How To Choose The Best Fingers To Fingerpick Anything On Guitar

by Simon Candy

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A common mistake a lot of people make when learning to fingerpick guitar is believing there are set rules as to which fingers pluck what strings.

Truth be known, there are no rules as such, only guidelines. Some read this as to say use whatever event fingers you want, it doesn’t matter. However, this is also not true.

While there are no rules, the guidelines are very important to learn when deciding which fingers to select when plucking various combinations of strings.

So then, how do you know you are using the right fingers to pluck strings when fingerpicking guitar?

Watch the video below to find out :)

Questions answered in this video are:

1. Which fingers should you use to pluck which strings when fingerpicking

2. Can you play an entire piece of music using triads only

3. How best to develop the skill of mixing strumming with picking the notes of a chord together

4. How do you pluck the D open chord then Travis Picking (a sticking point for many)

5. Should you learn scale shapes when playing in open tunings as you do in standard tuning

6. How do you use a plectrum with such a long thumbnail

Watch the video below for all the answers:

Songs That Use Triads

Here are excerpts from the song “Jack And Diane” by John Mellencamp for an example of a song that almost exclusively uses triads: (watch the video for a breakdown of this)

• Jack And Diane Excerpt 1:

• Jack And Diane Excerpt 2:

Mixing Strumming With Picking

Below are some very effective exercises for developing the skill of mixing strumming with picking as covered in the video above.

• Example 1

Star by alternating one bar strumming with one bar picking:

• Example 2

Next, reduce this to half a bar strumming with half a bar picking:

• Example 3

Finally, mix strumming with picking within a single bar:

DADGAD Tuning

Below are some scale ideas along with riffs you can play in DADGAD tuning. Watch the video for a detailed breakdown of these.

Blues Scale

Below is the blues scale as is played in DADGAD tuning:

• Blues Riff 1

Here is one example of a riff created from this scale:

• Blues Riff 2

Here is another riff idea based on the same scale:

Major Scale

Below is one way you could play a D major scale in DADGAD tuning:

• Major Scale Riff 1

Here is one example of a riff created from this scale:

• Major Scale Riff 2

Here is another riff idea based on the same scale:

Upgrade your fingerpicking with these 10 Melodic fingerpicking patterns you can learn in 10 minutes eBook with video examples.