Finger Picking
Luciano Treachi
15/01/2023
What is Finger Picking?
Finger picking gives you a full sound allows you to be a one-man band and allows you to take your music in new areas. Finger Picking is basically an overarching term that encompasses finger tips rather than a pick when playing the guitar. It's a technique for playing the guitar by plucking the strings directly with the fingertips, fingernails, or picks attached to fingers.
Why is Finger Picking Guitar Important?
A guitarist playing fingerstyle can perform numerous musical elements at once because individual digits play notes on the guitar rather than the hand acting as a single unit (as is the case when a musician holds a single pick). You are able to play several elements of a musical arrangement that would ordinarily be done by different band members. When playing with your fingers the deep bass notes, harmonic accompaniment (the chord progression), melodies, and percussion can all be performed at the same time. The melody notes are frequently interwoven with the melody's accompanying chords and the deep bassline (or bass notes) by the guitarist. Along with the melody, chords, and bassline, some fingerpicking guitarists use percussive tapping.
Advantages
1. Players are not required to carry a plectrum.
2. You can use up to four fingers and a thumb, to independently strike the strings. Playing multiple
non-adjacent strings at the same time.
3. Allows guitarists to simultaneously play bass lines along side melodies. By separating melodic and bass
lines gives you the ability to create small ensemble.
4. Allows the guitarists to play double stops such as an octave, a fifth, a sixth, or other intervals that
are appropriate for the harmony.
Disadvantages
1. If you want to use fingernails over the skin on your finger tips you must keep fingernails at the proper
length and well maintained.
2. Plectrums can easily strike each string on both up and downstrokes. Whereas the technique to build this
using fingers is very advanced.
3. When playing acoustically, less energy is often transmitted to strings than when using a plectrum,
resulting in decreased volume.
4. Fingerstyle is better suited to nylon strings or smaller gauge steel strings because playing on heavier
gauge strings might harm nails.
Conclusion
There are many terminologies, used in different circles of guitar culture that describe the action of using your fingers instead of a plectrum. In this article, we have discussed that finger picking and finger style is a catch-all phrase for any type of playing that uses the fingers rather than a pick or plectrum.
