Fingerstyle guitar

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This article is about the guitar style. For the Chet Atkins album, see Finger Style Guitar.

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. The term is often used synonymously with fingerpicking (although "fingerpicking" can also refer to a specific stylistic subset; see below). 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.

Because it refers both to a means of making music and the music thus produced, fingerstyle is best understood as both a technique and as a key element in musical genres.

Contents

[edit] Fingerstyle as technique

Because notes are struck by individual digits rather than the hand working as a single unit, fingerstyle playing allows the guitarist to perform several musical elements simultaneously. One definition of the technique has been put forward by the Toronto (Canada) Fingerstyle Guitar Association:

Physically, “Fingerstyle” refers to using each of the right 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.[1]

[edit] Fingerstyle musical genres

In the most general sense, "fingerstyle" applies to all guitar music in which a plectrum is not employed. However, as this would encompass classical guitar, flamenco guitar and several other distinct styles of play, the term is commonly understood to designate not a technique but a range of musical genres and sub-genres, most often performed on the steel-string acoustic guitar. Of these, one general classification is into two broad groups: Fingerpicking, or rhythmically-based music, and melodic fingerstyle, in which tone coloration and orchestral effects are paramount.

[edit] Fingerpicking

"Fingerpicking" (also called "thumb picking", "alternating bass" or "pattern picking") is a term that is used to describe both a playing style and a genre of music. It falls under the "fingerstyle" heading because it is plucked by the fingers, but it is generally used to play a specific type of folk, country-jazz and/or blues music. In this technique, the thumb maintains a steady rhythm, usually playing "alternating bass" patterns on the lower three strings, while the index, or index and middle fingers pick out melody and fill-in notes on the high strings.

The style originated in the late 1800s and early 1900s, as Southern African American blues guitarists tried to imitate the popular ragtime piano music of the day, with the guitarist's thumb functioning as the pianist's left hand, and the other fingers functioning as the right hand. The first recorded examples were by players such as Blind Blake, Big Bill Broonzy, Memphis Minnie and Mississippi John Hurt. Some early blues players such as Blind Willie Johnson and Tampa Red added slide guitar techniques. Fingerpicking was soon taken up by Country and Western artists such as Sam McGee, Ike Everly (father of The Everly Brothers) and Merle Travis. Later Chet Atkins further developed the style.

Most fingerpickers use acoustic guitars, but some, including Merle Travis often played on hollow-body electrics.[2]

[edit] Classical guitar fingerstyle

A wide range of musical styles are able to be played on the classical guitar. The major feature of classical fingerstyle technique is that it has evolved to enable solo rendition of harmony and polyphonic music in much the same manner as the piano can. The classical guitar excels in such performance and allows a high degree of control over the musical dynamics, texture, volume and timbral characteristics of the guitar. The history of the classical guitar dates back to the Middle Ages. Its repertoire includes Renaissance music, baroque and later musical styles.

[edit] Fingerstyle jazz guitar

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The unaccompanied guitar in jazz is often played in chord-melody style, where the guitarist plays a series of chords with the melody line on top. True fingerstyle jazz guitar, without the use of a plectrum, dates back to players like Eddie Lang (1902-1933) and Carl Kress (1907-1965), but the style did not really fully develop before the invention of the electric guitar. George van Eps (1913-1998) was revered for his polyphonic solo guitar playing, and Joe Pass (1929-1994) truly popularized fingerstyle solo jazz guitar improvisation in his later years. Ted Greene and Lenny Breau were other masters.

Today, fingerstyle jazz guitar has several proponents, from Martin Taylor to the pianistic Jeff Linsky, who freely improvises polyphonically while employing a classical guitar technique. Earl Klugh has also recorded several fingerstyle jazz projects on the solo guitar.

An important factor that influences the unique sound of this style is that most jazz fingerstylists play in all keys[citation needed], unlike folk, classical and flamenco players who favor keys that provide open strings—C, G, D, A and E (or these same chord formations in other keys with the aid of a capo).

[edit] Travis picking

This style is commonly played on steel string acoustic guitars. Pattern picking is the use of "preset right-hand pattern[s]" while fingerpicking, with the left hand fingering standard chords.[1]

The most common pattern, sometimes named Travis picking after Merle Travis, and popularized by Chet Atkins, is as follows:

M I T M T I T  M I T M T I T
T              T

The thumb (T) alternates between bass notes, often on two different strings, while the index (I) and middle (M) fingers alternate between two treble notes, usually on two different strings, most often the second and first. Using this pattern on a C major chord is as follows in notation and tablature:

Travis' own playing was much more complicated and not limited to patterns; he referred to his style of playing as "thumb picking", possibly because the only pick he used when playing was a banjo thumb pick.

[edit] American primitive guitar

American primitive guitar or American Primitivism is a subset of fingerstyle guitar. It originated with John Fahey, whose first record album Blind Joe Death (1959) inspired many guitarists such as Leo Kottke, who made his debut recording of 6 and 12 String Guitar on Fahey's Takoma label in 1969. American primitive guitar can be characterized by the use of folk music or folk-like material, driving alternating-bass fingerpicking with a good deal of repetitious ostinato patterns, and the use of alternative tunings (scordatura) such as open D, open G, drop D and open C.

[edit] Ragtime guitar

As mentioned above, fingerpicking was probably originally inspired by ragtime piano. In the 1960s a new generation of guitarists returned to these roots and began to transcribe piano tunes for solo guitar. One of the best known and most talented of these players was Dave Van Ronk who arranged St. Louis Tickle for solo guitar. In 1971 guitarists David Laibman and Eric Schoenberg arranged and recorded Scott Joplin rags and other complex piano arrangements for the LP The New Ragtime Guitar on Folkways Records. This was followed by a Stefan Grossman method book with the same title. A year later Grossman and ED Denson founded Kicking Mule Records a company that recorded scores of LPs of solo ragtime guitar by artists including Grossman, Ton van Bergeyk, Leo Wijnkamp, Duck Baker, Peter Finger, Lasse Johansson and Dale Miller. One of today's top ragtime stylists is Craig Ventresco, who is best known for playing on the soundtracks of various Terry Zwigoff movies.

[edit] "New Age" fingerstyle

In 1976, William Ackerman started Windham Hill Records, which carried on the Takoma tradition of original compositions on solo steel string guitar. However, instead of the folk and blues oriented music of Takoma, including Fahey's American primitive guitar, the early Windham Hill artists (and others influenced by them) abandoned the steady alternating or monotonic bass in favor of sweet flowing arpeggios and flamenco-inspired percussive techniques. The label's best selling artist George Winston and others used a similar approach on piano. This music was generally pacific, accessible and expressionistic. Eventually, this music acquired the label of "New Age", apropos its widespread use as background music at bookstores, spas and other New Age businesses. The designation has stuck, though it wasn't a term coined by the company itself.

[edit] Celtic guitar

The guitar does not appear to have had any major role in Celtic music prior to the mid-twentieth century, when it began to be used by folk groups such as the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem to accompany popular Irish pub songs. By the 1960s, folk musicians from the British Isles such as Davey Graham, Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, and Martin Carthy were arranging and playing fingerstyle accompaniments to traditional Celtic songs, often tuning their guitars D-A-D-G-A-D (low to high).[2] By the 1970s, some of these players, along with the French-Algerian Pierre Bensusan and Americans such as Duck Baker, Eric Schoenberg, Glenn Weiser, and Ken Perlman were arranging solo guitar versions of Celtic dance tunes, slow airs, bagpipe music, and harp pieces by Turlough O'Carolan and earlier harper-composers. Both Perlman and Weiser eventually published many of their arrangements in books which are still in print. Since then, many other players, including El McMeen, Pat Kirtley, David Surrette, Steve Baughman, have recorded Celtic fingerstyle guitar CDs.

Given the enormous size of the body of Celtic music (the Irish Department of Education alone has collected over 11,000 traditional Irish tunes), much clearly remains to be done in terms of arranging and recording these melodies for guitar.

[edit] Slack-key guitar

Slack-key guitar is a fingerpicked style that originated in Hawaii. The English term is a translation of the Hawaiian kī hō‘alu, which means "loosen the [tuning] key." Slack key is nearly always played in open or altered tunings--the most common tuning is G-major (DGDGBD), called "taropatch," though there is a family of major-seventh tunings called "wahine" (Hawaiian for "woman"), as well as tunings designed to get particular effects.

Basic slack key style, like mainland folk-based fingerstyle, establishes an alternating bass pattern with the thumb and plays the melody line with the fingers on the higher strings. The repertory is rooted in traditional, post-Contact Hawaiian song and dance, but since 1946 (when the first commercial slack key recordings were made) the style has expanded, and some contemporary compositions have a distinctly New Age sound.

Slack key's older generation included Gabby Pahinui, Leonard Kwan, Sonny Chillingworth, Atta Isaacs, and Raymond Kāne. Prominent contemporary players include Keola Beamer, his brother Kapono Beamer, Ledward Kaapana, Dennis Kamakahi, John Keawe, Ozzie Kotani, George Kuo, Peter Moon, and Gabby Pahinui's son Cyril Pahinui.

[edit] Percussive fingerstyle

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"Percussive picking" is an emerging term for a style incorporating sharp attacks on the strings, as well as hitting the strings and guitar top with the hand for percussive effect. Flamenco guitarists have been using these techniques for years but the greater resistance of steel strings made a similar approach difficult in fingerstyle until the use of pickups on acoustic guitars became common in the early 1970s. Michael Hedges began to use percussive techniques in the early 1980s. Current percussive fingerstylists include Preston Reed, Kaki King, Justin King, Erik Mongrain, Phil Keaggy, Thomas Leeb, Eric Roche, Michael Gulezian and Andy McKee.

[edit] References

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Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2008)
  1. ^ Traum, Happy (1974). Fingerpicking Styles For Guitar. Oak Publications. ISBN 0-8256-0005-7. 
  2. ^ See Colin Harper, Dazzling Stranger: Bert Jansch and the British Folk and Blues Revival, Chapter 4 (Bloomsbury Books, 2001, ISBN 0-7475-5330-0)

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