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Post by Deleted on Mar 28, 2016 9:18:31 GMT
There's no substitute for watching someone whose music excites you playing fingerstyle. Learning by imitation is an important place to start, so live gigs, YouTube or lessons are resources to explore. There are no rules!
Professionally made DVDs for fingerstyle are great so long as you like all the tunes/songs in the video! On YouTube there are many free clips of great players doing their stuff, and while you may not be able to get the tab booklet and so on, watching a lot of these will enable you to figure out where best to spend your cash on a DVD.
Homespun (https://www.homespun.com) and Stefan Grossman's guitar workshop (http://www.guitarvideos.com) have good online catalogues where you can view sample clips from most of the videos too.
Mark
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ocarolan
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Post by ocarolan on Mar 28, 2016 10:09:23 GMT
There's no substitute for watching someone whose music excites you playing fingerstyle. Learning by imitation is an important place to start.................. There are no rules! ........................ Mark Hooray! I was hoping someone would say that, Mark. The visual aspect is certainly well catered for nowadays, but there is so much in the way of video, tab and notation around that many people tend to forget they have ears. Listening actively and repeatedly to stuff is at the very heart of learning how to play it. Listening to lots of examples of a particular style will help it to sink in - it needs to be "in" before it can come "out" in your playing. Then, with any particular chosen piece, internalise it with repeated listening over a period of time so you can hear it in your head when you're trying to imitate it. Listen to the overall structure of the piece. Then take each section at a time and listen for the melody, then listen for the bassline and last of all listen for the "in between" notes that harmonise and flesh out the piece. Five or six years after beginning playing, and thanks to a long summer break I spent several weeks during the summer of '69 (almost a song title creeping in there!) listening to half a dozen tracks on Ralph McTell's first two LPs with the intention of moving on from my rudimentary pattern based fingerpicking towards something incorporating a more flexible appoach, with melody and countermelody on top and bass lines that were more interesting than just roots and fifths. I didn't listen to anything else until I'd mastered those guitar parts and could sing whilst playing them. It was just a start, but time well spent, and paved the way for assimilating other influences over the years, all based on listening. I still very rarely learn anything from a written page, but just by listening. I do like Youtube vids (not the instructional ones) of things I'd like to play though as the visual aspect does add a lot to understanding how the piece might be fingered, but it is the listening that I rely on the most. I'm not saying don't incorporate all the resources available now into your learning processes, far from it, and the fact that I hardly use them is probably a major short-coming. But I am saying please don't neglect yer lug'oles. Keith
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Post by Deleted on Mar 28, 2016 12:20:06 GMT
Agreed, listening is key and being able to slow stuff down without changing pitch is easy nowadays.
I remember as a youngster being gobsmacked that Ralph, and Steve Howe and Gordon Giltrap could all play intricate guitar music which sounded like fingerstyle but in fact the latter two were using pick + finger(s)! It was only by seeing what they were doing that I could really understand it.
I had to watch Martin Simpson very closely from the front row to understand how he did that frailing thing. A lot of the rhythmic touches that players incorporate into their music, e.g. John Martyn and Nic Jones are difficult to make sense of until you see it "in the flesh".
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leitrimnick
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Post by leitrimnick on Mar 28, 2016 12:30:42 GMT
Have to agree on the importance of using your ears. Equally important, I reckon, is an open mind. I've been learning to play the guitar for more than half a century..it's a process which never stops. I still can't decide, in my own case, whether the inability to read music combined with a dislike of tab has been a hindrance or a positive boon. Over the decades I have watched and listened to as many players as I could, tried to figure out how they did the things which impressed me and then tried to incorporate them into my own technique. Sometimes you decide they are not for you (e.g. in my case - two hand tapping) but you've still learnt something. The golden rule is you never, never stop learning.
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Post by andyhowell on Mar 28, 2016 13:54:18 GMT
One of the best starts in finer style is to get hold of Ralph Motel's tuition books. Available from his website.
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lefthook
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Post by lefthook on Mar 31, 2016 19:02:49 GMT
I agree with many of the posts, I am not one for repetitive patterns, but agree that in a band scenario that would be a necessity, discipline is a necessity for learning. Once learned I will start to express myself in the nuances and look to create my own sound. I have started on the Bret Duncan finger picking guitar book. I am trying to teach myself to read music at the same time. So it is slow and slower at the moment. Thank you all for the advice and information, I hope one day to post my first finger picked tune!! But don't wait up!!
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