for you acoustic pickers

how long did it take to develope caliuses on your picking fingers ?

i've never tried finger picking before,though last night after buying
the blueridge i made my first attempt and it went like butter ! i had
no idea how easy it was. my only problem is my picking hand has no
caliuses yet and playing sounds very soft.

i've also never experienced a blackening of the fingers before.
is this normal ? the tips of my picking fingers are grayish/black
from playing.

I have been finger picking for a while but I don't have calluses. Some people grow their finger nails out to pick with, but I couldn't stand long finger nails.

My acoustic always turns my fingers green so I would say that's normal.

I also don't have calluses on my picking fingers. i use the tips of my nails or the very tips of my fingers. You will get a softer sound unless you use your fingernails and even then you won't get the same volume you get from a pick. I'm working on blackbird now and it has a naturally "softer" deeper sound, even when McCartney does it.
Phip
P.S I just love that sound of fingerpicking on a good acoustic or classical guitar!

Yeah I'd say fingernails is better for acoustic picking. Even for electric finger/hybrid picking.
The fingers turning black is not unusual.

Finger picking is far from easy to master by the way.

I don't have Calluses on my fingers, and I play fine. I don't use fingernails, as I much prefer the soft tone compared to the tough attack tone. Though, it's used nicely with many musicians.

Finger picking is my favourite style of playing. I've never experienced black/grayist fingers before, I'm assuming it's the strings. As long as you can wash it off, I wouldn't think anything's wrong with it. It's probably just skin (turned into dirt) within the strings.

ok...so finger picking doesn't develope caliuses. i guess i need to
work on my technique because i really like the softer/warmer tone
from using the tips of the fingers.

anyone use finger picks ?

after looking around the net,the blackening is from brand new bronze strings

It took me about 8 or 10 hours to finger pick. The hardest thing was getting my fingers to work independently of each other. It was really pretty easy.

I'm going to hit up a music store tomorrow for some thumb picks. I wanted to try Tommy Emmanuel technique. He does a hybrid of thumb pick and fingers. I have been trying to use a regular pick and fingers but it does not feel right. Thought i'm sure if i keep working on it i'll get it.

I haven't yet. By the sounds of it I'm non too happy by the thought some do I probebly will though! But there's something I didn't know.

what do you mean heather? It's a good skill to have. It will help if you decide to play the banjo some more.

I'm definitely not a fan of finger picks. I have them, just don't like them. The one for the thumb isn't bad though, the rest I just don't care to use, nor am I interested in the attack tone for my style of playing.

But it can definitely sound amazing. Check out Don Ross...



I know you can't see his fingers in this, but I just love this song and wanted to share it with you guys. This is Don Ross on the left and Andy McKee on the right, for those who don't know.

I bought my self some old school banjo style thumb picks today (not the finger one's).

I wanted to try the chet atkins/tommy Emmanual style of finger picking.

I was really clumsy with them at first but I'm getting the hang of them now a bit. some patters I'm pretty smooth with and others are pretty bad. Now if i can get my thumb and the rest of my fingers to go at 2 different rhythms.

Haha Ive been fingerpicking for as long as I have been playing guitar (which will be 7 years next month) and I dont have cailaces on my picking fingers

And @ Jazzy: Dude, I love Don Ross so much, hes one of my favourite guitarists

Good times, he's a great musician.

Yeah I don't have callacies and I always get the grey on my fingers, Its just the dust from the strings. Tommy Emmanuel is amazing, I love his over the rainbow arrangement, his melodies, and his waterfall/harmonic technique. Truly a master.

@ Lance,
Or anyone else that is interested in finger picking. You might want to spend some time working on Travis picking. Travis picking is a fingerpicking style that has been used on an enourmous number of songs by some of the most famous fingerpickers. There are several variations of this style so it will keep you busy for some time getting it perfected. If nothing else it will increase your right hand coordination ten fold. Google it and keep in mind you will find several variations if you poke around a bit.
Phip

Good call Phip about Travis picking.

I wrote this lesson a while back on finger picking you may find helfull. I should work on a second part.

Fingerpicking Lesson

nice lesson tele....i certainly know that last one. (silent lucidity)

going back to lessons at the shop tonight for finger picking...lol
i would have never thought in a million years,that i'd enjoy acoustic
fingerpicking so much.

Yeah I've always admired watching people finger pick the guitar, so far I'm just learning the different notes I can make with each sting useing only my plectrum, one at a time. But I only have to learn different notes made pressing the E, A and D staring starting from next week. My guitar teacher is going to then teach us. I had a banjo problem a while ago that I haven't seen to though, the only banjo I managed to get ages ago was an internet banjo, it was a nice Remo skin combined with a maestro neck though so I thought it'd be worth it. It was good ofr a few weeks, then my tuner twist things kept rolling back down until my E string was broke. I stopped playing since really since I was told to start on guitar because it'd be qiucker for my last school year, so I went along with it and until April (my birthday) I'm not going to repair it's phoney parts as it costs a bomb here where no one knows how to care for a banjo. So that'll be a while. But I can't wait to play it again, the guitars given me some relitive knowlege that will improve when I get it repaired.

All this talk about fingerpicking reminds me, Im accually going to be presenting a fingerpicking song to my class on friday for a project

Im going to be playing First Ride by Don Ross, and this will be my first time playing infront of more than just a couple people, lol, hope it goes well =)

Good Lord! I LOVE that song! best of luck my friend. Can you record it for all of us? :D

@Lance: I guess my picking fingers have sort of calluses on them, but not quite like my left hand. I never get the ashy, gray fingers on my picking hand but after several hours of playing I get that on my left hand.

@Phip: Blackbird's a fun one.

@ Jazzy: Haha thanks
The only thing I have for the use of recording is my phone, and thats no good
A video maybe? I dunno, we will see

You know you want to! ;)

I ended up playing And So It Goes by Tommy Emmanuel, and sorry I wasnt able to take a video =P

few days w constant practice. u can leave long ur fingernails, if u want, it aint hard

No problem man, there's always next time! :D So how's your arm doing?