For What It's Worth...*

...here is all the knowledge and experience I have with finger picking.

The two ways you can begin picking are 1) with just your thumb, or 2) with all your fingers. Usually it's just about what feels comfortable, and sometimes beginners feel more comfortable relying on just their thumb. I know I do. But when he saw me finger picking, Senpai suggested that you try to pick with all your fingers, by assigning each finger to a string. Even if you don't feel comfortable picking with your ring finger or pinky (watch the video to see just how uncomfortable I am with this), practice with your first three fingers and work up to that point. You'll be able to pluck a lot faster once you get the hang of it.

Next thing is that you can pick with your bare fingers, which is fine, or you can get these really cool picks that slide onto your fingers and make the sounds a lot more crisp. It's like the difference between strumming with your fingernails and strumming with a pick. The sound is just a lot less murky with the plastic. As you'll see in the video, I only have the pick that slides onto my thumb, but they make ones for your fingers too. And as you'll see from the video, I haven't used that pick in a while and I'm sort of messy with it. In fact, I abandoned it all together until I picked a song on just one string.

Lastly, there are three techniques that come into play with picking: hammer-ons (placing your finger on a fret after you've plucked the string), pull-offs (the opposite of hammer-on), and sliding (smooth transition, sliding your finger from one fret to a higher or lower one).



Tabs used:

Time- Hootie and the Blowfish
Dsus4
-------------------------3----------------------------3--
---------3------------3----3---------3------------3------
------2------------2--------------2------------2---------
--0--------0-h-2---------------0-------0-h-2-------------
----------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------


Sunny Came Home- Shawn Colvin
e------------------------------------------------|
b------------------------------------------------|
g------------------------------------------------|
d--------0-2-0------------------0-2-0-2-4--|
a—2/4---------4-2-0-0---2/4---------------|
E------------------------------------------------|

e---------------------------------------------------|
b---------------------------------------------------|
g---------------------------------------------------|
d--------0-2-2/0--------------------0-2-0------|
a—2/4------------4-2-0-0---2/4---------4-2-|
E---------------------------------------------------|


The Tain- The Decemberists
E|--0--3--7--6/7/6--3--0--3--7/10--11--12-----------------------|

E|--0--3--7--6/7/6--3--0-3--7/10--11--12-------------------------|
     Here upon this pillow

E|--0--3--7--6/7/6--3--0--3--7/10--11--12------------------------|
    Made of reed and willow.           You're

E|--0--3--7--6/7/6---3-0-3---5--7--0---12-11-12-----------------|
    a fickle little twister, are you sweet on your sister? Your

E|--0--3--7--6/7/6--3--0--------------------------------|
    fallow won't leave you alone.

-Kal