Learn How To Play Finger Picking Guitar

To be able to finger pick on the guitar opens up a whole new world of enjoyment in playing the instrument. If you have been learning the guitar for some time, and ready to take your guitar skills to the next level, then it is time to learn how to play finger picking guitar.

The finger picking guitar technique can a bit tricky at first, but by learning the proper method and of course with lots of practice it is not that hard to do at all. The method that I will be sharing to you today is what I use to call the ‘Pima’ technique, which is borrowed from the classical guitar technique.

So let’s start with the picking hand fingers. Each finger accept for the pinky will be labeled like below:

P – Thumb(Plays the ‘Bass Strings’, namely string 6, 5 and 4)

i – Index finger (Plays the 3rd string)

m – Middle finger (Plays the 2nd string)

a – Ring finger (Plays the 1st string)

You should memorized these labels as this will make learning picking pattern a lot more easier as you will see later on.

Now let’s practice playing a basic picking pattern shown below

1E—————-a—————–a—

2B———-m—————-m——-
3G——i——————i————-
4D—————————————
5A—————————————
6E–P—————–P—————–

The line at the bottom represent the 6th string of your guitar. So start playing from left to right by picking the 6th string using the thumb(P) followed by (i) on the 3rd string then (m) and (a) on the 2nd and 1st strings. Also try picking just by moving from the joint of the fingers.

To practice using this picking pattern with chords is easy. All you have to do is move the starting point for the thumb(P) to the lowest root note of the chord and keep playing the (i),(m) and (a) fingers on their respective string.

For example;

..and when playing a half barre ‘F’ chord, (P) should start on the 4th string instead.

Let’s try applying this basic fingerpicking pattern to the chord progression below. The numbers in the bracket are strings to be pick with the thumb ‘P’.

| C(5)- G(6) – Am(5) – Em(6)

– F(4) – C(5) – F(4) – G(6) |…and repeat..

Spend some time practicing this basic finger picking pattern to get use to the ‘Pima’ technique until your finger movement feels smooth and consistent.

There are many more finger picking patterns for all the different style of music and learning them will be easier when the basics are learned properly.

See you again in future article on Fingerpicking Guitar.