Finger picking

This is a subject I feel I can teach a little more about as it's the style I have used all my playing life. I leave the flat picking to the experts, I handle the finger picking.

The basic rules are:

• Thumb handles the three bass strings.

• Index, middle and ring fingers handle the treble strings.

• Unless you're physically able, pinkies are not often used. They are usually too short to get working properly.

If you bend your wrist a little, you'll find your hand in the best position to start finger picking. You can see that the thumb, index, middle and ring fingers fall naturally onto the strings. This may feel a little uncomfortable for a while but will soon become a habit... a good habit.

Playing repetitive patterns is the only way of learning finger picking, but what you're after eventually is to be able to play anything at all at any time, forgetting all patterns.

Here is a simple pattern. The chords are:

The tablature looks like this.

Time moves from left to right.
Bass strings bottom, treble strings top.
Grey numbers are the beats of the bar. Count them out loud if necessary.
Numbers on strings indicate which fret your finger should be on.
Green is the root note of each chord. The thumb handles these.
Red numbers are handled by (bottom to top) index, middle, ring

Here is the RealAudio file for the example above, repeated once.

Here is a 3/4 example of the same chords. I'll let you figure this one out. I grab three strings at once in this one, with my index, middle and ring fingers. The thumb still handles the bass notes.

As with flat picking, there are countless patterns and variations thereof. The main thing is to get a smoothness to the picking and get the fingers working independently. After a while, there won't be anything you can't do.

If you're already finger picking and you're looking for a good piece to practice on, to get your fingers nimble and independent, have a go at Capo Lane, bottom of the page.