I taught myself how to play fingerstyle guitar at an early age. I’m not great at it, it is not the most orthodox approach but it gets the job done and I have been able to build on it over the years. As one friend said to me recently, if your method works then it is the right method for you. How I got started can be traced back to Smoke on the Water, a common beginner guitar song.
In the Beginning…
Like many other budding guitarists, I learned the iconic Smoke on the Water. Before you ask, yes, I learned it incorrectly 🙂 but that’s not important right now. Deep Purple became a passion of mine and Ritchie Blackmore’s guitar playing, in particular. When I had exhausted my older brother’s record collection, I was on the hunt for more.
Down at the used record store, I found a copy of Rainbow’s live album – On Stage. The track, Sixteenth Century Greensleeves, has an intro where Blackmore plays a fingerstyle, kind of classical, version of Greensleeves. It was inspirational, I had to learn it. There was no video I could reference to see how he did it but I had learned a bit from my guitar teacher years before. Off I went.
Next Steps to Fingerstyle
I am quite good at learning by ear and was able to pick up most of the song by just working it out that way. With just a couple of minor modifications, I was able to come up with a version for myself that I play to this day.
To start, I was taught PIMA. Basically, the thumb plays the bass strings while the next three (index, middle and ring) cover the other strings. Use this as a starting point and don’t get too hung up on which finger plays what string. For example my father, who was an excellent fingerstyle folk player, never used his index finger. He told me he didn’t know why he learned that way it just seemed to work out <shrug>.
If you look closely at the big names in fingerstyle such as Chet Atkins, Tommy Emanuel and Doyle Dykes, you should notice they get the job done with whatever fingers they need. Start with PIMA and season to taste. Digging into other styles such as chicken picking (Albert Lee, for example) will require you to get practical with this technique in short order.
Find the Melody in the Chords
To get the melody, start with the chords. Most of the melody notes will be in close proximity to your chord fingers if not right under them. The trick here is to pick the melody a bit louder than the rest of the notes in the chord. The object is to make them stand out from the picking pattern of the chord. This will take some finesse to master. For one, picking too hard can cause excessive fret buzz. Secondly, you want to avoid causing the string to spank against the fretboard.
The first notes should be right under your fingers but you may find one or more is not within reach. Time to try alternate chord voicings to get them within reach. If you have not progressed to the point of learning alternate positions for chords, this will motivate you and give you a reason to learn some. Hopefully, you will find they come easily and lead you to more experimentation to find others.
Putting it All Together
Finally, get the melody to sound above your picking pattern and practice changing chords smoothly. I find that the melody tends to drive me to the next chord position. While I am playing the individual notes, my hand has time to fret the rest of the chord as needed.
Do not be afraid to only fret what you need. Economy of playing is an excellent thing to learn and will drive you to the next level. It can take some time to 1) break the pattern of always fretting entire chords and 2) learn to play only the specific notes necessary for the phrase.
If Greensleeves/What Child Is This? isn’t your thing, try something else but go easy at first. I have also worked out Silent Night, Holy Night this way and it is fairly easy. I find Christmas music can be a great place to start because it is so well known it comes to mind almost intuitively. The real trick here is to get started and then practice!