Fresh off the announcement of his Marshall endorsement, Jared James Nichols is taking it back to his roots – and by that, we mean the very reason he decided to ditch the pick and play fingerstyle exclusively, in a journey that took him from rural Wisconsin to world stages.

“I remember the first guitar I picked up, I picked it up, and I wanted to play it like a lefty. The first real guitar I got, though, the guy at the store was ‘Dude, flip the guitar, you're holding it wrong,” he says in his new Gibson documentary, The Long Road: A Jared James Nichols Documentary.

“He was like, ‘If you want to be a real guitar player and play really good guitars, you got to play righty. They don't really make great left-handed guitars.’”

Nichols was 15 at the time, and while he quickly got used to his newly purchased right-handed guitar, one thing that felt unnatural to him was playing it with a pick.

“It was fucking me up,” he says matter-of-factly, “and I needed to feel the strings under my fingers. I started to play without a pick, and I distinctly remember people telling me, ‘Man, it's never gonna work, you're never gonna be a great guitar player without a pick.’”

Discovering “guys like Jeff Beck and Mark Knopfler and Derek Trucks,” was the epiphany that he needed to stick to his own unique brand of fingerstyle playing.

“I was like, ‘Well, they do it,’ and then I just started to kind of do it my own way. No one taught me how to do it. I just said I don’t care. I’m just gonna try and see what happens. And what ended up happening was, I started to develop my own sound and technique with it, and I’m so happy now that I did.”

In one of his Guitar World columns, Nichols broke down his one-of-a-kind fingerstyle technique and waxed lyrical about the players who inspired him.

“Fingerpicking felt like the most natural approach. I use my thumb for downstrokes and my first three fingers for upstrokes,” he wrote.

“There was one player in particular who inspired me the most in regard to playing fingerstyle, and that was blues legend Hubert Sumlin, who was known most notably for his work with Howlin’ Wolf.

“When I heard Hubert play, it changed the way I approached the guitar. Then I heard Albert King, Derek Trucks, and Mark Knopfler, all fingerpickers. All these players demonstrated the incredible range of sounds available when fingerpicking.”

For some players, guitar picks are extensions of their bodies; they can’t be too far from one at any given time. Percussive acoustic guitar virtuoso Marcin, however, is the opposite. He’s a pick rebel.

It's always a good idea to have a few spare picks to hand at all times. You never know when you'll need one. But speaking to D’Addario, the former Total Guitar cover star has explained why he’ll never be seen using one.

Obviously, his fingerstyle approach doesn't require one. But it goes deeper than that. Marcin actually thinks a pick represents self-imposed limitations, and can hinder your playing.

“Man, it’s so funny that my nails have become this point of conversation whenever I do an interview,” he says, regarding his picking hand claws. “The left hand is obviously normal; it needs to be able to tap and to play like any guitar player. But I am a true enemy of the pick. I don't use a pick, ever.

“Even if I play electric, I'm not gonna use a pick. Why do I need a pick? If I have five picks right here on this hand.”

Indeed, he says this methodology stems from his flamenco and classical guitar backgrounds. He wants to keep one foot in tradition while he explores ways to push the boundaries of the acoustic guitar. A pick is surplus to requirements.

“No self-respecting classical player is going to play with a pick,” he believes. “Same with flamenco, how are you doing a rasgueado [a picking technique involving fanning the strings with multiple fingers] with a pick?

“It's the most limiting thing in the world. The pick is the nails, dude. I get heated [about the topic].”

Marcin has recently been accused of faking his virtuosity, but he hit back by writing a song that pleads his case for him in a highly inventive way.

The guitarist has said he wants to reinvent the acoustic guitar for a whole new generation, and his boundary-pushing approach to the instrument, while remaining sensitive to its tradition, is more than doing its part.

Elsewhere, Marcin isn't the only modern fingerstyle virtuoso to shun the pick. Last year, fusion ace Matteo Mancuso revealed he never learned how to play with a plectrum – but gave it a go during an interview with Rick Beato.

Mike Dawes has reflected on the time he missed out on meeting guitar hero John Mayer after his cover of Slow Dancing in a Burning Room went viral.

The acoustic guitar virtuoso is no stranger to putting his signature percussive fingerstyle spin on classic tracks, having covered everyone from Foo Fighters to Sleep Token. Speaking to Guitar World about his popular take on John Mayer’s Slow Dancing in a Burning Room from 2017, Dawes reveals he once came close to meeting Mayer himself – but failed to show up to the rendezvous when he slept in.

“I was invited to meet John Mayer. I've never met John Mayer – I've never met you, John, if you're watching,” he confesses, addressing the Slow Dancing songwriter directly. “I regret to say that the reason I missed that opportunity, from Paul Reed Smith himself around the launch of the Silver Sky, was that I slept in. That was the reason.”

John Mayer's signature guitar, the PRS Silver Sky, was launched in 2018, a year after Dawes dished out his viral Slow Dancing rendition. That means that, seven years later, the pair still haven't crossed paths.

“It was at NAMM,” Dawes details of the ill-fated meet. “Anyone who's ever been to the show can understand why one would want to sleep in. So I apologize. It was a public event, so it wasn't a one-to-one meeting or anything, but I do regret that.”

Dawes’ arrangement of the Mayer classic is a little harder to play than the original, but he reckons all players would benefit from wrapping their heads around the 2006 track.

“Having learned that song and dissected it in the way one does for a solo guitar cover, you really get to know a song,” he says. “The curse of solo guitar arrangements is that when you're really going through things so forensically and getting all the nuances in there, you don't want to listen to the song anymore. It ruins it for you.”

Mayer’s cut, though, proved to be an exception to the rule, and Dawes is convinced the “timeless” song is one every player can and should get under their fingers, calling it “a masterclass in songwriting.”

The percussive extraordinaire, who named Eddie Van Halen and Tommy Emmanuel as life-changing influences to his playing last year, has recently collaborated with Periphery and found himself going back to basics for his pedalboard on their recent tour together.

John Mayer, meanwhile, says he isn't rushing his next album despite having more than enough material ready. He's also been keeping himself busy working as a de facto gear influencer, having recently posted a surprise demo of JHS Pedals' new Mk.gee-coded 424 Gain Stage.

Nita Strauss' and Yvette Young's playing styles, as well as the genres they tend to operate in, may initially seem like chalk and cheese. However, Strauss has recently revealed how she took a page from the fingerstyle and tapping maestro's playbook when composing one of her favorite riffs.

“Something that I did very differently to what I normally do here is, I really am hardly picking anything in this riff," she tells Guitar World, as she demonstrates Kintsugi, from her 2023 record, The Call of the Void.

"I'm picking a few notes here and there, but the majority of it is just those hammer-ons and pull-offs – very inspired by my Ibanez sister, Yvette Young, and the way that she approaches her songwriting and her chords. I was watching her do her stuff, and I was like, ‘I would love to do something like that.’”

In contrast to her usual shred metal riffs, Kintsugi is more restrained, featuring a gentler approach to tapping and hammer-ons/pull-offs that are very much in the vein of Young. As Strauss explains, the key to nailing this riff is articulation.

“Really just making sure that your fingers are right in the center of the fret where they need to be for the hammer-ons, [and] for the pull-offs. Then, when you're doing the pull-off, really just hit that very gentle pull-off. You're not really doing that sort of shreddy-type of pull-off. It's a gentle tap.”

In a 2023 Guitar Player interview about her album, Strauss describes the piano and guitar ballad-like Kintsugi as being “very pure”.

“The emotion comes from a different place than the other cuts on the album,” she reflected.

“I didn’t use any fancy tricks – I didn’t use a lot of gain or anything like that. It’s very simple and evocative. To be honest, I didn’t know I could do something so sparse. It’s just the guitar and keyboard having a conversation. I didn’t need anything else.”

Strauss has recently returned to the Alice Cooper circus – and got a warm welcome from one particular member of the shock rocker’s crew: the band’s snake – ahead of a packed schedule for the rest of 2025.

Monica Barbaro's portrayal of the fingerstyle master Joan Baez in A Complete Unknown has led generations of music fans to discover (or perhaps even rediscover) the folk icon's hefty repertoire. And while the actor didn't manage to snag Best Supporting Actress at last night's Oscars for her celebrated performance, she did develop an undying love for the guitar that seems to be extending beyond her on-screen character.

“I carry my finger pick around all the time now, because it reminds me that I want to keep playing guitar,” Barbaro says in a new Hollywood Authentic video, in which she goes guitar shopping – and plays a few vintage Martins. “And also that it happened because it's so surreal to me that I even got to shoot this movie at all.

“It's really satisfying to get to be a part of something where the standard level is high, and you're working with the best in the industry. [With] the folk chords, you can play a lot of songs, which I think is why it was such an approachable music genre for everyone in in Greenwich Village buying a guitar – because you learn the chords and you can kind of apply them to most songs.

“So once you've got a handle on it, and maybe a couple [of] fingerpicking styles, you could play your own arrangements of a ton of songs, and so you could perform pretty quickly.”

In the various interviews Barbaro has given in the run-up to the Oscars, she revealed that she had never played guitar before auditioning for and landing this role.

“When I got it, I was like, ‘I wish I’d learned guitar, why did I do that to myself?!’” she told Hero Magazine. “I give Jim [James Mangold, director] a hard time too, because he likes to say, ‘It was always yours. As soon as I saw your audition, it was you.’ And I’m like, ‘Well, you could have told me that!’ [laughs]”

As for her relationship with Baez, Barbaro revealed that she combed through “all of that evidence” to make the character – and her distinct guitar playing – come to life. Oh, and she even managed to get Joan Baez herself on the line...

“She wrote about herself a lot, and she’s really honest. She doesn’t hold any punches, even when she’s just talking about herself and her intentions, she has a sense of humor about herself and all of those things made her a very approachable person to understand,” she asserted.

“Also, the music preparation, having not been a singer or guitar player, diving headfirst into that was a way of connecting to the journey she went on as a fourteen-year-old.

She continued, “We had a brief phone conversation at one point and she said to me that she’d fall asleep with her guitar in her bed and then wake up and play it the next day. I was like, ‘Oh my God, I did that too!’ Those sorts of things naturally connect you to a character so it’s not quite as cerebral, it’s about letting that go when you get there.”

As for her co-star, Timothée Chalamet, the actor has already showcased his guitar chops on multiple fronts, including performing Bob Dylan deep cuts on Saturday Night Live.

Monica Barbaro's nuanced approach to the role of folk music icon Joan Baez in A Complete Unknown was key not only to the movie's story – but also to introducing Baez to a whole new generation of fans.

However, having never been a singer or guitarist, the actor had her work cut out for her. Like her co-star Timothée Chalamet, she had to take a (serious) deep dive into Baez's playing style – no mean feat considering the veteran artist's commanding fingerstyle technique.

“I didn’t play guitar at all,” she admits in an interview with the Marin Independent Journal. “Joan’s fingerpicking style is so intricate, so specific, and I had no experience at that.

“I would have a metronome at a snail’s pace to even get two fingers to pluck strings at the same time. A lot of our background artists were musicians and actors in their own right, and, once I could put all those things together, singing in front of those people was a terrifying, intimate, vulnerable experience.

“Not only doing it as Joan but doing it at all. The imposter syndrome was pretty rampant. It was incredibly challenging.”

Barbaro initially had five months to master Baez's guitar playing before the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike happened, forcing her to continue honing her newly found craft on her own.

“We had to put pencils down, stop, and not train with our coaches," she tells Cosmopolitan. “But I had the time to continue working on the music alone. To me, it was a bigger emotional challenge to sing, because I feel like it’s very intimate thing to do.

“But guitar was so challenging because the articulation of my fingers. I had some sense of my voice on my own, but playing guitar is so technical and so that really intimidated me, and the pace I had to play songs early on was just so excruciatingly slow to get the finger picking coordination.

“At the end of the day, what I was most worried about was having Joan’s voice in this feel appropriately representative of her voice.”

In the movie, Barbaro as Baez can be seen playing an artist-accurate 1929 Martin 0-45 – a guitar Edward Norton, who plays Pete Seeger, kept encouraging her to steal from the set.

Despite refusing to do so, the actor recently revealed that she's hoping to keep up with her guitar chops and even plans to follow in Bob Dylan's footsteps by going electric.

From his end, Chalamet rocked up to his first few guitar lessons with a cheap $200 Yamaha acoustic, on which he tackled one of Dylan's trickiest songs.

What is the key ingredient to achieving a great, instantly recognizable guitar tone? This ubiquitous question has enthralled the guitar community for decades, and now blues veteran Sue Foley is putting her two cents in.

“Of course, you need decent equipment to get a good sound – a good-quality guitar and amp, decent strings that aren’t too old. But the real secret about tone is that it comes from your picking hand,” she tells Guitar Player.

“Your fretting hand is doing one kind of work, but for the most part it’s flowing in the same kind of general moment. But your picking hand is where you control your tone. It’s surprising to me that so few people really talk about it.”

Foley goes on to say that, in her early days, she spent “a lot of time watching people's picking hands.” She points to Clarence ‘Gatemouth’ Brown's “amazing” right-hand technique and the fact that he didn't use a pick but instead opted for a fingerstyle approach as a key part of what made his tone truly distinct.

“It was like each finger was a paintbrush that he’d run across the strings,” she describes. “He could play fast and wild, but when I’d watch his right hand, it was like he put no effort into it.”

The ‘The Master of the Telecaster,’ Albert Collins, is another player who Foley says “had another great right hand,” so much so that “his tone could slice your head off.” Collins was another guitarist who ditched the flatpick – a characteristic Foley eventually adopted.

“I use a Golden Gate thumbpick, which I take on and off. Mostly I just play with my fingers so I can feel the flesh on the strings.”

She continues, “What I like about that is how intimate it feels – there’s nothing that separates me from each string. Playing this way, my tone comes straight from my picking hand, whether I’m going through an amp or not.”

Foley recently received her first Grammy nomination in the Best Traditional Blues Album category for her latest album, One Guitar Woman, which pays tribute to the pioneering women of guitar.

There's no overstating the impact Dolly Parton's Jolene has had not only on the history of country music and Parton's career trajectory but also on the globalization and crossover of country into the pop realm. Reflecting on her enduring hit, which was recently reinvented by Beyoncé on Cowboy Carter, Parton recalls how it all started with one “little guitar lick.”

“The thing I remember most was all the musicians when I came up with the little guitar lick, the Jolene lick, saying: ‘Damn, that’s so good. That’s the coolest little lick,’” Parton tells The Guardian in a new interview.

“I was playing guitar pretty serious back then, before I had all the long nails. I remember all the guys learning to play it and everybody thinking how cool a rhythm it was.

“It was a little out of the norm for the things we’d been doing up to that time. I remember everybody in the studio just loving that song.”

Parton would later embrace open tunings to tackle the challenges posed by her trademark fingernails, but says she still saws them down when she’s writing new material.

Elsewhere in her Guardian interview, Parton names Jolene as one of the songs she's most proud of in her rich body of work. "The one that’s most recorded is Jolene. That seems to be the favorite – do you know that song has been recorded, somebody told me, 450 times in the last 52 years? I’m so proud of it."

The iconic guitar parts on the recording of Jolene were performed by Nashville sessionists Wayne Moss and Chip Young, with Moss playing the complementary steel-string part from the second refrain onwards and Young thumb-picking the primary pattern, following a style popularized by Grammy Award-winning guitarist and singer-songwriter Joe South.

Another of Parton's session players, Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, recently talked about the experience of recording guitar on her mega-hit 9 to 5.

For neo-folk fingerstyle and lap-tapping guitarist, multi-instrumentalist, and film composer Yasmin Williams, 2021 was a big turning point.

It was the year the inventive guitarist reached more than 700,000 people via NPR's now-iconic Tiny Desk Concert series, released her breakthrough album Urban Driftwood, and performed a game-changing set at the Newport Folk Festival. Since then, her career has taken flight – a trajectory Williams credits to Guitar Hero.

“I played Guitar Hero II every day after school when I was 12, until I beat all the levels,” she tells The Guardian. Within weeks, she transformed into a Hendrix and Nirvana aficionado, and soon after, graduated to an Epiphone SG, with the game even inspiring some of her techniques.

“The game shaped my experimental approach to guitar,” she explains. “On really tricky levels, I’d put the controller in my lap and hammer the buttons super-fast.”

After getting over the shredding phase, Williams realized that playing an acoustic was her true calling, with a YouTube video of folk and blues musician Elizabeth Cotten performing in 1969 cementing her decision. “She drastically changed my trajectory,” she asserts.

“I took lessons for a few months, mainly just blues and rock stuff. Then my teacher showed me Blackbird by The Beatles. I just loved using my fingers and stopped using a pick after that,” she disclosed in a 2021 Guitar World interview.

“My teacher was like, ‘What happened?! I can’t really teach you any more fingerstyle because I’m not that kind of player!’ So I quit that. I didn’t like lessons anyway – I didn’t like being told what to do. I was a stubborn kid, I guess.”

After that moment, Williams played acoustic exclusively, which led to her penchant for lap-tapping. “I find writing songs a lot easier that way because on acoustic I’m not trying to emulate anyone or anything. I wasn’t playing covers or in anyone else’s style – I was just playing what I wanted to play.”

Williams' latest album, Acadia, was released on October 4 via Nonesuch Records. She is currently touring North America with Brittany Howard and Michael Kiwanuka.

Blues rock guitarist Jared James Nichols has established himself as a high-energy pick-less guitarist. Wielding a variety of P-90-loaded Les Pauls, Nichols has developed an intriguing technique that enables him to achieve the same kind of attack he would get with a pick – albeit with an added, distinctive flair.

Speaking about how he developed his fingerstyle technique in the first place, the blues player tells Guitar World that being left-handed led him to approach the guitar in a slightly unconventional way. “Now, I don't mean I hold the guitar like a lefty where I would flip it. It's that everything I do in life is with my left hand,” he clarifies.

“When I picked up a guitar, I held it righty, but the pick never felt right in my hands, so I started to make up my own technique for how to play, which was essentially very simple.”

In his early days, he would use his thumb as a downstroke, while his index, middle, and ring fingers functioned as upstrokes. After discovering Albert King, Derek Trucks, and Mark Knopfler, he decided to take a page from their playbook and hone his own version of the fingerstyle technique.

“I'm [now] using my thumb as a down, pulling up with my index finger as well as my middle finger. Now playing that slowly, you can hear I'm sliding into that and I'm snapping up on the string. It gives it a percussive attack,” he explains while playing a blues riff in the key of G.

“There's a lot of snapping going up. It's almost as if my string is hitting the frets. And that gives me a certain tone that has a little bit more of, not only a shimmer, but a snap and a sparkle to it that I really like for sitting out of the mix."

Nichols also mentions how his technique allows him to pay more attention to dynamics. Essentially, the harder he snaps, the louder the volume.

“As hard as I pick with my fingers, I can feel all the notes underneath my fingers; it’s almost all about the pressure,” he says. In addition to dynamics, his fingerstyle technique enables him to manipulate tone depending on whether he plays more toward the bridge or the neck.

“So for instance, if I go near the bridge more and I get [plays the riff] more towards the neck, as you can tell by the bridge, it gets a little bit more bright. It gets a little more snappy. And as I move up the neck towards the frets, it starts to get a little bit warmer. So that's one of the big things using my fingers that I do.”

To further bolster his tone, Nichols recently teamed up with Blackstar on a new signature guitar amp head and corresponding plugin.

Fingerstyle. It’s one of those techniques most of us would probably say we wish we were a bit better at. Let’s face it: it’s easy to blast out a few chords from Wonderwall, Wish You Were Here or a simple strum-along of choice. 

And those intricate fingerpicked lines we promised ourselves we’d practise? Well, they can start to feel like a bit of a labour of love – and difficult! 

Well, that’s where Total Guitar comes in. Here, we break down some of the core techniques of fingerstyle acoustic guitar playing with 15 tab/audio examples for you to work on. In places, we’ve taken inspiration from acoustic guitarists of note, but our main focus is on pure technique.

Some of our exercises are multi-dimensional, too, so you can easily reinvent them to suit your own purposes. You could try an alternative fingerpicking pattern, change how you apply musical accents, or just play the same exercise on a different chord. Right, let’s get picky with it!

Fingerstyle notation explained

In fingerstyle notation, the letters p, i, m, a and c refer to the thumb and fingers in your picking hand. It’s a longstanding tradition of classical music. 

And the fretting fingers? They’re numbered 1 to 4, with a ‘T’ to indicate the thumb. You’ll need to know what it all means to get the most out of our tab lessons and just for a life of fingerstyle fun! 

Example 1. Accenting exercise 1

Perhaps the de facto standard in 4/4 time is that every ‘on-beat’ note is played with some emphasis – i.e., a little louder than the offbeat notes around them. Try playing our example, inspired by Led Zeppelin’s Going To California, with emphasis where you see the musical ‘accent’ mark (>).

Example 2. Accenting exercise 2

You might think we’ve repeated the tab from the previous example here, but no, look carefully! 

Though the notes are the same, there are three accents here, not four – and one is on an offbeat. Listen to our audio and you’ll sense a totally different feel. As an exercise, simply swap between these two examples.

Example 3. Time signatures: 6/8

Classic 6/8-time ballads like Metallica’s Nothing Else Matters and R.E.M.’s Everybody Hurts feature this kind of arpeggio with an accent on the first and fourth eighth notes of the bar. Hone your skills first by picking these two notes a little louder, then try playing every note at the same level. 

Example 4. Time signatures: 3/4

3/4 time is often confused with 6/8 time – both time signatures feature six eighth notes in each bar after all. The difference is in the accenting. Here in our 3/4 time example, you can see there are accents on the first, third and fifth eighth notes of the bar. Try swapping between our two examples in 6/8 and 3/4.

Example 5. Groove with muted strikes

Here, we’re striking the strings with the picking hand on beats 2 and 4 for a percussive groove. There are drums on our backing track, but the technique is arguably most useful when you’re playing unaccompanied. Extreme’s More Than Words is probably the best-known example. 

Example 6. Groove with accented chords

Taking inspiration from Jack Johnson’s Banana Pancakes here we’re keeping the groove with a downward strum from the picking fingers. The challenge is switching between fingerpicking the first two notes before switching to a finger-strum on beat 2. 

Example 7. Palm muting

Palm muting – that’s a rock technique, right? Well, yes it is, but it has a place in acoustic music, too – and if you’re a fingerstylist aiming to emphasise a melody over a bassline you’ll understand. 

Here in our example inspired by Ed Sheeran’s Bloodstream, the fourth-, fifth- and sixth-string notes are muted while the third string rings out. Take the idea further by introducing more melody notes, replacing bass notes where needed.

Example 8. Harmonics primer

12th-fret harmonics are a relatively easy technique. Just touch the string over the fretwire without pressing down, then pick. Simple. Our example presents the challenge of picking single notes and a two-note shape, which requires accurate picking, especially if you want to hit the final single note cleanly. 

Example 9. Position-shift harmonics

Here’s a real challenge! Shifting between 7th- and 12th-fret harmonics can be tough – and it might throw your timing out. Try practising the fingerpicking all in the 12th position first, only then introducing the position shift once you’re confident your fingerpicking is accurate. 

Example 10. PIMA variations 1

This simple drill will help you hone your fingerstyle technique. We’re playing four notes from an open C chord, but instead of simply ascending we’re mixing things up with this picking pattern: p-m-i-a. Try alternating four bars of this pattern then switching to ‘straight’ p-i-m-a.  

Example 11. PIMA variations 2

This is the same exercise as you’ve just done, but this time with a p-a-i-m pattern. We’re also playing A7 – but only for the sake of variety. For a full fingerstyle workout, come up with as many variations on the picking pattern as you can and with as many chords as possible. 

Example 12. PIMA variations 3

In general, fingerstyle feels easiest when you start on a thumb-picked note – it’s your strongest digit after all. This example is a challenge because it follows an a-m-i-p pattern. So not only is the thumb the last digit you come to, it’s playing on the offbeat, too. 

Remember, offbeats are most commonly de-emphasised, so you’ll need to take care here not to strike the string too hard with your thumb. Practise without playing the chord changes while you get used to the picking part. 

Example 13. String slides

This is a fretting technique, but when played fingerstyle the phrasing sounds pretty sweet on acoustic guitar. We’re taking inspiration from Ben Howard’s early-career classic, Old Pine, here, though staying in standard tuning for convenience. 

The trick in bar 1 is to ensure you keep the first- and second-string notes fretted for as long as possible, including during the slides down the string. 

Example 14. Hot country pull-offs

Another fretting technique here in this well-worn country lick, but there are fingerpicking considerations too. The i-m-picked diads in bar 1 should seem like an obvious choice by now, as should the thumb-picked note that precedes each one. 

However, the second half of bar 2 and into bar 3 is more like ‘lead guitar’. It’s a single-note lick that could be picked a few different ways, and we’ve shown our preferred option. It’ll also sound great played at double speed with a Telecaster bridge single-coil!

Example 15. The Pinch

If fingerpicking isn’t your area of expertise, we recommend breaking this example down into phrases of two beats duration each. That means you can turn the first half of bar 1 into its own exercise, focusing only on the C chord. 

Obviously that gives you three more sections to work on through the rest of the bar and into bar 2. The ‘pinch’ is a technique where you pick two notes simultaneously: downwards with your thumb and up with a finger – so, loosely, that’s a pinch! Pull your hand fractionally away from the strings after each one so you don’t collide with adjacent strings. 

Struggling with fingerpicking, or wrestling with the process of improving your general technique? If so, this latest feat of engineering might make your picking problems a thing of the past.

Meet Olav Martin Kvern – an engineer who has built a robot that picks your electric guitar strings so you don't have to.

It’s safe to say that robots in the guitar world is a growing phenomenon. After all, it wasn’t that long ago we stumbled upon an all-robot band smashing Nirvana, Metallica and Deep Purple classics, or reported on the use of artificial intelligence in plugin creation.

Now, Kvern has masterminded a robot that works in tandem with the player, and instead of replacing them completely, just assumes half of the responsibility.

The idea for a string-picking contraption came to Kvern while witnessing the late Klauss Lendzian – a Seattle fingerstyle mastermind whose machine-like technique prompted the plucky engineer to build a literal machine to channel his chops.

“I’d been hearing him play at various venues around town since the 1980s,” Kvern wrote on Makezine. “As I watched him play, I thought, 'He’s really good. Lyrical, a great sense of timing. Wow, I wish I could play like that. What makes it all work is his right hand, his picking hand. It’s like a machine.' A machine, I thought, at that moment. I can build a machine.”

Once the seed had been planted in Kvern’s mind, things began to take shape. As a casual guitarist for over 40 years and a self-professed “semi-competent flatpicking” player, Kvern sought to fashion a gizmo that would help him “play patterns on the guitar that would be difficult or impossible for me to play”.

The result is one of the more remarkable guitar engineering achievements we’ve seen in quite some time.

“I need help playing guitar,” wrote Kvern, who asserted he wanted to fashion a tool to help him play the instrument, rather than one that would do it for him. “I’m building a prosthesis to help me do that, just as I wear glasses to improve my nearsightedness.

“I wanted something I could interact with, an extended instrument. Not just something that would play a given song at the press of a button.”

We’re not going to pretend we understand every detail of Kvern’s generously supplied breakdown of the robot, but what we will say is it does a damn good job of channeling rhythmically accurate, dynamically aware picking tones. 

It’s all a very precise affair. To ensure the robot was powerful and fast enough to accommodate various rhythm required for fingerstyle guitar, Kvern calculated the minimum force required for a guitar pick to pluck a string to generate appropriate vibrations.

Then it was just a case of finding suitable servo motors that were cheap, robust and small enough to fulfill the requirements from the body of a guitar. If it sounds like a laborious process, it was: it took 20 attempts over 16 years to get right.

But it looks as though it was worth it. In practice, the robot emancipates the player from the responsibilities of picking, and lets them focus both hands solely on the fretboard. This lends itself to the possibility of some atmospheric two-hand textures and neat chord-and-melody progressions.

Not only that, it frees up a hand for other duties, such as adjusting parameters on pedals, triggering effects, changing picking patterns and more.

In the demo videos supplied, Kvern’s creation can be seen affixed to a heavily modded Squier Telecaster with a Cycfi hex pickup, where its abilities can be witnessed.

Having said that, nothing is a substitute for a solid basic technique – we still encourage you to crack on with those fingerstyle lessons – with Kvern concluding his piece by saying his robot wasn’t designed as a shortcut.

“I’ll state right now: some human guitarists can play faster and better than my guitar robot,” he admitted. “But is technical virtuosity a requirement for making music? I can think of plenty of technical virtuosos whose music is, to say the least, not interesting to me. 

“When we focus on the technical and mechanical aspects of making music, we make it inaccessible to most people. If something like a home recording studio, or MIDI, or even a guitar picking robot can make it possible for more people to express themselves via music, then I think these developments are a good thing.”

Head over to Makezine to read the thorough run-through of Kvern's creation.

Rock icons have taken to social media to react to a jaw-dropping percussive fingerstyle performance of the Led Zeppelin classic Kashmir from Polish guitarist Marcin Patrzalek.

Ibanez artist Patrzalek – who simply goes by the name of Marcin – has a long history of posting virtuosic acoustic guitar performances on his Instagram page, and has now grabbed the attention of the rock elite after sharing an insane acoustic rendition of the classic heavy-riffing Led Zep track.

Wielding an Ibanez AE900-NT in an underground car park, Marcin launches into the arrangement with a number of customary taps, before a deep dive on the low E tuning peg takes things to the next level.

After driving the iconic guitar riff along with the a thundering kick drum and snare snap provided by booming right-hand slaps, Marcin shifts up a gear with a dizzying display of his prolific playing skills, executing a number of high-speed percussive drum lines and melodic strums.

The grand finale sees Marcin race through a flurry of blink-and-you'll-miss-them two-hand taps as the mesmerizing performance is wrapped up in style.

Please excuse us while we pick our jaws up off the floor.

Kudos to the choice of location, too, which soaks Marcin's guitar with an enveloping, larger-than-life natural reverb.

The insane performance grabbed the attention of many rock icons, including Kiss's Paul Stanley, who simply tweeted: "WOW!!!".

Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello was also at a loss for words, replying to Marcin's guitar wizadry by saying, "Some people are just really talented. #HogawartsAxeslinger?"

Vernon Reid of Living Colour also threw his opinion into the ring, saying: "Jimmy Page ain't seen THAT coming! Got DAYUM."

Following his success winning Poland's TV talent show Must Be the Music in 2015, Marcin has paved an impressive career path, which recently saw him reach the live semi-finals of 2019's edition of America's Got Talent.

When he's not dominating talent shows, the visionary guitarist is posting his arrangements to his Instagram page and YouTube account, which currently has over 200,000 followers and 400,000 subscribers.

It's not the first time Marcin has given a classic rock song a fingerstyle makeover, having performed a similarly dazzling arrangement of Metallica's Master of Puppets back in 2017.

NAMM 2021 isn't taking place in the physical realm this year, but you'll find all the hottest January gear launches in our guide to the biggest guitar, amp and pedal releases of 2021 so far.

Jon Gomm – the champion of the modern fingerstyle genre who teamed up with Ibanez in August 2020 – has finally released his highly-anticipated JGM10 signature acoustic guitar.

In conversation with Guitar World last October, Gomm teased some of the features that we would likely see on the guitar. Having used a prototype JGM10 while recording his latest album The Faintest Idea, hints of a "completely unique body shape" and a niche bracing pattern were dropped.

With details of the new guitar being finally released alongside the rest of the Ibanez lineup for 2021, the JGM10 has been labelled by Ibanez as a "new and exciting step forward in the design of fingerstyle-specific acoustic guitars".

The guitar's Asymmetrical Jumbo body is made up of a Thermo Aged solid Sitka spruce top and solid pau ferro back and sides, and has been designed to enhance the acoustic properties of the instrument to deliver the big bass tones Gomm wanted. The body also maximizes the guitar's surface area for the percussive elements of his fingerstyle playing.

As promised, the Thermo Aged spruce modified X-M bracing pattern is indeed different, and seeks to improve the guitar's acoustic tonal response, delivering more pronounced lows and a brighter high end.

A five-piece African mahogany / pau ferro neck is complemented by a Macassar ebony fretboard – a wood that is also used for the binding on the rounded edge of the body and the top-loading bridge piece.

Smaller details have not been overlooked, with the 45mm nut width being specifically chosen to create more space between the strings and allow for precise access – a critical element for the modern fingerstyle guitar.

The JGM10 is also equipped with a Fishman Rare Earth Mic Blend Active Soundhole pickup and Fishman PowerTap Blend Preamp – a combination designed to accentuate "extremely natural sounds and preserve the true acoustic properties of the instrument".

Gomm had previously told Guitar World of the inaccessibility of the modern fingerstyle genre due to the difficulty obtaining appropriate instruments, which are predominantly handmade by luthiers. 

With his new signature, Gomm said that he hoped the guitar can make fingerstyle ideas more mainstream and available.

"Hopefully this style of playing will become more popular, because people will be able to get a guitar that's designed for it."

Ibanez released the JGM10 alongside a host of new signature electric guitars for 2021, including an all-new Paul Gilbert model.

The price point for the JGM10 has yet to be announced, but for now, you can head over to Ibanez for more info.

Welcome to our exploration of authentic Delta blues fingerstyle guitar. Once you've developed independence between your thumb and fingers, you'll want to take a look at adding an alternating bassline.

It is essential that you keep your foot tapping on the beat and concentrate on making sure your thumb stays in time whether you are playing just a single-note bass line or using the alternating bass guitar technique that’s crucial to this style.

One piece of advice that I took from Joe Pass a long time ago was that the bassline is always your most important concern. The bass provides a rhythmic foundation for the listener and ‘frames’ every melody note that you play. If the bass starts to get shaky then the whole structure will quickly collapse – it’s the cliché analogy of building a house on strong foundations.

Some notable artists who popularised early blues guitar were ‘Mississippi’ Fred McDowell, Lead Belly, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Blind Blake and Charlie Patton. 

You can find ‘greatest hits’ packages from these and many other acoustic blues masters such as Robert Johnson, Josh White, Son House and Big Bill Broonzy. Also check out modern players like Eric Bibb and Kelly Joe Phelps.

So, in order to build a strong and consistent bassline (in time and in balance, volume-wise), practice very slowly to start with and think about how any fretted bass notes need to coordinate with the melodic phrase. Gradually speed things up and you will find that the fingers naturally start to move together as one.

These first two lessons have been about programming your fingers and developing good coordination, so at the moment speed is a distant concern. The important thing is to always make sure your head is in control of what you’re playing, not your hands.

Example 1

We’ll pick up where we left off on the last lesson, after having just added the alternating bass on the sixth and fifth strings, and begin by adding a very simple melody on the top string. Hold your first finger down on the 2nd fret throughout.

Example 2

A slightly more challenging melody. Use your little fourth to play the fretted melody notes and focus on keeping the bassline smooth and in time.

Example 3

This example builds on the previous one but adds a few faster notes. Keep the bass even and steady as you introduce these more intricate rhythms. Play through the example again, but this time, hold down a full Em7 chord. Even though you’re not playing the fretted notes, it’ll extend your technique.

Example 4

The next example moves between two chords. Begin by playing the example without holding down the chords but when you gain confidence hold down the full chords as you play through the example.

Example 5

Here’s a similar idea but the melody is now a little more complex. Notice that the eighth-note rest on the first beat helps to separate the melody. You might find that the trickiest thing is keeping control of the bassline - notice that two notes are played in succession on the fifth string.

Example 6

Here the melody is the same as before, but I’ve now added another note to the bass part. Use your second finger to fret the low G note.

Example 7

The following exercises are more like traditional licks, but help you to build independence between thumb and picking fingers.

Example 8

I have simplified the bass to help you get used to these rhythms. You may wish to separate the melody and then introduce the bassline when you are comfortable.

Example 9

The next two examples feature off-beat melody notes against an alternating bass line.

Example 10

Remember, the key to sounding good is to keep that bassline rock solid against the picked melody notes.

Example 11

The next two examples feature off-beat melody notes against an alternating bassline.

Example 12

As you become comfortable with these ideas, experiment with the order of the melody notes to explore new melodic ideas.

• Joseph Alexander's Fingerstyle Blues Guitar: Master Acoustic Blues Guitar Fingerpicking and Soloing is out now via Fundamental Changes.

Tommy Emmanuel is freezing his ass off outside a coffee shop in Nashville, Tennessee, ostensibly so he can promote his upcoming show in Orange, California, at the Musco Center for the Arts, which takes place on December 10, and for which you can buy tickets here. 

But mostly because we couldn’t resist the opportunity to pick the brains of a player whose approach to the acoustic guitar is truly awe-inspiring.

Emmanuel is a phenomenon, a maverick. There are few, if any, better fingerstyle players on the planet. His style is descendent from the work of Chet Atkins, with whom he collaborated on The Day Finger Pickers Took Over the World, in 1997, and yet it is entirely his own.

With Emmanuel, the style never gets in front of the idea. Songwriting is storytelling, whether there are lyrics or not, he says, and players have to give the audience just enough room to exercise their imaginations. That, he says, is part of the magic of songwriting.

Next year will see the release of a double-album of 26 original compositions, many of which he will be debuting on this December tour through California. It follows Heart Songs, which was recorded with John Knowles and released in January this year. 

Covering the likes of Hank Williams and the Bee Gees will make this a fascinating release, and it’s similarly intriguing to hear Emmanuel’s thoughts on how to reinterpret a song for acoustic guitar, and what makes a good cover.

It’s funny - Emmanuel says he can’t read music, but he sure can read a room, and his insights into what the audience want are as good an example of songwriting wisdom as you will read today...

We’ll start with the easy ones, Tommy – what guitars are you playing at the moment?

“My three Maton guitars that I travel the world with. That’s what I’ll be playing. They are three Custom Shop Maton guitars, made in Australia.”

Do you still keep them in different tunings?

“My main guitar is in normal guitar tuning, and then one of the other ones is in a drop D tuning but it’s down a whole tone, so it’s down to drop C. And that has the big medium strings on it.

"Then the other guitar goes between a drop D tuning and an open G tuning, depending on what songs I want to play. And the reason I have three guitars is because I have them pre-tuned so there is no putting my guitar in and out of different tunings all the time. I want to be perfectly in tune.”

What is your approach to alternate tunings?

“I put my guitar in the tuning that is appropriate to the song. That is all I can say on that. [Pauses] No, playing in drop D is nice because you have got that nice low bass, and it just gives you a wider tone band to work with, and that low string can be a beautiful effect. And even when you capo up with the drop D it still sounds big down the bottom.”

You made some really interesting song choices on Heart Songs. What draws you to a cover?

“When you are playing an instrumental it has to be interesting, have movement, and tell a story without words. So that is what I am looking for. If I am going to do a cover of a song, I still try to make it my own. I try to take someone’s work and give it my own voice, and people always say to me, ‘Oh, why don’t you do Blackbird? Why don’t you do blah blah blah?’ 

"Certain songs such as Michael Jackson’s Beat It, or Thriller, or something like that, and those things don’t work as instrumentals. They work when Michael Jackson sings them, but they don’t work as an instrumental."

“I am very careful. I have really got to be in love with a song to want to make a cover of it, and that is the reason why the Beatles songs that I do - Lady Madonna, and Day Tripper - because they are monumental challenges to try and work out where all the parts go at once. 

"But that stuff really works. It tells the story. It lays it all out. And I can show people, ‘Well here’s the bass part, here’s the piano part, and here’s the vocal part, and now I am going to put them all together and do it all at once.’ And that’s what amazes people, but also there is a lot of good stuff in those songs. I did that because it was a unique thing, and I didn’t see anyone else doing it. That is why I did that in the first place.”

It is amazing to hear the Bee Gees’ How Deep Is Your Love arranged for acoustic. There are so many melodic elements to incorporate.

“I didn’t try to put too much in there. I just listened to the actual melody, of what Barry [Gibbs] was singing, and I just took that, rather than trying to put in all the other stuff that the brothers sing. I just stuck with the melody, and I find that that worked.

"If I start chasing a lot of stuff then instrumentally it is going to sound like a science experiment, and I don’t want that. That’s why there are certain people out there in the guitar world, playing covers, who are trying to cover all the parts at once, and when you watch them play it there is a lack of feeling because there is too much going on and they are trying to cover everything.

“I call it a science experiment. It’s like a juggler and a card dealer all working at once and it is just too much. Y’know, just tell me the story, and lay it out for me. That’s what I am looking for. Growing up listening to Chet Atkins taught me to find the melody and stick with the melody.”

Absolutely. Like you say with the science experiment, you’ve almost got to leave yourself a little spare capacity in your playing ability so that you can enjoy the performance, and to perform.

“I think so. Plus, you’ve got to leave something for the imagination, and for people to fill in the gaps themselves, y’know.”

That is really interesting. Is that something you think of when you are composing?

“Of course. I think the way people are nowadays, because of technology and iPhones and computers and everything, people want everything and they want it all now, and that is not how life works.

"You don’t have to fill up every millisecond with sound and noises. I remember when I had a young guy, I won’t say his name, but a young guy I admire very much on the road with me, and he was opening. He was a young teenager and he was playing his heart out, and really giving the audience 35 minutes of everything he had, and I said to him one night, ‘Y’know, you could just put one slow song in your show just to give the people a break from constant, full-on, everything going. Why don’t you just play one ballad.’ And he said to me, in all honesty, he said, ‘I am so afraid of the space between the notes.’

“I realized that’s what it was; he is from this younger generation, so they are afraid to just be, and to just let things hang, whereas he would watch me play and say, ‘I wish I could play ballads like that but I am so afraid.’ I admired his honesty, but I learned a kind of clarity from that, that younger people, everything has to be moving and full of action, and full of stuff all the time otherwise they lose their attention.

“A guy my age is the opposite of that. That’s why you see great art, great movies, and there is a lot of action, but there are some where there are five minutes of stuff that is so subtle that it gives you a chance to watch it and be, and almost be a part of it. 

"I think, musically, I try to let people do that. Like sometimes I’ll break into a tune like What a Wonderful World, because everybody knows that song. I don’t play the chords. I just play the melody like I am singing it a cappella and let them fill in the chords with their minds. 

"They don’t know I am doing that but that is what I am doing. I am just singing the song to them and they don’t even realize; they are hearing the chords and it is their imagination.”

Sometimes we need reminding that the space between the notes is the music.

“Totally. It’s the same thing with our thoughts. Thoughts come and go and our minds are active because we are either always on the phone or we are doing something, and there has to be times where we just stop and give our consciousness a break.

"And it’s the same thing [with music]. I find that if I get an idea to write a song, if I am inspired - and I really can’t write it if I am not inspired - I know I don’t think about anything else, only this idea that I’ve got, so that nothing comes in and sweeps it away and clouds my thoughts. I just stick with what I am doing so that it is one thing at a time that is important to me, and that’s it.

“I think that principle works for the public, because I can play a million things and be improvising and jumping around, and blowing their minds, entertaining them, but there has to a break from that, and that’s when, say I’ve done that for three songs and the audience are on the edge of their seats, then I’ll play something really soft and simple, and it gives them a chance to just sit back and relax, and let it just wash over them. That is all part of it.”

It is like you said earlier there, about telling the story, that is part of the story, and even with acoustic instrumental music, it is all storytelling.

“Oh it is, definitely. Yeah, well a lot of young guys who are big into songwriting now are eager to impress everyone, and so they are writing stuff that’s really just a lot of chords moving around with a groove, and I am waiting for them to tell me a story. And they don’t know that.

"They think that songwriting is about creating a structure and making it really fantastic, and moving all the chords around and all that, and it’s like, ‘Hang on a second! You are not telling me a story and you are not moving me emotionally. Take me somewhere. Tell me something.’ That’s what I am waiting for. When I hear someone who does that I am excited because, yes, they have got it.”

There’s no better gift than someone creating an atmosphere, an emotional range, or a story to inhabit for an hour or so...

“Oh yeah, and you’ve got to remember it as well! I hear a lot of young composers writing things and there is so much going on that I can’t remember any of it. All I want to do is stop them, take away half of that, say half as much so I can have a chance to get onto it and get it into my head.

"You’ve really got to think about that, and you’ve got to say something and create an emotion that moves people, that they can hook onto straight away.”

Does the acoustic guitar lend itself to a more individualist style? Because, in a sense, you are trying to do more with less...

“I think it really comes down to what you have got to say. For myself, I like both; I like the electric guitar and the acoustic, but I mostly write on acoustic - even back in the ‘80s when I was playing electric mostly I was still songwriting on the acoustic because it has got to stand up on that.

"There’s no frills, y’know, and so I used to try and write on the acoustic so that it was sort of chiseled, the melody was chiseled in stone, and that’s what I was trying to achieve there.

“Everybody has their own way of doing it, and I don’t think my way is right or wrong - it is just how I do it and it works for me. You may have a completely different approach and that’s your way.”

True. Everyone has their own style...

“Hearing Billy Joel talking about his songwriting, he said, ‘Well I like to tell a story musically first, and then I find the words second.’ So, y’know, he does that. 

"John Lennon used to write down poetry, and write down words - he could be at dinner and he would get an idea and he’d write words down and put music to it later. So Lennon was the opposite. Everyone has their own approach.”

There is an immediacy with the acoustic that let’s you know when something isn’t working.

“Also you have to have your quality control going, and I certainly have that. There are two songwriters inside me. There is one inside my head that is full of ideas, and then there is one deep in my heart that has to be satisfied, and that is the one that always wins. But the guy in my head will come up with a thousand ideas until the guy in my heart says, ‘No more, no less, just that.’ That’s my quality control.”

Your technique is formidable. Is there any aspect of your playing that you worry about?

“I don’t worry about anything. No, I work on it, I work on what I need to be better at. I go through periods of practicing strength, skills, things like that, but mostly when I practice I usually play songs as if people are listening and that is what makes me a better player; playing the songs. I know my strengths and my weaknesses, so I know what I need to work on, and I approach it that way.”

Nothing inspires a better performance than knowing - or thinking - that someone is listening.

“Oh, totally. Totally. I play like this is the last time I am going to play, all the time. I don’t know any other way. I’m just following my own instincts and trying what works for me.”

Acclaimed acoustic guitarist Andy McKee is kicking off a slate of US dates that will carry him into 2014.

The master fingerstyle player plans a big return to the public eye with a worldwide tour and the release of his first new music since 2010’s acclaimed album Joyland. The tour begins November 6 in Annapolis, Maryland.

McKee, an acclaimed solo acoustic guitarist, has enjoyed crossover success to more than 150 million YouTube viewers. To fans of virtuoso musicianship it is McKee’s attention to song structure and melodic content that elevates him above the rest.

To fans of popular music McKee entertains the eye and the ear as he magically transforms the steel string guitar into full orchestra via his use of altered tunings, tapping, partial capos, percussive hits and a signature two-handed technique.

McKee continues to challenge himself. He completed a recent string of Australian shows performing alongside Prince, who had requested Andy to join his band for the concerts. A planned series of new releases is on deck for 2014.

Find out more at andymckee.com.

Here's McKee playing "Hunter's Moon":

ANDY MCKEE FALL/WINTER 2013-14 TOUR DATES

• Nov. 6 – Annapolis, MD – Ram’s Head
• Nov. 7 – Washington DC – The Hamilton
• Nov. 8 – New York, NY – B.B. King’s
• Nov. 9 – East Norfolk, CT – Infinity Hall
• Nov. 10 – Londonderry, NH – Tupelo Music Hall
• Nov. 12 – Buffalo, NY – Traif Music Hall
• Nov. 13 – Pittsburgh, PA – Rex Theater
• Nov. 14 – Kent, OH – Kent Stage
• Nov. 15 – Cincinnati, OH – Taft Ballroom
• Nov. 16 – Ann Arbor, MI – The Ark
• Nov. 17 – Chicago, IL – Lincoln Hall
• Nov. 21 – Minneapolis, MN – The Cedar Cultural Center
• Nov. 22 – Dallas, TX – Kessler Theater
• Jan. 9 – Oakland, CA – Yoshi’s
• Jan. 10 – Malibu, CA – Smothers Theater at Pepperdine University
• Jan. 11 – Kirkland, WA – Kirkland Performance Center
• Jan. 12 – Portland, OR – Aladdin Theater
• Jan. 17 – Emporia, KS – Emporia Arts Council
• Jan. 23, 24, 25, 26 – Anaheim, CA – NAMM Convention