Guitar Fingerpicking Techniques

Guitar fingerpicking refers to playing the guitar with the fingers of your right hand. To be more precise, you use the finger tips of your right hand to play the strings.

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The guitar fingerpicking technique is commonly used in styles such as flamenco, classical and the various ranges of folk musical styles.

Playing with the tips of your fingers is known as the clawhammer style. Some classical guitarists play using their nails which is known as the classical style. The most commonly used style out of the two guitar fingerpicking techniques is the clawhammer.

If you are fingerpicking an acoustic guitar, you place your fingers over the sound hole and your wrist should be more or less perpendicular to the strings.

To get the maximum power from your fingers when fingerpicking, hold your finger perpendicular to the strings. You should also maintain a slight bend or arch in your wrist so that your fingers come down more vertically on the strings of the guitar. Don’t keep the wrist too rigid but keep it stationary.

As you are striking the string with your finger, move your finger away so you do not rest it against the adjacent string. This therefore allows for all the strings to ring out and produce chords as opposed to a series of individual notes being played out.

With guitar fingerpicking, you almost use your fingers on the guitar strings in much the same way as you would play the harp.

Each finger is assigned to each string that it plays. The thumb play strings 4 to 6. The 1st, 2nd and 3rd finger play each of the treble strings respectively (strings 1 to 3).  When reading music you may come across diagrams that show fingering. On these diagrams the fingers are identified by the initials of their Spanish.

In short these fingers are referred to as PIMA. The thumb is ‘P’ (pulgar). The 1st finger is ‘I’ (indice). The 2nd finger is ‘M’ (medio) and the 3rd finger is ‘A’ (anular). It is quite rare for the 4th finger to be used. However, if the 4th finger is in a fingering diagram it will be referred to as either ‘C’, ‘X’ or ‘E’.

In general, when you are fingerpicking the thumb pluck downwards on the bass strings and the fingers pluck upwards on the high strings.

The decision whether to use fingerpicking or a pick is primarily dictated by the music that you are playing. When playing the classical or the flamenco style you will most likely be using your finger. When people are playing rock music, they mostly use the pick.

Some people play the guitar with both the guitar fingerpicking style and the pick at the same time. This requires more skill and is regarded as a more advanced technique for playing the guitar.