Fingerpicking Guitar Basics

This guide is an introduction to the world of fingerpicking, also known as fingerstyle, guitar. This guide covers everything from simple picking patterns that sound great as accompaniments to songs, to complete chord progressions that you can use to create songs.

You’ll also learn a number of specific fingerpicking techniques and patterns, including traditional “classical” guitar picking methods, chordal picking techniques, and picking styles used by blues and folk guitarists.

The three main types of guitars are classical, acoustic, and electric, all of which are shown below. Fingerstyle guitar is associated most often with the acoustic, or steel string, guitar, and more specifically with folk and blues guitar playing. For beginners, it doesn’t really matter what kind of guitar you have or what style of music you like to play. The basic fingerstyle techniques that this guide covers apply universally to all guitars and styles. Once you’ve gotten the basic techniques down, you can try experimenting on different types of guitars and with different musical styles to find the fingerstyle sound that suits you best.

Aspiring fingerstyle players often wonder whether they should play with their nails. The reason to consider playing with your nails, as opposed to playing with the flesh on your fingertips or with plastic picks, is that nails give a slightly sharper, more defined sound.

Another option is to use a set of thumb and finger picks. These are plastic attachments that fit onto your fingers and thumb to serve as a sort of artificial set of fingernails. They take a lot of getting used to, so it’s best to avoid this option until you’re more comfortable with fingerstyle guitar.

If you decide to fingerpick with your fingernails, you will have to look after them. They don’t have to be very long, but you will need to keep them rounded in shape because sharp angles have a tendency to break. Instead of just filing at the end of the nail, file at an angle by putting your filer slightly under the nail. This creates a beveled edge and reduces the resistance of the nail against the string. When the filed nail strikes the string, the string slides off the nail rather than getting momentarily stuck. Unfiled nails produce more of a clicking noise, which can be irritating.

In addition to keeping your nails in shape, you also need to make sure you position your playing hand (the one that picks the strings) properly. Here are a few playing points to keep in mind as you begin practicing and playing fingerstyle guitar:

In this guide, each example is presented in guitar tablature (called tab for short) that includes rhythmic notation as well. This way, you can see the pitches you need to play as well as the duration of each note.

In tab, each number indicates the fret at which the note is played, while each line represents the string on which to fret the note. The six lines of tab represent the six strings of the guitar: the lowest line of tab corresponds to the low E string (also known as the 6th string). If you find it hard to remember which way they go, always think of pitch: high notes are above low notes, therefore the highest-sounding string (1st, E) is at the top. The tab in this guide also uses the letters p, i, m, and a to specify the suggested fingering for the picking fingers:

The picking-hand fingering is shown under the tab in the music examples. The little finger, or pinky, on the picking hand is typically not used in fingerstyle guitar. However, Flamenco-style (Spanish) guitarists use their little fingers.