Fingerpicking Patterns

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,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: 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
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: 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: PoppaGator
Date: 18 May 05 - 06:31 PM

refresh

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: 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: Justa Picker
Date: 25 Jun 05 - 09:05 PM

:-)