technique Focus

Fingerstyle lead and rhythm

Mark uses the fingerstyle technique almost exclusively to create many of the classic guitar parts he has recorded over the years. His style of fingerpicking is unusual and well worth examining close up. When playing lead lines Mark plucks the strings with the thumb plus first and second fingers, with the remaining digits acting as an anchor on the pickguard. The thumb juts across, adjacent to the strings with the first two fingers curled up and ready to attack. Anchoring fourth and fifth fingers on the scratchplate gives a point of reference for the hand and helps the feeling of control. For strummed rhythm parts, Mark uses a combination and thumb and finger strokes. When in strumming mode the hand moves freely with no ‘anchor’ point. This month’s performance pieces are a great workout for both of these approaches. The fingerstyle technique in general is very versatile, and offers great facility and tone; much of this coming from the flesh and the nail of the fingers hitting the string. For notation purposes the picking-hand thumb and fingers are labelled asp,i,m and a. The fourth finger is rarely used due to its relative weakness and most applications can be covered with the thumb and three fingers approach. For the examples in this feature you will just need to know thatp=thumb,i= first finger andm= second finger. If you are new to playing rhythm and lead ideas using fingerstyle, our examples are a wonderful excuse to give it a go!