The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #13015 Message #1366746
Posted By: PoppaGator
29-Dec-04 - 11:17 AM
Thread Name: Learning to finger pick
Subject: RE: Help: Learning to finger pick
Hey Pops (great name, by the way),
Different folks have different learning styles. I was never able to "just" start playing a steady bass with my thumb and simultaneously start picking a melody with my fingers. I had to learn fingerpicking *patterns*, then progress to fingerpicking *pieces* learned step-by-step, by rote, from tablature. (This was before the days of videotapes and DVDs.) Of course, I was able to work some simple embellishments into the pattern-picking relatively soon (such as "walking" the bass line at a chord change), but my ability to pick in a relatively "free" manner didn't come until after a lot of practice playing fairly strict patterns -- single-measure patterns at first, song-length ones later.
I think it's important for the repetitive patterns you play to include "pinches" (thumb and a finger playing simultaneously) as well as alternations between thumb and finger(s). You'll need to be able to do both as you progress.
You certainly should have read all the older posts to this thread, of course, which include a lot of good advice and insights.
I recently wrote at length on this topic in a thread on "Right-Hand Technique" -- you might be interested in this. Indeed, reading the entire thread would be worth your while.
(Please note that I made a mistake when trying to include tablature in my post -- check five posts down for my correction/clarification.)