Beethoven this week.
I can tell that this guy is not a classical guitar purist since he only uses his thumb and his first two fingers. Watch John Williams, Julian Bream, and other classical guitarists and you'll see that they use the thumb and three fingers. I'm self taught and I use that picking style for my acoustic and classical stuff. It just seemed right when I taught myself how to fingerpick. It really helped when I started learning some Bach.
Posted by denny at February 6, 2010 01:11 PMI loved it. I particularly liked how he hit the harmonics. Obviously, I like the piece he played.
Posted by: Jim - PRS on February 6, 2010 01:58 PMThe young man is an interesting player. It's a good arrangement and rendition of Fur Elise. Then I watched John Williams playing Asturias (1975-TV Spanish Guitar). I knew you would be right with the use of the fingers. It's such an enjoyment to look at him. It's heavenly to listen!
Posted by: Claudia on February 6, 2010 06:37 PMI've never been able to use just three fingers. For some reason, when I started using fingers rather than a flat pick, I used all four. I guess I figured that, since there were six strings and I only have five digits, I'm already behind the curve, and I saw no need to further handicap myself by parking my pinky on the face of my instrument.
I know the Maestro would not approve, but I need the extra finger to get it done.
Interesting comment from Dave re three/four fingers.
I am self taught, and when I swap from using a pick to fingerpicking , I use three fingers and park the other two on the
guitar.
Then again, I am hardly a threat to John Williams, since I mainly fingerpick old timey cowboy songs from Gene Autrey and Roy Rogers.
Posted by: PQ on February 8, 2010 08:02 AM