Fingerstyle guitar

Fingerstyle and often synonymously used term fingerpicking describe both a playing technique on the guitar as well as various forms of mostly instrumental guitar music in which this technique is applied.

Game art

When fingerstyle guitar with the strings of the individual fingers of the picking hand are struck (usually the right hand ). The technique thus differs from Flatpicking with plectrum or formerly also known as blow guitar in German-speaking technique where several strings are usually struck with the thumb. Basis of fingerstyle is the stop of the individual strings with your index, middle and ring fingers through an outgoing of the respective finger -roots movement in the direction of wrist, in which the fingers bend slightly. The movement of the thumb also goes by the finger root, but down here. The thumb remains stretched as possible. The plucking of the strings can be done with the fingertips, fingernails, or even with finger picks.

Overlaps and accruals

It should be noted that fingerstyle is often used as a general term for the technique in the English-speaking world and thus can also refer to the classical technique.

In German-speaking fingerstyle but usually narrower and understood as a term for a technique that is different from the classic. Significant differences are here:

• In contrast to the attitude of the classical guitar, the instrument lies with the game usually with the indentation of the lower frame on the right thigh ( for right ) and forms with the body of the player more or less a right angle (for both left-and at right-handed );
• Forearm and hand stop sometimes form a straight line, with most musicians, but a much more obtuse angle than in the classic way of playing;
• The picking hand can be supported with the little finger on the guitar top;
• The bass strings are often muted with the palm of the picking hand ( palm muting );
• The fingers are generally not applied;
• The low strings ( for anatomical reasons usually only the lowest string ) can also use the thumb of the gripping hand (which is in right-handers the left hand) are used.

Fingerstyle is played mainly on acoustic guitars strung with steel strings, but partly also on guitars with nylon strings (David Qualey, Muriel Anderson) or hollow-body jazz guitars ( Tuck Andress, Martin Taylor). The guitars are tuned often open.

Fingerstyle as a form of instrumental guitar music

Fingerstyle or Fingerstyle Guitar is also used as a generic term for mostly instrumental guitar music, in which the above-mentioned technique is employed. The use of the term but is not always clear and it has both a closer and a further meaning.

Thus, some authors, such as the guitarist and guitar teacher Ulli, fingerstyle as your own style see. Here, fingerstyle then a certain type of instrumental guitar music, which has evolved from country blues and ragtime and is particularly characterized by the alternating bass. In English, this style is also known as American Fingerstyle Guitar.

Other authors, such as the journalist and jazz guitar expert Alexander Schmitz, use finger style, in contrast, as a generic term for any form of guitar music, in which the strings are not with a plectrum and also not only struck with the thumb. The term then falls, as in the Anglo-American understanding of fingerstyle, not only the use of this way of playing in folk, country and blues but also in classical music, flamenco, jazz and rock music. According to this view, for example, include the " Fingerstyle Jazz" by guitarists such as Joe Pass, Charlie Byrd and Baden Powell and the manner of performance Mark Knopfler and Jeff Beck for " fingerstyle ".

Origin and development

The origin of the game, to transfer the alternating bass of the ragtime pianists is being viewed on the guitar by musicians like Blind Blake and Reverend Gary Davis in the 1920s. The role of the left hand of the pianist takes on the guitar, the thumb of the picking hand.

The rediscovery of musicians like Mississippi John Hurt, and the folk boom of the 1960s led to a revival, and the technique used in almost all musicians of the folk movement. Inform the style and influential were in the United States from the mid- 1950s, Chet Atkins, who died in 2001 and John Fahey. They transferred early in the fingerstyle technique of country blues and ragtime guitar to other styles of music. The aided by Fahey and much more successful Leo Kottke, the fingerstyle coined in the 1970s, was then a reference point in terms of virtuosity. A similarly influential role played in the 1960s, Davey Graham, Doc Watson, John Renbourn and Bert Jansch in the UK. A significant " finger stylist " of the 1980s was due to its innovative technique of Americans Michael Hedges. He took effect on the play of many recent " finger stylists ", such as Andy McKee and Thomas Leeb. As one of the world's best artists of the genre has for many years, a two time Grammy nominee (including for The Day Finger Pickers Took Over the World with Chet Atkins, 1998) Australian guitarist Tommy Emmanuel.

Development in Germany

Many aspiring guitarists and guitarists in Germany have the fingerpicking met by the schools of guitar Peter Bursch. Influential guitarist were in the 1970s and 1980s, along with other Lämmerhirt Werner and Peter Finger, and in the GDR Steffen Basho- Junghans. Klaus Weiland's title " The hole in the banana", which was used by the NDR in the 1980s as pause music, probably the best-known fingerstyle piece in Germany.

Appearing since the mid- 1990s magazine acoustic guitar deals extensively with artists and playing techniques of fingerstyle and thus has contributed to the development of the now again very diverse scene.

Mixed form

A hybrid of flat -picking (also: Flatpicking ) and fingerstyle is the hybrid picking.