Fingerpicking demands digital dexterity in both
hands, and often it’s the fretting hand that actually
has the toughest gig.
So far, we’ve parked the 4th fretting-hand
finger and practiced moving the others
around it. In Fig. 3, we flip the process and
hold a sustaining bass note while playing a
melodic phrase above it. Notice how the bass
note changes every two measures, yet the
melodic figure repeats. Use the same picking-finger assignment as in the previous example.
This passage sounds cool—once you
decode all the subtle hammer-ons and
pull-offs—but it’s a bear in terms of finger
independence, so go slowly. When working
out tricky independence exercises, it’s easy
to overdo it and strain your finger muscles,
and that’s not the goal. Regular, relaxed
workouts are the key to better technique.
By the way, this repeating passage sounds
great through a flanger.
One of the most compelling sounds
you can make on a guitar involves contrary
motion, in which a melody and bass line
move in opposite directions. Though it’s a
creative challenge to compose music using
contrary motion, it’s very easy to craft exer-
cises to develop this technique. Here’s one:
Simply select a scale and simultaneously
ascend and descend through it. (This makes
a great parlor trick, by the way, when you
want to impress your guitar-playing buddies.)
FYI: Slash Chords
Sheet music and songbooks often
show chord symbols that contain a slash mark. These “slash
chords” indicate specific voicings that are crucial to the song
or piece, and they occur when
a chord’s lowest note is not the
root. The chord name is at the
left of the slash mark. The second element—to the right of the
slash—indicates the lowest tone
in the voicing. For example, A/C#
specifies an A triad with a C# in the
bass. (To a bandmate, you’d say
“A over C#.”) Slash chords typically
occur when an arranger wants to
flag a bass line that moves through
a progression.
select another scale and figure out how to
ascend and descend through it using a similar picking-hand pattern.
Next month, we’ll continue expanding
our fingerstyle chops by dipping into some
basic bossa nova rhythms.
Fig. 3
™™ 4 4 &#
1w
oeoeoeoeoeoeoeoe
let ring
woeoeoeoeoeoeoe
2w
oeoeoeoeoeoeoeoe
™™ woeoeoeoeoeoeoe
™
™
03
020
023
020
30
03
03
30
2 02
2
02
˙
™
™
2
3
Fig. 4
4 4 &#
slowly
oe
≈
oe
oeoeoe≈
oe
oeoeoe≈
oe
oeoeoe≈oeoeoe
pami
555
333
777
999
˙
2
3
5
7
µ
oe
≈
oe
oeoeoe≈
oe oeoeoe≈ oe oeoeoe≈oeoeoew
p
777
8
10
7
10 10 10
9
999
777
