Ok. First things first. If you have a pick anywhere NEAR your computer, hide it!

Fingerstyle guitar is the technique of playing the guitar by plucking the strings directly with the fingertips, fingernails, or picks attached to fingers, as opposed to flatpicking (picking individual notes with a single plectrum called a flatpick) or strumming all the strings of the instrument in chords.

Video

Alternate Video

The term is often used synonymously with fingerpicking. Music arranged for fingerstyle playing can include chords, arpeggios and other elements such as artificial harmonics, hammering on and pulling off with the fretting hand, using the body of the guitar percussively, and many other techniques.

Physically, “Fingerstyle” refers to using each of the right (or left) hand fingers independently in order to play the multiple parts of a musical arrangement that would normally be played by several band members. Bass, harmonic accompaniment, melody, and percussion can all be played simultaneously when playing Fingerstyle.

Since this course will cover not only HOW you can incorporate fingerstyle into your guitar playing, but more importantly…how you will develop ground-breaking skills as a fingerstyle guitar player, we must cover some basic material before getting too far ahead in the course.