Learning fingerpicking

[Carol-3M-Stillhand]

@jaweaver14 so sorry you have broken your fretting hand!!! Hope you are on the mend soon! And Kudo’s to you for not letting it sideline your guitar journey!!

I have 2 suggestions for you, and you can use either one or both at once if you like (or neither one if you don’t, haha)

1. Try an open tuning or 2. Open G, Open D, DADGAD are all great open tunings to try.

2. If you’re interested in learning fingerstyle, especially if your fretting hand is in a cast, try Giuliani’s 120 exercises for the right hand. It’s for classical guitarists, but it would suit you very nicely as you try out some intricate right hand fingerstyle. Most of these exercises in this book just switch between C major and G7 anyway, so all you’d need is to put your guitar into any open tuning and go thru all the right hand exercises. You will be a master fingerstyle player by the time they saw your cast off!!

Best wishes and get well soon!!!!!

[jaweaver14]

Thank you Carol, that retune does sound good and I’ll definitely take a look at the book referenced here.

[Kitman]

Hi @jaweaver14 , sorry to hear about your broken fretting hand. I am only just beginning to learn finger style guitar myself – started in October at the beginning of the current 90 day TAC cycle.

I love @Carol-3M-Stillhand ’s advice and plan to get the book she mentioned (thanks Carol!).

For me the process of teaching my right hand and brain to find the right strings, hold down the backbeat and get a consistent tone has been where I am spending the majority of my time – building this muscle memory in my picking hand. IMO Carol’s advice for open tuning and picking hand focused practice and learning is spot on. Finally I want to say I really am inspired by your determination to find a path forward while your fretting hand heals. I wish you a solid and speedy recovery. 🙂

[Carol-3M-Stillhand]

Hi @Kitman

There’s a whole load of workbooks of Giuliani exercises and etudes out there, from various sources. I like the complete right and left hand exercises one, but there’s different versions to be found. Just know that there are 120 right hand exercises, (and a bunch of left hand ones too).

Here are some pictures of the Giuliani book I have. It has enough english in there to figure it out, haha!! This book however, has only music notation and no TABs. So whichever one you wind up with, peek inside first to make sure it’s got what you need. (TABs vs Music, etc)

[Kitman]

Thanks very much for the inside scoop @Carol-3M-Stillhand ! Very much appreciated!

[Kitman]

@Carol-3M-Stillhand I did a search for “Giuliani’s 120 exercises” and was able to get a peek inside the book This would definitely cause me to move further down the road to reading music! There were a number of YT videos related to the exercises as well. I plan to check those at as well. Again, thanks for your help and guidance here!😎🎶👍

[Kitman]

Sorry for the running series of replies here @Carol-3M-Stillhand and @jaweaver14 🙃 . Also wanted to share this link to a English interpretation of the book.

https://www.classicalguitar.org/freemusic/exercises/Giuliani120.pdf

• This reply was modified 3 years, 3 months ago by  Kitman.

[Cadgirl]

@jaweaver14 , glad to hear you are going to continue with your guitar journey while healing up. Do you think it would help to have a capo that rolls up and down the neck? I’m sending you a video that is just in one chord. Called “Learn Fingerstyle in 5 Minutes”. He only using the finger picking hand. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQGP96XHBkg

Wishing you the best of luck.

[jaweaver14]

Great video for a beginner like me…thank you!