Fingerpicking Patterns

Subject: RE: Fingerpicking Patterns
From: Justa Picker
Date: 25 Jun 05 - 09:05 PM

:-)

Subject: RE: Fingerpicking Patterns
From: Mark Clark
Date: 25 Jun 05 - 06:36 PM

I found another of Justa Picker's great threads on Thumstyle (Travis style) guitar. It's called Travis Picking - Misconceptions.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: Fingerpicking Patterns
From: Mark Clark
Date: 25 Jun 05 - 06:26 PM

I think the thread that M.Ted was talking about, the one started by Justa Picker, might be The Evolution of Country Fingerpicking. If not, let me know since I've bookmarked most of those threads. But, at least from where I sit, the thread won't sort into its original sequence so you might have bounce around.

There is a great deal of good information in this thread so I'll bookmark it as well. I suppose its overly pedantic of me but it should be pointed out that the style actually played by Merle Travis is most often called Thumbstyle or Thumbpicking and Web searches for those terms will usually locate references for the style. For some reason, when people say "Travis style," they're almost never refering to any style that would sound like what Travis actually played.

The key to Thumbstyle and really to most fingerpicking is to disgard the training wheels of "patterns" as soon a possible. The thumb and finger(s) should be separated by the brain and operate independently. The thumb must be able to reliably cary the rhythm leaving the finger(s) to play any required notes and timing over the rhythm so the feeling of two instruments is enhanced.

Most fingerpicking styles evolved from African American styles (Thumbstyle and Piedmont styles especially) and I think it's sometimes useful to go back to those roots when learning to fingerpick. A common blues pattern is to play a muted bass with the thumb thumping the bass string(s) repetitively in a heavy beat. Over the top of the beat, the index finger plays triplets, three eighth notes to the quarter, so that on the first beat the thumb and finger are doing a pinch quickly folowed by the two remaining beats of the triplet. Listen to some of the old country blues players and you'll hear this as the fundamental lick in their playing. Learning to make this lick second nature will really pay back in your more evolved fingerpicking.

If you watch the few available clips of Mose Rager (Merle Travis' mentor) you'll see that Rager built his thumbpicking style directly on top of those early country blues licks.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: Fingerpicking Patterns
From: PoppaGator
Date: 18 May 05 - 06:31 PM

refresh

Subject: RE: Fingerpicking Patterns
From: GUEST,PoppaGator
Date: 17 May 05 - 06:50 PM

Opps, that was me just now at 6:48 ~ forgot I was a backdoor man today!

Subject: RE: Fingerpicking Patterns
From: GUEST
Date: 17 May 05 - 06:48 PM

It's pretty difficult, indeed, to keep up a steadily alternating bass with the 1 and 3 (beats) played on a higher string than the 2 and 4.

The reason to try it, as far as I can see, is not so much for a simple change of pace but as a better way to play on a chord where the "root" note can't be found on either of the two lowest strings ~ in other words, a better way to play the D (or Dm) chord.

There was a time when I had trained myself to play this kind of "backwards-alternating" bass on a couple of key-of-D songs ~ John Hurt's "Stack-O-Lee," for one. It's so counterintuitive, though; I can't do it now, after years of inactivity and just a couple of more recent years practicing again and relearning the guitar.

It's worth noting that Mississippi John Hurt himself didn't try to do this ~ he almost invariably plays the bass on the D chord as "A-D-A-D," not the ostensibly more logical but much more difficult "D-A-D-A" (or the devilishly difficult double-alternating D-A-D-F#, where the left thumb frets the bottom E string at the second fret). Like you said, it's very hard on the synapses.

I believe that the reason "dropped-D" tuning was invented was to make it possible to play a decent-sounding alternating-bass on the tonic chord in the key of D. Of course, it's a compromise ~ your bass-note alternatives are diminished in the other chords use in the key of D.

Subject: RE: Fingerpicking Patterns
From: Chris in Wheaton
Date: 17 May 05 - 05:18 PM

Sorry if this is too far afield of the original request, but I saw in Acoustic Guitar mag a recommendation to change the feel of fingerpicking by playing the first base note on the fourth string and then the next on the 5/6.
The author, David Hamburger, said Rev Gary and Van Ronk regularly used the technique - has anybody tried this as a way to vary finger-picking tedium?   If so, does it work better on some types of songs than others?
I've been trying it, but it is quite a synaptical effort, at least for a Sadurday afternoon.

Chris

ps-- look at http://www.commotionpr.com/charliePoole.html
for some great Charlie Poole and other mp3's -----

Subject: RE: Fingerpicking Patterns
From: GUEST,PoppaGator
Date: 17 May 05 - 02:52 PM

SharonA, you touched upon an aspect to this discussion that I had thought about, but neglected to mention thus far. (That is, not in this thread; I've talked about this more than once in the past, and those who have already been bored by my story are forewarned ~ you can skip to the next post if you like!)

Combining one-string-at-a-time fingerpicking with "strumming" is tricky, very difficult at first, but a fairly essential feature of a truly fluid personal style. For several years, my such-as-it-was repertoire was clearly divided into two separate classifications: on the one hand, fingerpicking pieces that I played very carefully and may or may not have been able to sing along with, and on the other hand, songs that I could sing easily, along with a fairly simple chordal accompaniment.

I had learned on a nylon-string (classical style) guitar and of course always played barefingered at first. When I decided to "graduate" to a steel-string acoustic, I got myself a set of fingerpicks (thumb-plus-two) for fingerpicking and a flatpick for strumming, setting myself up to continue using two different methods for playing different numbers.

What eventually enabled me to integrate my playing styles and to develop something new and better was my abandonment of the flatpick. I had begun playing on the street, putting in very long hours, and my thumb would cramp from gripping the flatpick, while the thumbpick and fingerpicks didn't bother me as much; they induced a bit of numbness after a while, but that was something I could live with.

For a while, I continued to alternate "just-strumming" ~ with the thumbpick ~ with true fingerpicking, as though the two approaches would continue to develop separately, but very gradually I began to get those fingers involved with the thumb on the simpler "strum" songs, and at the same time began to stroke a bit more freely on the fingerpicking numbers, occasionally brushing two or more strings at a time with either the thumb, the fingers, or both.

The two approaches eventually merged with each other, and now everything I play includes some chording ("strumming"), some single-string picking, the potential for persussive "chops" where appropriate and for fluid little arpeggios, etc., in other passages. It took a lot of years to progress to this point, of course, and I'm still painfully aware of how many entire genres and styles I cannot play, but it is certainly fun and rewarding to keep learning.

Subject: RE: Fingerpicking Patterns
From: GUEST,Barb in Seattle
Date: 17 May 05 - 12:46 PM

I've gotten a lot from many of your posts. My goal is not to learn a certain type of fingerpicking per say, but, to find different ways to vary the style of modern fingerstyle I'm starting to develop on my own (that will be used for traditional and non-traditional folk songs.)

Love,
Barb

Subject: RE: Fingerpicking Patterns
From: GUEST
Date: 17 May 05 - 10:01 AM

(Holden was being sarcastic) ....

Subject: RE: Fingerpicking Patterns
From: John Hardly
Date: 17 May 05 - 06:51 AM

You can play "Boxer" type fingerpicking--th,i,th,i,th,i,etc. You can also play it th,i,th,m,th,i,th,m,etc.

You can play "Freight Train" or "Don't Think Twice"--(th/m),th,i,th,m,th,(th/m),th,i,th,m,th,etc.

You can almost endlessly vary the above by; 1.changing the order of the alternating fingers, 2. not always pinching th/m (use just "th" sometimes). 3.adding hammer-ons and other frills.

When I was a kid my brother watched me play "Don't Think Twice" in the above mentioned way and suggested that I add interest to it by playing it; (th/m),i,m,th,m,i,(th/m),i,m,th,m,i,(th/m),i,m,th,m,i,etc.

Subject: RE: Fingerpicking Patterns
From: GUEST,MTed
Date: 16 May 05 - 11:34 PM

Always nice to know that my thoughts are appreciated--as I said, GUEST, I am still waiting for you to contribute something---and, sadly, we don't know that any of the contributions here have helped the original poster, because she doesn't seem to have come back--

JustaPicker did a thread on Travis picking a while back that gave a good technical explanation as to how it works--generally it is done with the thumb and index finger only--I tried to find it, but the Mudcat Search seems to be down just now--

Subject: RE: Fingerpicking Patterns
From: number 6
Date: 16 May 05 - 08:57 PM

Poppagator - well spoken. I agree with your view 100%

sIx

Subject: RE: Fingerpicking Patterns
From: SharonA
Date: 16 May 05 - 04:32 PM

Back to the subject of the thread...

I'm one of those self-taught guitarists. When I was first learning the instrument, I imitated a friend's version of Travis picking wherein she used her thumb and 3 fingers (index, middle, ring), rather than the more traditional method (thumb and first 2 fingers). So, with the thumb (t) positioned to play alternating bass notes on the 4th, 5th and 6th strings, index finger (i) on the 3rd string, middle finger (m) on 2nd string and ring finger (r) on 1st string, I pick the following:

(using Roger in Baltimore's notation style with slashes between each beat of the measure and commas between "half-beats" a.k.a. eighth notes):

4/4 tr/i,m/t,r/i

...or, for a slightly fuller sound on the downbeat:

4/4 tmr/i,m/t,r/i

I find this useful for open chords such as E, A and C where the root of the chord (the bass note that the chord is named after) is on the 5th or 6th string. For open chords like D, where the root is on the 4th string, I sometimes revert to traditional thumb-and-2-finger Travis picking so that I can use my thumb to play alternating bass on the 4th and 3rd strings as well as the 4th and 5th strings.

Sometimes I even Travis-pick using all 5 digits, with the pinkie (p) positioned on the 1st string, r=2nd string, m=3rd string, i=4th string, t=5th or 6th string:

4/4 tp/i,m/t,r/i or tp/i,m/t,p/i

...and, again, more strings can be plucked at the same time especially on the downbeat (such as trp or tmrp).

Actually, I do a lot of that plucking-of-multiple-strings-at-the-same-time as part of my playing style, mostly like this:

4/4 tmr/i/tmr/i or tmrp/i/tmrp/i or tmr/i,m/tr/i

For this reason, people tell me my style reminds them more of piano-playing than guitar-playing. But I do strum, too! Alternating picking and strumming within the same song (or even in the same measure!) is another way to vary your accompaniment.

There is a LOT of very good advice in this thread, but I think the most important is the tip that one should not get so bogged down with the learning of new techniques that one forgets to have fun! That said, it is still useful to "teach" one's body and brain to perform a picking pattern more or less automatically and then vary the patterns to keep your accompaniment fresh-sounding. Of course, such rote learning is not much fun, so to prevent boredom while playing a pattern over and over as you "teach" yourself the finger movements, get into the habit of practicing these patterns when you are watching television (this also helps with learning to forge ahead and keep playing despite dissonant background noise -- a skill that comes in handy when performing in public and can keep you from feeling distracted by crowd noise).

Subject: RE: Fingerpicking Patterns
From: Peter T.
Date: 16 May 05 - 03:28 PM

M. Ted is a goddam prince! (stolen from Holden Caulfield).

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: Fingerpicking Patterns
From: GUEST,singer/guitarist
Date: 16 May 05 - 03:19 PM

I agree with S & R (third post)

Too many singers concentrate on too busy an accompinament - keep it simple, and put some fancy bits in between the verses. While you sing people should concentrate on your voice.

Listen to the bluesmen to see how it's done

Subject: RE: Fingerpicking Patterns
From: PoppaGator
Date: 16 May 05 - 02:51 PM

Everyone who looks into this thread for hints about how to play ~ including Barb who started the thread plus a whole lot of others ~ will pick and choose what to print out and study and what to ignore. Some readers will find some contributions most helpful for themselves, while others will find a completely different set of messages the most useful for them.

So, there's no need for us to criticize each other's approaches. Each contributor will probably appeal to a slightly different set of readers.

I like MTed, and have had several very fruitful PM exchanges with him. I know that he's always going to be more insistent than I am about the need for personal instruction, and I respectfully disagree, which (I trust) he understands.

I would contend that well-written tablature can convey every bit as much information as standard musical notation and more (insofar as it shows not only the note to be played, but how and where to play each note). In any event, parallel lines of tablature and standard notation ~ a common enough approach ~ should convey all possible musical information.

That said, I'm too worried about a bit of tab's potential failure to convey the subtlest rhythmic information. The only songs I have ever tried to learn from tablature (or by any other method) are ones that that I had heard. The only reason most of us ever have for wanting to learn a song is that we heard it and liked it! When you know how a song goes, you should have some idea about the basic rhythmic approach, etc. (e.g., whether it's a shuffle, etc.)

Subject: RE: Fingerpicking Patterns
From: GUEST
Date: 16 May 05 - 02:12 PM

I know that none of your credentials did diddly squat to help the originator of this thread with her question.

Subject: RE: Fingerpicking Patterns
From: M.Ted
Date: 16 May 05 - 12:39 AM

You know better than me, GUEST--I have a degree in music, a teaching certificate in music education, and I've only been playing music for forty years or so, and teaching for only a part of that time. So you've got me--I'm a big phony--why don't you tell us what you know?

Subject: RE: Fingerpicking Patterns
From: GUEST
Date: 15 May 05 - 06:52 PM

As to you, MTed, if you read Barb in Seattle's initial post, it doesn't sound like she's a "complete beginner." She already knows how to pick - she was wanting some different patterns, not condescension.

Subject: RE: Fingerpicking Patterns
From: M.Ted
Date: 15 May 05 - 04:14 PM

It is simple a simple and elegant explanation if you already know how to do it--GUEST--if you can negotiate this stuff already, all you need is a hint as to how a particular bit goes and you get the general drift. It is a completely different game if you are a complete beginner--as to the rhythmic syllables, they are not part of the tab--you can also write the notes out on a musical staff below the tab, which is the same thing--my point is the same--tab alone don't do the job--

As to you, PoppaGator--A sequence of shuffle eight notes in the bass looks the same in tab as a series of straight eights notes--and those treble notes will look the same, too, but they could really be almost anywhere--

Subject: RE: Fingerpicking Patterns
From: PatrickCostello
Date: 14 May 05 - 10:45 PM

> he is saying "I can't explain how to do this,
> you'll have to work it out yourself."

No, it's more like I'm "not" going to explain this because the only way it'll really work for you is to figure it out for yourself.

I don't trust teachers who want to give all of the answers. Answers are useless. It's questions that make the wheels turn - and "teaching" really revolves around nothing more than presenting the absolute basics and helping the student see that it's okay to try, make mistakes, ask questions and find his or her own path.

Right and wrong . . . well outside of some basic technique issues and the stuff that forms the core of music theory (basic rhythm, chord progressions and stuff like that) the rest of it is pretty much open to any interpretation. As long as the player is making musical sense and he or she is happy (this is, after all, supposed to be fun) there really is no right or wrong.

-Patrick

Subject: RE: Fingerpicking Patterns
From: GUEST
Date: 14 May 05 - 09:31 AM

"DaveS--The problem that you, and everyone one else, has with tab, is that it is doesn't tell you how the rhythm of is played" ....

Unless you provide the rhythm like Patrick Costello did in his post 13-May-05 9:35am above. Simple and elegant...easy to understand.

"To learn fingerpicking, you have to learn a collection of basic movements that require the coordination of your thumb and various fingers. Nothing that anyone has posted explains how to do them, and(this is the most important part) how to tell if you are doing them right--"

I think Patrick Costello just did in that same post.

As far as knowing if you got it right....if it sounds okay to the player's ears s/he is probably doing it right. Players can tell if they're noting strings cleanly, or plucking strings correctly. Their ears tell them.

Subject: RE: Fingerpicking Patterns
From: number 6
Date: 14 May 05 - 12:20 AM

Brucie ..... 'political finger', first time I've hear that!

Subject: RE: Fingerpicking Patterns
From: Peter T.
Date: 13 May 05 - 05:03 PM

Again, keep in mind that at some point in the future you will want to vary the pattern in a variety of ways -- I think a basic notion to keep in mind is that the hearer will find the pattern soothing and interesting for awhile, and then will get bored -- most good players inject hammer-ons, pull-offs, move their fingers around, shift the patterns slightly or a lot, just to keep it from getting monotonous. However, sometimes you do want the patterns to stay in the background, or to keep a droning note -- for instance, often when you are backing the voice -- you want to support the voice, not distract the hearer from it. This usually comes under the heading of "taste"!!!

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: Fingerpicking Patterns
From: PoppaGator
Date: 13 May 05 - 04:15 PM

MTed said:

The problem that you, and everyone one else, has with tab, is that it is doesn't tell you how the rhythm of is played--this is a big problem, and it makes it impossible for anyone to learn how to play a song just by looking at the tab--

True enough; the really good pre-internet tab I first encountered back in the mid-60s always indicated time in the same way that standard musical notation does ~ either by adding the "stems" or "flags" of quarter-notes and eighth-notes. etc., to the numbers on the strings, or by printing the regular sheet music staff immediately below the tablature. And even with the greatest possible detail, most readers still need to have heard the piece first in order to make sense of it.

A lot of the "tab" we see today (especially on the web) is quite a bit cruder that that. However, most halfway-decent tab at least marks off measures coherently, and many tab-writers try to use horizontal space consistently (e.g., letting every three "monospaces" ~ like [---] or [-1-] ~ represent an eight-note's worth of time).

HOWEVER: in the case of most fingerpicking "patterns" or exercises, it's usually pretty safe to assume that the thumbstrokes are on a steady 4/4 beat. That's certainly true for all the little bits of tab I posted, and most if not all of what we got from Kaleea and Patrick. If you're capable of internalizing this relatively simple idea, you can observe which treble notes fall on the beat with the thumb/bass notes (i.e., which treble notes occur as "pinches") versus which treble notes fall on the half-beat between the steadily pulsating bass notes. (In other cases, where a song might be in 3/4 time and there are three thumbstroked bass notes per measure rather than four, the same principles apply.) What more could you possibly need to know about the rhythm?

In my own experiences working from tab, there were times when I had to master the basic mechanics of playing the notes without regard to meter at first, and then to fgure out how to make the thumbstrokes fall on a steady beat, and other times when I could keep the beat steady (if agonizingly slow) while first learning the notes and the finger movements.

Back to MTed:

...you have to have heard the piece you are playing(and have kept it in your head)--and that assumes that you have mastered the finger movements-

Well, yes, it is pretty much necessary that you have heard the piece -- you certainly need a basic grasp of how the song goes, if not an exact memory of every note of the guitar part. But I disagree quite strongly with the contention that a good secure knowledge of how a piece sounds requires that you already know how to move your fingers to play it!

On the contrary, I would contend that all you need to work up a new bit of fingerpicking (new to you, that is) is:
1) Some basic skill at playing a simple pattern or two, with the beginnings of an ability to insert a few variations, and
2) Either a clear idea ~ a "sound in your head" ~ of some new and different wrinkles you'll need for your next effort, or some kind of guideline to copy from (tab, "dots," audio/video, etc.)

The one thing Ted says that I most agree with is in his final paragraph, where he observes that "TMI" (too much information) can be overwhelming, and that effective learning demands that things be broken down step-by-step. Those who dare to be self-taught are responsible for breaking things down for themselves ~ as someone noted above, the thing to do with the potential "information overload" found in a thread like this one is to print it out and then take the time to work through selected bits one at a time.

Where I disagree with Ted is his contention that everyone requires a teacher to make sure everything is being done "right." I realize that being a music teacher is an honorable (and difficult) pursuit, and I don't mean to undermine any fellow Mudcatter's efforts to make a living, but I absolutely insist that some people can become excellent folk musicians without extended formal instruction ~ by listening to recordings and live performances; by studying books, sheet music, tablature, etc.; by watching other, better players; and by seeking personal consultation (i.e., "tips") when the opportunity arises.

Nobody is truly and completely "self-taught," but some folks can progress very well, thank you, while fully in charge of their own musical education, supplementing private study from recordings and books/printouts with occasional Q&A sessions with ad-hoc "instructors" (friends and acquaintances) whenever the opportunity arises (e.g., at song circles, jams, etc.)

Subject: RE: Fingerpicking Patterns
From: M.Ted
Date: 13 May 05 - 03:58 PM

By others, not by me.

Subject: RE: Fingerpicking Patterns
From: GUEST,MTed
Date: 13 May 05 - 02:08 PM

DaveS--The problem that you, and everyone one else, has with tab, is that it is doesn't tell you how the rhythm of is played--this is a big problem, and it makes it impossible for anyone to learn how to play a song just by looking at the tab--you have to have heard the piece you are playing(and have kept it in your head)--and that assumes that you have mastered the finger movements-

To learn fingerpicking, you have to learn a collection of basic movements that require the coordination of your thumb and various fingers--Nothing that anyone has posted explains how to do them, and(this is the most important part) how to tell if you are doing them right--

The final bit in this is simply that the melody/lead/fill/whatever you want to call it line that the fingers play (against the thumb's bass line) is always a syncopated phrase, which is to say, it is staggered off the beat--when Patrick Costello says:

>Play around with the timing. Play around with the phrasing. Constantly screw around with it until >you can start using to to express how you feel at the moment.

he is saying "I can't explain how to do this, you'll have to work it out yourself." So much for written explanations of fingerpicking--


The way to learn this stuff is to listen to it til you are sick of it, then to find someone who knows how to do it and how to teach it to show you the basic movements.   It will take you a while to get it down--

The reason I am saying this, with no disrespect to any who have contributed, is that in my years of teaching guitar, the biggest problem I ran into was that students were overwhelmed because they'd been given more than they could handle, and what they'd been given hadn't been broken down so they could manage it--

Subject: RE: Fingerpicking Patterns
From: Chris in Wheaton
Date: 13 May 05 - 12:06 PM

Thanks for the post Patrick - when I learned to fingerpick, it was at a class at the Ash Grove in LA in '64. Fingerpicking 101 was just "Freight Train!" We started with "pinch - alternating bass" and then did every variation under the Sun for 10 weeks - my roommates almost made me move out, but that's what it took for me to learn. Some people (me for one) need all the synapses to line up in an orderly way to learn anything - some people can hear something once or twice and they're off. The Folks should find what works best for them.
For Dave's tab aversion, I again suggest Tabledit - to see and hear tab being played is so much fun that sometimes I just play the file. See Mike Joyce's tabledit file for You are My Flower, for me there was no way I could ever get the timing without seeing it in print.
Poppa G - I stared working on Satisfied after seeing Jo Serraperre - look for her cd's. Now that I have Stefan's book out I will try Mermaids! Lots of fun too to play Richland Women along with Maria Muldaur - love mp3's!!
Chris

Subject: RE: Fingerpicking Patterns
From: PatrickCostello
Date: 13 May 05 - 11:53 AM

Tab is just a way to illustrate fingerings on a fretted instrument.
You have six lines. Each line represents a string on your guitar.
The sixth string is at the bottom and the first string is on top.
When any string has a zero you play that string open.
The numbers on a string tell you what fret to play.

So in this example you would play your sixth string at the sixth fret, your fifth string at the fifth fret, your fourth string at the fourth fret, your third string at the third fret and so on.

|------------------1-|
|---------------2----|
|------------3-------|
|---------4----------|
|------5-------------|
|---6----------------|

Subject: RE: Fingerpicking Patterns
From: GUEST,Dave S
Date: 13 May 05 - 11:35 AM

I wish I could understand TAB. I try to understand what others clearly explain when describing the process, but, I just don't understand how to process and read TAB. I think I'm going to keep finding my own ways to discover a variety of fingerpicking patterns.

Dave S.

Subject: RE: Fingerpicking Patterns
From: mooman
Date: 13 May 05 - 09:59 AM

Impressive post and highly useful Patrick!

Peace

moo

Subject: RE: Fingerpicking Patterns
From: PatrickCostello
Date: 13 May 05 - 09:35 AM

I don't think the answer is to learn a lot of patterns or read a lot of tab. I tried that twenty years ago and got so screwed up I almost quit.

When I was studying karate years ago the people I trained with used to say stuff like, "I'd rather have one technique I can fight with instead of ten techniques that fight me" and, "It's a lot smarter to learn one technique and explore twenty-four ways to use it than to learn twenty-four separate movements".

An example of this sort of thinking can be found in frailing banjo. In frailing you have a basic picking pattern made up of a quarter note and two eighth notes. In the hands of an experienced frailer that core picking technique can be twisted into some pretty cool stuff. The brilliant thing about frailing is that the core technique is so freaking logical that the average student can pick it up in the space of a few hours.

I'm not kidding. If you can play the basic frailing strum and make two chords (not counting the open G chord) you can be playing and singing folk songs in an afternoon. You don't see that done much today simply because people have made a business out of complicating this stuff.

The crazy thing about fingerstyle guitar and frailing banjo is that the two instruments/styles share a similar core technique. This makes sense when you figure that the banjo started out as a homemade instrument that anybody could build from parts gathered in any back yard. When cheap guitars became available people could switch to a more modern "store bought" instrument that had more flexibility than the old five-string.

So the frailing strum on the banjo:

D---0--0-----------0--0-----|-|
B------0--------------0-----|-|
G------0--------------0-----|-|
D------0--------------0-----|-|
G--------0--------------0---|-|
    m m t         m m t
   
(pick down with the middle fingernail on a string, brush down across the strings with the middle fingernail and pick the fifth string with your thumb. The rhythm is a quarter note and two eighth notes giving you a count of "one two and three four and" for each measure.)

turned into the "Carter strum on the guitar:

     C
|------0-0------0-0--|-|
|------1--------1----|-|
|------0--------0----|-|
|------2-----2--2----|-|
|---3--3--------3----|-|
|------x--------x----|-|
   t   t i   t t i

(Strike/pick down with the thumb, brush down across the strings with the thumb and pick up with the index finger.he rhythm is a quarter note and two eighth notes giving you a count of "one two and three four and" for each measure.)

That's the basic frameworks. If you break that initial quarter note in half you wind up with a string of eighth notes:

     C
|--------0-0--------0-0--|-|
|--------1-------1--1----|-|
|--------0----------0----|-|
|-----2--2-----2----2----|-|
|---3----3----------3----|-|
|--------x----------x----|-|
    t i t i   t i t i


The next step is to replace the strum with something - and what that next thing is depends on what you want to do. That's where the whole "style" thing starts to come together.

The tricky part here is that jump from the "boom chuck-a" to creating your own style doesn't happen overnight. In order to expand on that simple picking pattern you have to work with it until you "think" in that rhythm. This is kind of hard to do nowadays because guitar students - like modern "clawhammer" banjo students - are usually encouraged to copy arraignments of experienced players rather than learn the core skills of the instrument.

Anyway, the basic idea behind fingerstyle guitar is that you either have a
monotonic bass:

E+--------------+--------------+
B+--------------+--------------+
G+--------------+--------------+
D+--------------+--------------+
A+--------------+--------------+
E+--0--0--0--0--+--0--0--0--0--+
    1 2 3 4    1 2 3 4


or an alternating bass.

E+-------------+--------------+
B+-------------+--------------+
G+-------------+--------------+
D+-------------+--------------+
A+-----0-----0-+-----0-----0--+
E+--0-----0----+--0-----0-----+
    1 2 3 4    1 2 3 4


You can use your thumb and two fingers or your thumb and your index finger. I'm a thumb an index finger picker myself- but I'll still throw my middle finger into the mix whenever I need it. in the long run it's not really that big of a deal because of the way the next step works.

See, in fingerstyle guitar there is only so many places to throw in a melody
note.

It can be played at the same time as the low bass:

(alternating bass out of a C chord)

E+--------------------+-------------------+
B+----1-------1-------+---1-------1-------+
G+--------------------+-------------------+
D+--------2-------2---+-------2-------2---+
A+----3-------3-------+---3-------3-------+
E+--------------------+-------------------+
      1   2   3   4       1   2   3   4

It can be played at the same time as the high bass:

(alternating bass out of a C chord)

E+--------------------+-------------------+
B+--------1-------1---+-------1-------1---+
G+--------------------+-------------------+
D+--------2-------2---+-------2-------2---+
A+----3-------3-------+---3-------3-------+
E+--------------------+-------------------+
      1   2   3   4       1   2   3   4

It can be played before the low bass:

Between the high and low bass:

(alternating bass out of a C chord)

E+----------------------------+---------------------------+
B+-------1------------1-------+------1------------1-------+
G+----------------------------+---------------------------+
D+-----------2------------2---+----------2------------2---+
A+---3-------------3----------+---3------------3----------+
E+----------------------------+---------------------------+
    1   2   &    3 4   &       1 2    &    3   4 &

Or between the low and the high bass;


(alternating bass out of a C chord)

E+----------------------------+------------------------+
B+-----------1-----------1----+---------1-----------1--+
G+----------------------------+------------------------+
D+-------2-----------2--------+-------2---------2------+
A+---3-----------3------------+---3---------3----------+
E+----------------------------+------------------------+
    1   2   &    3   4   &       1   2 & 3   4   &


And if you mess around with those four places to stick in melody notes you
wind you with a whole lot of cool stuff you can pull off.

Creating a melody line isn't hard if you can get a grip on holding a chord
(so you have your bass notes) and blending the melody line into those four
spots.

The easy way to work up to that is to take a bit of a scale and mix it into
the alternating bass pattern.

What I usually start folks off with is strumming a a plan old C chord, then
strumming the C chord and adding the pinky at the first string at the third
fret to the chord form and then moving that pinky over to the second string
at the third fret. If you mess around with that you can start getting the
melody of Freight Train and a bunch of other tunes.

Agter they get used to moving stuff around in a chord for I'll have them
hold a C chord and use the little finger- and index for that first fret
note- to play this piece of the C scale

E+---------0---1---+---3---1---0-------+
B+-1---3-----------+---------------3---+
G+-----------------+-------------------+
D+-----------------+-------------------+
A+-----------------+-------------------+
E+-----------------+-------------------+

Then add the alt bass:

E+---------0---1---+---3---1---0-------+
B+-1---3-----------+---------------3---+
G+-----------------+-------------------+
D+---------2-------+-----------2-------+
A+-3---------------+---3---------------+
E+-----------------+-------------------+
   1   &   2   &       1   &   2   &


What you wind up with in this last example is what Doc Watson uses for just about everything, It's the same pattern Leo Kottke used for Fisherman, Merle Travis used it to death - in fact I don't think there is a way to count how many times this little lick has been twisted around by guitar players.

Once you can play it a written the next step is to play with the rhythm. Add in a brush, a hammer-on, a slide, a pull-off. Play around with the timing. Play around with the phrasing. Constantly screw around with it until you can start using to to express how you feel at the moment.

Play simply. Sing a couple of thousand folk songs and give yourself time and space to put it all together.

-Patrick

Subject: RE: Fingerpicking Patterns
From: Roger in Baltimore
Date: 13 May 05 - 08:44 AM

Happy Traum's name came up. He has an extensive list of VHS video's and, now, DVD's that teach fingerpicking for guitar. He can be found at homespuntapes.com. Stefan Grossman's tapes and videos can be found at guitarvideos.com. Stefan also has numerous videos of many now deceased blues artists. He also has some still living players on video in concert.

Good luck with all of this information!

Roger in Baltimore

Subject: RE: Fingerpicking Patterns
From: Ironmule
Date: 12 May 05 - 07:44 PM

One of the most useful tools of the beginning fingerpicker, is a little recorder in your mind that lets you replay your mistakes, when you catch the wrong string and it sounds good; or at least, interesting. -BG-


As you progress to trying different forms of syncopation; walking bass lines; playing melodies on either the treble or bass strings or both, within an overall chord structure; your mistakes will lead you to interesting riffs and cool rythms. The embellishments to my ragtime showoff version of "Alice's Restaraunt", and some other bluesy tunes, mostly came from figuring out why some mistake sounded good, and adding that type of sound to my bag of tricks.

I taught myself these tricks 40 years ago so I can't be of much more help to you than to tell you not to be afraid to play so fast your fingers can't keep up, and they take unplanned paths.

"The road less traveled" so to speak.

Jeff Smith

Subject: RE: Fingerpicking Patterns
From: PoppaGator
Date: 12 May 05 - 12:26 PM

The Stephan Grossman books have always been some of the best guides to fingerpicking, and his empire has now extended to production of audio and video tapes and disks to supplement the printed material. He has his own website ~ if "StephenGrossman.com" doesn't work, just google his name and you'll find it.

Happy Traum's books also date back to the 60's and are similarly excellent; Happy was also one of the first to supplement his books with tapes. His publisher, Oak Publications, is a great source for all kinds of folk-music-related insructional materials and other stuff.

One really excellent and fairly obscure fingerpicking songbook that I highly recommend is Donald Garwood's "Masters of Intrumental Blues Guitar" (another Oak Publication). I don't know anything about Mr. Garwood, or indeed if he has any other books to his credit, but this one is top-notch.

He goes into great detail on a half-dozen or so songs from each of three of four notable artists. I concentrated most of my effort of the Mississippi John Hurt section, wherein I learned some astounding riffs which make it sound like I'm playing twice as many notes as I'm actually hitting ~ tricky little bits I hadn't found in any other book, and which I could never have analyzed and reconstructed on my own just from listening.

PS to Chris in Wheaton:

Isn't "I'm Satisfied" fun to play? All those MJH songs are so great ~ at first it may be a bit challenging to get one down, then for a while it becomes deceptively simple to play, but in the end you find yourself playing something just a little bit different every time around, and that's when you're just beginning to polish things up and really learn to play the song.

I've been practicing/playing "Let the Mermaids Flirt with Me" for about a year now, almost every time I pick up the guitar and almost to the exclusion of the rest of my repertoire, and still haven't exhausted the possibilities, still don't feel that I have it "down pat."

Subject: RE: Fingerpicking Patterns
From: Chris in Wheaton
Date: 12 May 05 - 11:57 AM

take a look at Tabledit -
http://www.tabledit.com/
This is really helpful for me and there are a lot of really cool .tef files around the net.
I saw a web posting on foreign language learning - it said some folks do better if they first understand basic grammar and others do better just working out new phrases. Since I'm a gotta know the grammar rules type, tabledit works for me. Others may get more just by listening and trying to duplicate the sound.
Try the old Jim Kweskin records, especially Relax Your Mind - out on cd.
Also, I recommend Grossman's books on Mississippi John - I've been working on Satisfied and Tickled Too - can't beat that for fun, IMHO.
Chris

Subject: RE: Fingerpicking Patterns
From: M.Ted
Date: 12 May 05 - 09:28 AM

No, I didn't say that Doc Watson fingerpicks in a manner similar to Blind Blake(though I am sure that he can)--what I said was that they both made use of the same thumb/index finger movement--

Subject: RE: Fingerpicking Patterns
From: Peter T.
Date: 12 May 05 - 09:15 AM

Something to pick up as you go along is double thumbing -- hitting bass, other bass, first bass again, and then some picking pattern on the high-note strings. This is used a lot by pickers to vary things, but it also prepares you for the rhythm of injecting more complicated bass runs.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: Fingerpicking Patterns
From: GLoux
Date: 12 May 05 - 09:02 AM

Doc Watson is primarily a flat picker, but he does finger pick and I seem to recall that he just uses his thumb and index finger. Windy and Warm is a good example of his finger picking...

-Greg

Subject: RE: Fingerpicking Patterns
From: *daylia*
Date: 12 May 05 - 08:57 AM

Kaleea, Poppa - thank you both! I've printed out your excellent posts.

Subject: RE: Fingerpicking Patterns
From: mooman
Date: 12 May 05 - 08:34 AM

I use thumb, index finger and gesturing finger (very rarely ring finger). My picking patterns are somewhat idiosyncratic having been developed over 40 years without following any particular style.

Peace

moo

Subject: RE: Fingerpicking Patterns
From: Bob the Postman
Date: 12 May 05 - 08:25 AM

MTed above states that Doc Watson finger-picks in a manner similar to Blind Blake. I always thought Doc stuck to flat-pick on the guitar, in fact virtually invented the technique of making flat-picking sound like finger-picking. Am I wrong again?

Subject: RE: Fingerpicking Patterns
From: Barry T
Date: 12 May 05 - 12:23 AM

There are two books I'd recommend, one readily available and the other out of print but worth hunting for...

Abe And Malka's 100 Guitar Accompaniment Patterns. Comes with or without a CD, I believe. Just Google the title. You'll find it everywhere.

The other is an old book 'The Way I Feel' by Gordon Lightfoot. That one contained the finger-picking patterns he and his lead guitarist used on the LP by the same title.

I've forgotten most of the patterns from the latter but I do recall that they were absolutely magic to me at a time when I was just learning.

Subject: RE: Fingerpicking Patterns
From: GUEST
Date: 11 May 05 - 11:55 PM

Nahh... some people have a knack for making things harder than they really are. And most people deserve more credit for being able to figure out without being told every detail what works for them and what doesn't.

Like teaching someone to read, for example. You don't start out by describing to a six year old hard-to-grasp concepts like sentence structure, syntax, past participles and the like. You don't have a student read the dictionary first to familiarize himself with every word he might come across during the course of his life.

You teach him a few easy words like "See" and "Spot" and "Run" and you give the student an easy book to read like "See Spot Run" ...and you let him read. Sort of like giving someone a guitar, teaching him "G" and "C" and "D" and then let him listen to "Blowin' In The Wind." Wow - what a novel concept: learning by doing.

Subject: RE: Fingerpicking Patterns
From: M.Ted
Date: 11 May 05 - 08:59 PM

It requires a bit of effort to sit down and write out what goes on when you fingerpick, and it is useful for everyone who fingerpicks to see what others are doing--so I appreciate what everyone has done here--

My point is more of an advisory to initial poster and other beginning pickers that there is a lot more material here than you will be able to process--I am not going to get into a discussion of which directions are incomplete and which are inaccurate--but suffice it to say that it is very, very difficult to explain movements of the hands and fingers in a way that is both comprehensive and easy to follow--

Subject: RE: Fingerpicking Patterns
From: Roger in Baltimore
Date: 11 May 05 - 04:21 PM

Alan Lomax's Folk Songs of North America has a brief tutorial for guitar and banjo in the back. It gives a couple of fingerpicking patterns. It also matches patterns to specific songs. It was a great practice guide for me (I wore the spine out on the book). Using the t=thumb, i=index, m=middle, and r=ring labels and placing them so the thumb covers the three low strings and i on G, m on B, and r on E mentioned above:

4/4 t/i/mr/i is a frequently used pattern.
    t/imr/t/imr mimics a flat pick strum

3/4 t/i,mr/i,mr
    t/imr/imr mimics a flat pick strum

You can combine them, alternating throughout the song.

4/4 t/imr//t,i/mr,i   

Roger in Baltimore

Subject: RE: Fingerpicking Patterns
From: GUEST
Date: 11 May 05 - 03:53 PM

Also Barb, if you really want information overload, you can type "fingerpicking" or a derivative of the word into the filter box on the Mudcat Cafe home page, click the Refresh down arrow and select "All" and click the Refresh button, and browse through the thread titles that come up. There you will find lots of incidental information related to fingerpicking, and perhaps more patterns etc as well.

Subject: RE: Fingerpicking Patterns
From: belfast
Date: 11 May 05 - 03:23 PM

Get this book -
"Finger-Picking Styles For Guitar" by Happy Traum.
Oak Publications.
64 pages that will keep you going for years. From Mississippi John Hurt to Joeseph Spence. My copy cost me 1.20 sterling (can't find the brit pound symbol) some time in the 70's and I still look at it sometimes.

Subject: RE: Fingerpicking Patterns
From: Vixen
Date: 11 May 05 - 02:58 PM

There are three pages of finger-picking patterns in my "Carcassi Method for Guitar" book. They use C and G7, and they're only two-to-four measures long (you repeat them endlessly). They start with very simple patterns and develop into some fairly intricate ones. They've all been useful to me, either as just exercises to improve right-hand dexterity, or as actual accompaniment to my songs.


Just my $0.02, fwiw
V