play... |
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Posts: 15680
Location: SoCal | I was wrong. Tommy Emmanuel calls it
boom-chick |
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Location: cincinnati, ohio | Either way, that's a pretty fair description of how it sounds... |
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Location: Boise, Idaho | My favorite, Pete Huttlinger, has a dvd of fingerstyle exercises. He has 12 that you should do every day. They get progressively harder. I've done all 12, but only once. It's easy if the pattern remains the same throughout the song. If the pattern changes, especially if it reverses from 6-5-4 to 4-5-6, for example, I have a really tough time and usually just fake it. I never have learned the thumb part on Clapton's Tears In Heaven because the thumb doesn't seem to have a pattern, but I'm sure it is there if I spent more time at it. |
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Location: Blue Ridge Mountains | I had been playing for maybe three years ...I wanted to fingerpick in so badly (which was exactly how I was doing it at the time)...I was in San Diego at a friends house and was going over some songs with chords and notated picking written over top of the lyric's...I tried and tried but just could not seem to get there...but, I kept at it. Several days later it just happened...and from that day I have continued to work at it. I developed a backward style roll a few years later while playing banjo...I learned to combine that with the three finger standard style I had been practicing...They sort of melted together and I also added some of my own ideas...over the years, it has all become my style...When I am asked about it I always remember reaching that plateau in SD and I am so thankful I did not give up...
Keep working it out and you'll get there...Rick and Mark offer some great info and there is a lot more out there...practice and having a no quit mindset are key... |
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Posts: 10583
Location: NJ | I would listen to stuff on lps when I was a kid and learn to play it.
no one ever told me people played with their fingers. I just thought they were elaborate flat picking patterns.
so I learned 8 miles high off a leo kotki (sp) lp.
played it for some friends once and one guy really looked puzzled he put down his pick and said why don't you play it like this? with his fingers.
I told him that it was because I learned it the way I played it.
been struggling with fingerpicking ever since |
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Posts: 4081
Location: Utah | Rick, thanks! I've printed out your lesson and will be working it.
Originally posted by MusicMishka:
Keep working it out and you'll get there...Rick and Mark offer some great info and there is a lot more out there...practice and having a no quit mindset are key... Thanks for the encouragement. To paraphrase Lennon, There's nothing that's been played that can't be played. |
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Posts: 4536
Location: Flahdaw | I'm an okay fingerpicker, and personally I find that song a bit difficult to sound just right. My first experience picking was playing "Dust in the Wind". You might try that for practice....just working that 1st C chord, over and over. |
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Posts: 1119
Location: Michigan | Originally posted by dark bar:
I'm an okay fingerpicker, and personally I find that song a bit difficult to sound just right. My first experience picking was playing "Dust in the Wind". You might try that for practice....just working that 1st C chord, over and over. Good advice. Find a picking method, some variation of the travis method and just work on one chord with alternating base notes. I took lessons to learn a "travis" pick way back in college. I eventually just gave up on picks and went to fingers exclusivly. I had to start using a pick again when I began at church. I struggle with a pick now. Funny, my right hand is much more comfortable on the guitar now than my left. I need balance... |
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Location: cincinnati, ohio | FlySig - I still have that book in my music library. If you like, I could try to scan those pages and e-mail them to you. As I recall, it's only two or three pages where he goes over teaching the picking method. The rest of the book is songs and exercises. All I know is that when I read those pages, it was like a light bulb went off. I smacked my forehead and said, "Eureka!" :D
Also - "Dust In the Wind." As Bob said, perfect exercise. In fact, the music to that was originally was written as a fingerpicking exercise that they added words to. The rest, as they say, is history... |
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Location: cincinnati, ohio | Twistedlim - I've always struggled with picks. I do a lot of fingerpicking and fingerstrumming. For stuff I need to strum fast, however, I've "invented" a flat/thumb pick. I take a National thumbpick (or a Fred Kelly speedpick)and cut off the pick blade even with the edge of my thumb (if you're looking down at your thumb). Then I take two pieces of Velcro. I attach one to the top of the cut off pick blade and the other piece to a very light gauge Dunlop pick (.38mm or .46mm)and attach the pick to the thumbpick. Now you have a thumbpick with a virtually indestructible light gauge pick attached. I have great control, and having my thumb free without using the index finger to hold the pick gives me a lot more speed - and the sound is clean and light... |
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Posts: 616
Location: cincinnati, ohio | Oh - those Dunlop picks are nylon and last a long time... |
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Posts: 4081
Location: Utah | Rick, don't bother with the scans. I'll work off of what you posted. |
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Posts: 125
Location: Derry NH | awesome, rick. thanks. this place has everything! |
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Posts: 486
Location: Suisun City, Ca | I don't think it's really recommended, but I rest my palm (actually the heel of my hand)on the top of the bridge, that allows all my fingers to hover over the strings just "below" a center hole. I always knew this was "wrong" but can never get the feel of a classic-style placement. Then I saw a youtube video of Page, Plant and JPJ doing acoustic Going to California and Jimmy had his palm on the bridge!!! YES! :)
For timing/tempo, I learned Stairway to Heaven 30+ yrs ago as my first song and never really thought about it... |
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Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | I'm only sharing this cause when I started playing guitar... I really had no influences.. I'm not really even sure why I started other than I failed at Piano which I was forced to take.
Anywho... and now don't laugh... I thought finger-picking was for people who couldn't afford or find picks. I always had a nervous issue of nail-biting, but I learned to finger-pick basic patterns, strum and thumb stuff too. After I got my first handful of picks, it was years before I finger-picked again.
It wasn't until I was much older, and started to see others play, and trying to play more subtle stuff that I even realized finger-picking was actually a style or a method that people did on purpose and not a compromise for not having a pick. I even tried finger picks, but they just seems silly to me.
Then... much much later... I found people doing routines like are being discussed above. Ok, I get it, I understand it... but I don't think I could bring myself to do any of it.
It kinda reminds me of stories of ballerina's and geisha girls who bind their feet until they conform in the name of art or culture. It just kinda creeps me out.
Just thought I would share of bit of weirdness.. I'm in that kind of mood today. |
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March 2005
Posts: 12761
Location: Boise, Idaho | I'm just as weird as Miles is about using picks, but 180 degrees the other way. I can't figure out how people pick single notes so fast with one pick. Like Al said above, I struggled with some songs trying to use a pick on them, not realizing that the recording was done fingerstyle. After my 25 year hiatus, I still had some muscle memory of songs I'd learned to play fingerstyle, like Scarborough Fair, from 25 years earlier, but I couldn't hit the right strings with a pick. The 2 electric guitars sit there for that reason and every time I torture myself trying to learn to use a pick, I get frustrated and go back to learning some song fingerstyle. It's just whatever you get used to. |
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How long to get an independent thumb? Am I deficient?
