Help on Advanced Finger Picking

[zepellin-worshiper]

Ive been playing guitar pretty hard core for 2 years now. ive only had 2 lessons and that was when i first started playin. i would say that ive taught myself fairly well. but ne ways...ive been tryin to self teach myself finger picking, but i just cant seem to get my bottom 2 fingers to strike the string firmly and dependently. could some one give me an excersise to either strengthen my finger picking, and even make it faster for all my fingers. ( i know practice makes perfect, but theres always a short cut...hehe)

[AmericanWeiner]

Ive been playing guitar pretty hard core for 2 years now. ive only had 2 lessons and that was when i first started playin. i would say that ive taught myself fairly well. but ne ways...ive been tryin to self teach myself finger picking, but i just cant seem to get my bottom 2 fingers to strike the string firmly and dependently. could some one give me an excersise to either strengthen my finger picking, and even make it faster for all my fingers. ( i know practice makes perfect, but theres always a short cut...hehe)

Bottom two as in pinky and ring? They should move as one finger.

I can't help you unless that is the case.

[guitar_face]

Bottom two as in pinky and ring? They should move as one finger.
I can't help you unless that is the case.
Not necessarily. I can competely use all my right hand fingers either together or seperately. I don't know of any shortcuts, I practised. A good piece for the right hand in terms of using all fingers is Patterns in the Ivy by Opeth.

[LSD]

i dont find the pinky all that necessary but im not an avid fingerstyle guitarist... however i can play classical gas in its entirety without using my pinky if that means anything..

anyway, if you wanted to strengthen them i imagine that just running up and down each of the strings with only those 2 fingers constantly will strengthen them and give them independance or just trying out songs using only your last 3 fingers (no index finger)

[bradc1988]

Start simple with something like the first minute or so of The Call of Ktulu and all of Stairway to Heavan and try keeping to 1 finger per string. That will build finger strength and independant movement and you can concentrate on getting clear defined notes with the slow pace of both songs. Then move to something like Classical Gas, start it slow than speed up when you can. It's a harder song that is faster than the other 2 and will really work and improve your plucking. From there I have no idea because that's where I'm at, I havn't done any finger plucking in a few months.

Another thing I do is just sit there and arpeggiate some chords, just make up and progression and just do some random plucking.

[AmericanWeiner]

Not necessarily. I can competely use all my right hand fingers either together or seperately. I don't know of any shortcuts, I practised. A good piece for the right hand in terms of using all fingers is Patterns in the Ivy by Opeth.

Pinky is pretty common in rock circles... I'm just reffering to how I was taught.

[zepellin-worshiper]

thx guys....due to my problem...ive had to learn how to play stairway with only my thumb and my index, middle, and the one next to the middle...lol. but it still sounds good. ive been using a finger strengthener that has a spring for each finger and that has made me faster...but not at all less independent. ill give classical gas a try though, but for now i guess ill keep on doing my G, D, C finger picking runs for that added practice, along with classical gas and i think that should help me out tons..thx guys

[Swing Life Away35]

Learn "Strong Enough" by Sheryl Crow. Thats what got me turned on to fingerpickin'. Then try to get the intro to "Minority" by Green Day. Also, as mentioned before, just make up a progression and pick it. I'd also suggest buying a book (probably from the Progressive series?).

[JakeFloyd]

http://www.sibeliusmusic.com/cgi-bin/show_score.pl?scoreid=71397&storeid=1005

A standard to all classical players. A must-learn if you want to have great fingerpicking skills. It has pretty much any pattern you can think of...