Fingerstyle Practice

Just Russ

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I've been playing guitar for a while and, when I crossed over to ukulele, assigned four fingers (picking hand) to individual strings, but I've never been too stoked on the tone or the speed. I was talking to a friend who plays ukulele way better than I do, and he said that he only uses four fingers when plucking a chord. Generally he just uses three (T, I, M) and alternates the thumb between the G and C strings.

So I started re-learning this and it's tough!

Also, just an aside: usually I don't play with fingernails, but greatly prefer the tone of fingernails and have found that the angle of attack from the thumb in particular has a huge impact on the tone and it's something else I'll have to focus on learning.

But it's still a lot of fun.

 
Interesting. I try to stick to PIMA, but occasionaly just use my thumb when the picking tends to be mostly sequential. I'll have to try this out.
 
I usually use PIMA when fingerpicking, but when playing Travis-style patterns with alternating bass as you do here, I always switch to PIM and use the thumb to play the alternating bass.
 
Very nice picking Russ.
Fast, accurate, and very musical.
What's the chord sequence?
 
I started out usin’ pima, but I didn’t like it and switched to pim. I also used just my index and thumb for clawhammer. But then, just noodling tunes, I started using just my thumb.

Now, when I play on Aquilas at all, I use pim, or strum. For my other axes, I use picks. :eek:ld:
 
I use PIM, Ukulele Mike and Aaron Keim teach that method. It is very effective with Travis picking as you use alternating thumb and when you pinch the 3 and 1 string together.
 
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I also use PPIM when pattern-picking. I use the index finger to finger pick. I use the ring finger on downward strums and the knuckle of the thumb for upward strums. At least, those are fingers that have been muscle-memoried as my default fingers. I can certainly use other fingers when I set my mind to it.
 
I've been practicing with the thumb, index, middle & ring, it's seem a logical way to pick as there is one digit per string. The difficulty arises when there is an alternating bass played by the thumb on the 4th & 3rd strings, you end up with one finger to spare for the 2 remaining strings! Which finger do you drop out? :D

My thought is that you should stick to your guns. You have that four-finger style going on, so keep it going on. When the bass line requires the G string, use your thumb, when it requires the C string, use your index.
 
Hi, prb035!

I've been practicing with the thumb, index, middle & ring, it's seems a logical way to pick as there is one digit per string. The difficulty arises when there is an alternating bass played by the thumb on the 4th & 3rd strings, you end up with one finger to spare for the 2 remaining strings! Which finger do you drop out? :D

There is a nice guitar pro file of jingle bells. It is alternate bass (see the photo below). I play only with thumb and index finger. You need TuxGuitar (Free) or similar app to open the file.

http://gtptabs.com/tabs/3/christmas/jingle-bells-ukulele.html

 
1. Picking sounds great!
2. After you all sent me to Google, I learned that I, too, use PIMA. hahaha... Always good to learn more terminology.
3. Uke on!
 
1. Picking sounds great!
2. After you all sent me to Google, I learned that I, too, use PIMA. hahaha... Always good to learn more terminology.
3. Uke on!

My favorite piece of finger terminology is "chico" the 5th element of the PIMAC. I want to use the pinky merely for the reason that its name is chico.
 
Camsuke,

beautifully picked. I do the same on guitar when i use a thumb pick. I find the index finger just feels too crowded :)
 
Thumb index and middle for me. Whether guitar or uke, that’s all I’ve been able to pick up. Especially since I always play alternating thumb, if I try to add fingers with a uke then I get double thumps on a string too often.
 
Camsuke,

beautifully picked. I do the same on guitar when i use a thumb pick. I find the index finger just feels too crowded :)

My son uses the thumb, bird and ring fingers as well when he's picking acoustic guitar. I figure that's because when he plays his Tele, he holds a flat pick with his thumb and index and picks with the bird and ring fingers.

I use the index or index and bird when I'm using alternating thumb. Usually two fingers on guitar, but one on ukulele.
 
That's how it started with me - learning hybrid picking on the guitar and then dropping the pick when it came to the ukulele.
 
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