Guitar Technique
This section is concentrated on correct and effective guitar technique. Learning the proper way to hold the guitar, play notes, and finger chords and scales lays the foundation to everything you do on the instrument, so it is imperative to learn it the right way. In addition to going over general guitar technique, this section will also feature lessons and articles on other more advanced subjects such as fingerstyle picking, sweep picking, harmonics, and other alternate guitar playing techniques.
Fingerstyle is a technique for playing the guitar where instead of plucking the strings with a plectrum, one’s four fingers and thumb are used to pluck the strings. Although these may sound like two inconsequentially different methods of producing the same relative result, they can have profound differences in the abilities they grant you while playing guitar. This article is going to focus on why more people should consider finger picking over the more common plectrum style.
Using a pick has always seemed to be more popular because it is associated with more popular styles of music. Rock, pop, funk, and many of the other mainstream styles focus on strumming and other techniques, which make sense to be done with a pick. At the same time, classical and sometimes jazz are examples of the kinds of styles more dominated by finger picking.
While a pick can be a great device for certain motions like strumming, finger picking has many more available motions that can produce all sorts of sounds and rhythms either impossible or very difficult to perform with a pick. One of the most obvious advantages is being able to pluck multiple notes at the exact same time. This can be partially replicated with a pick, but the end result is much different, and quick rhythmic hits on chords can only be done with precision by using the fingers.
There is also a much greater ability to do different kinds of arpeggios with fingerstyle playing. Not only can you perform complex patterns of notes from a chord with relative ease, but you can do very fast trills of all of the notes to produce a nice constant harmony sound, something impossible with a pick.
The advantages of finger picking when playing rhythm parts on guitar are pretty obvious, and we might note that strumming can still be done in a variety of ways just using your fingers without a pick., but even beyond this, there are several advantages for finger picking single note lines as well.
One of the best is that you can turn single lines into polyphony of any time with much greater ease, precision, and possibility. Fingerstyle allows you to integrate chords, single note lines, and everything in between with more ability and economy. This fact can allow you to really open up the guitar to polyphonic playing and other concepts that take advantage of its nature and separate it from other instruments.
Single notes can also be played with tremolo in a much better fashion when finger picked, and this will even leave your thumb open to play addition notes along with it, as many classical guitarists demonstrate. These types of techniques can only happen when using the fingers, and at the same time, there are not really any techniques that the pick can do which the fingers cannot in some fashion.
If you have never thought about or explored finger picking on the guitar, start trying it out. It doesn’t mean you should abandon playing with a pick completely. It is still an important part of playing many styles, but finger picking is important as well, and will help you open up brand new possibilities in your playing. Whenever you get the chance to expand your ability on an instrument, you should take it.
February 25 2010 | Guitar Technique
One thing that is very important for playing the guitar is to have a flexible fingering technique. This means not being too reliant on single fingering options for scales and chords. Many people learn the guitar by memorizing scales and chords in single positions and devoting their time to becoming faster and faster at playing these patterns. Although this may help you become proficient at playing a few things, you will miss out on a larger general skill set that will become very important in freeing your guitar technique for more advanced concepts later on.
The guitar is an instrument that allows for many different possibilities in approach. This is true of chords, scales, and even single notes. On the fretboard, there can be many different positions for the same exact note. Not just the same note, but the same exact pitch. Not many other instruments operate like this, and it creates an almost infinite amount of paths to the same tonal results, especially for things like scales.
Playing the guitar by memorizing a few patterns and only being able to play them one way ignores much of the guitar’s power of flexibility. To accomplish complex improvisation and voice leading you need to be able to get to other notes on the guitar in the most efficient manner, and this means knowing the different paths to them.
So how do you develop this more intuitive and flexible understanding of the fretboard? The best way is to forget about learning patterns and work on learning scales and chords by intervals and sound. Learning the intervals on a guitar will help you know the spatial relationships between notes on the fretboard, and if you combine this with a good ear for the scales and chords you will be able to get around the instrument without being constricted to patterns.
The best way to get your fingers capable of handling the possibilities of the guitar is to learn new chord and scale fingerings in as many ways as possible. Try to learn the chords using whatever finger combinations you can, so that there is always a way to play the chord in whatever hand position you happen to be in. This will increase your overall finger abilities as well, so it is a good exercise in general.
Improvising pieces from scratch in another great exercise to perform that will help you with finger coordination, hearing melodic and harmonic movements, and getting a feel for intervals outside of scale patterns as well. These types of practices will give you a much more intuitive and musical feel for the guitar that will allow you to take advantage of all of the flexibility offered by the instrument.
February 14 2010 | Guitar Technique
To play multiple melody lines at the same time, or to play a single melody line over held out notes is a great guitar technique to develop, and one that is very challenging to approach. This is what would generally be considered polyphony on the instrument, and it is something that many players do not spend much time on. Those familiar with the classical style of guitar playing are the most likely to have encountered it, but obtaining an ability to improvise polyphony is something that players should strive for.
In general, the guitar is not really thought of as a polyphonic instrument, which is strange. Chords are obviously played frequently, but no one spends much time talking about having multiple melody lines going. The piano is an instrument that can easily produce polyphony, but on the guitar it requires a number of different techniques in combination to maintain.
The first, and most basic technique for polyphony is to use open strings. This is something probably all guitarists have experimented with at some point, and it is a good way to start playing around with polyphony. By letting an open string ring, you can have a melody line or even chords being played over what could be considered a pedal tone. If this technique is mastered, it can be used to subtly have melodies include open strings for added depth and layering.
The second thing that can help with playing polyphonically is mastering scales in different intervals and chords. If you can play through scales in groups of different intervals including triads and seventh chords, you can mix chord movement in with your normal single line melody playing, which can be a sort of fake polyphonic technique, or you can play the chords in separated fashion so that it creates true polyphony. This may be hard, but it is a good thing to know in general, so it is worth the time to work on it.
Another step in the road towards playing the guitar polyphonically is to use bars in your playing. Fretting notes with a bar frees up fingers, which can then be used to play additional notes. Find different chord shapes that can be played using bars and then work on using free fingers to run single line scales through the chords while as many notes as possible are still ringing. This can be a great thing to know for polyphony or just to be able to play harmony and melody at the same time.
The last basic tip is to work on is improvising through a scale with two melodic lines alternating and interacting. Pick a scale and try to get two separate melodic ideas going. Alternate between moving both lines at once by playing intervals and having one line stay still while the other moves over or under it. This will challenge you to be flexible with your fingerings and adopt new techniques that you never would have come across, so it is a good exercise in general.
Polyphony is a tricky technique on the guitar, but very possible if you use a combination of methods and take advantage of things that you can do. It is one of the more impressive things you can master on the guitar, and it will improve your overall command of the instrument quite a bit, so it can be very worthwhile to learn.
February 02 2010 | Guitar Technique
Hybrid picking is one of the more beneficial advanced techniques that you can learn on guitar. No other picking style will give you as wide a range of sound possibilities as hybrid picking, and you can use the technique to open up vast new potential in your playing. However, it can be a difficult ability to master and will take a concentrated long term effort, but the results should be worth it for any player looking to add some new sounds to their playing.
The advantage of hybrid picking is that it combines the capabilities of both regular picking with an actual plectrum, and finger picking. This combination allows you to obtain the classic sounds offered by both techniques, and use them simultaneously or one after another. Players who may only be used to using a pick will be able to add the increased arpeggio and chord articulating powers of fingerpicking, while players who usually use only their fingers can add the thicker tone, faster single note picking, and general strumming abilities of a pick.
So now, let’s talk about exactly how this guitar technique is performed. The key to this playing style is holding the pick between your thumb and index finger, which frees up your other three fingers. These fingers will be used to pluck the other strings as necessary. You will sort of have to figure out the best exact way to position your hand and your fingers, as everyone’s hands and guitars are different, but in general, your free fingers should fall pretty naturally onto the adjacent strings.
One of the biggest challenges of the hybrid picking technique is that you have to develop your three weakest and least coordinated fingers to do the complex and rapid finger picking aspects of the style. Unlike classical finger picking, you pinky on your picking hand will be in heavy use, and this may be your least responsive finger if you have never done much picking with it. It will simply take time to develop these fingers to the point where they can work in harmony with each other and the pick you are holding with your first two.
To work on this, start with some simple and slow arpeggio exercises and gradually build up your finger coordination. If you are already an experience finger picker, this may come quickly to you, and if not, it will probably take a while to really start getting it down, but keep at it and it will come soon enough. Start off with an easy up and down arpeggio through four adjacent strings and once you have that down, come up with a slightly more difficult pattern.
Getting the finger picking aspect of hybrid picking down is a challenge, but that’s not all there is to it. Now you have to work on being able to switch between plucking and strumming the strings with a pick and plucking them with your free fingers added in. Hybrid picking doesn’t reveal its true potential until you are able to fluidly mix use of a pick and use of the fingers, so that its hard to tell the difference when listening to your playing.
January 17 2010 | Guitar Technique
The trademark flamenco guitar playing of Southern Spain would be a very rewarding technique for any guitar player to learn. For those who have never seen it, it features rapid and extravagant strumming and plucking motions of the picking hand that produce a very energized and impressive rhythm guitar sound. The flamenco players of southern Spain use their bare hands and fingers to create all the sounds, and they often make enough sound for three guitar players.
The power and uniqueness of this style of playing is all in the right hand motions. They are so different from regular acoustic or electric guitar technique, they almost make it seem like a completely different instrument. The most telling evidence of the movement involved in this style is the fact that these players must have protective plastic coating put on their guitars around the soundhole.
If you can, try to find a video on YouTube of a flamenco player in southern Spain, because that is the only way to do this incredible guitar technique justice. This type of playing is usually done to up tempo pieces designed as dance accompaniment, and focuses much more on harmonic and rhythmic ideas than melody. A big part of the hand technique has developed in order to play these types of fast rhythms that are good for accompanying the rapid dance moves.
Learning this technique for guitar could have a lot of benefits, even if you do not plan on playing a lot of flamenco guitar. Most obviously, it will give you an increased coordination and ability with your picking hand. This can help you become a very proficient fingerstyle player in jazz and classical contexts. It will also just add some new sounds to your arsenal in general that you cant produce in any other way. Most of all though, it will make you a very solid rhythmic player and will increase your understanding of different types of rhythm that you don’t encounter often in more traditional playing styles.
December 13 2009 | Guitar Technique
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