Picking on the Ring Finger
BY ANDY ELLIS
CHOPS: Intermediate
THEORY: Intermediate
LESSON OVERVIEW:
• Develop a four-finger picking
technique.
• Strengthen your picking-hand
ring finger.
• Master a basic tremolo.
Click here to hear
sound clips of
these examples.
This month we begin a series of lessons that focus on developing fingerstyle
chops. Whether you’re comping jazzy har-
mony, plucking snappy blues riffs, creating
harp-like runs by alternating open strings
and fretted notes, wailing on slide guitar,
frailing modal licks over drone strings,
thumping out Travis-style alternating bass,
or adding sparkle to your chordal passages
with artificial harmonics, having a strong
fingerpicking technique opens the door to
a world of sounds and textures you simply
can’t get using only a flatpick.
Fig. 1
™ ™ ™ ™ 4 4 &####
Slowly
pimapima
oeoeoeoe oeoeoeoe n oeoeoe oeoeoe
™
™
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
2
4
˙
™
™ 2
0
2
4
5
4
Asus2
Cmaj7
Em7
Asus2
Fig. 2
44 &
p
ami p ima
oe
oeoeoeoeoeoeoe
00
p
a mi pima
oe
oeoeoeoeoeoeoe
00
oe
oeoeoeoeoeoeoe
oe
oeoeoeoeoeoeoe
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
3
0
0
2
2
0
0
0
0
2
2
˙
2
2
2
2
0
3
0
