Message Board Archive: Thread Number 36

How many fingers on your pickin' hand do all you fingerpickers use? I
was blown away when I first saw a video of Gary Davis that clearly
showed him making all that music with his thumb and index finger. John
Hurt appears to use mostly thumb, index and middle finger, but it looked
from what I saw that he used his ring finger occasionally, too.

If Southern Rag is any indication, I think Ari uses about thirteen
fingers on his pickin' hand :-)

I'm a weirdo - I use my thumb, middle and ring fingers for 99% of my
picking. I rest my palm on the bridge so that the bass strings are just
lightly muted, and with that angle of attack, I find it really hard to
get my index finger involved, so over the years it just gave up tryin'.
I actually use my pinky more than the index finger when I need to pluck
three strings at once.

Also, who uses fingernails a la Skip James, picks a la Gary, or bare
finger pads a la John Hurt?

-Rob

Date: Sat, 6 Sep 1997 10:43:54 -0400
From: scotthertzog@juno.com (Scott_Hertzog_in_Alexandria_VA)
Subject: Idea: Picking fingers - John Jackson
Message Number: 36.1

In the "Fingerstyle Blues of John Jackson", Roy Bookbinder discovers a
new trick - Jackson mostly uses thumb and first finger, but picks up AND
DOWN with the first finger! Adds a lot of variety to picking!

Date: Sat, 6 Sep 1997 10:54:43 -0400
From: ari@secondmind.com (Ari Eisinger)
Subject: Feedback: ari@secondmind.com
Message Number: 36.2

I use three fingers including my thumb: thumb, index and middle finger.
I find the obvious alternatives, two fingers and four fingers, lacking.
If you use two fingers, then you only have one finger, your index, with
which to play the melody. This is limiting because it's difficult,
unless you are Davis or perhaps Travis, to play eighth notes, let alone
triplets, with just one finger; this one finger must hop around in an
exhausting manner from string to string. It's much easier to use what I
call "the team" (index and middle fingers) to play consecutive notes on
different strings. Also, with two fingers you can't play two
simultaneous treble notes on non-adjacent strings like you can with
three. These are the reasons I don't like to use two fingers, although
for some Gary Davis rolls I sometimes do because the feel seems better
with two fingers than with three.
The other obvious alternative is to use four fingers: thumb, index,
middle and ring. For me at least, and I suspect that it is true for
others too, the ring finger is weak and awkward. When I use it I end up
losing alot of the strong, controlled attack I have when I use just
three fingers; it seems that when I use four my hand is weaker as a
whole due to the introduction of the weak ring finger. There is a huge
advantage in going from two fingers to three, but a much smaller one in
going from three fingers to four, and the fact that my hand gets all
mushy when I use four is not worth the small advantages.
I sometimes use picks and sometimes don't, depending on the tune I'm
playing. When I don't use picks, I use a combination of nail and
finger-pad. I think this gives my notes a warm sound but with alot more
volume than I could get by using naked fingertips.

Date: Sun, 7 Sep 1997 22:09:05 -0400
From: ryoung@ptd.net (Ray Youngblood)
Subject: Note: Four Finger Picking
Message Number: 36.2.1

First off, what a terrific place this is. Where else could I hear this
kind of discussion?

I learned to play(somewhat) with Pete Seeger's Folkways book, "How To
Play The Six String Guitar" and a Rodeo steel string taken in trade for
$5 worth of Esso regular. The book taught a four finger style: thumb,
index, middle and ring, which was fine for the style applied to every
song it contained. This technique involved a very basic arpeggio from
treble towards bass interspersed among strums ( four finger grabs).
Cisco Houston, a protege of Woody Guthrie's, who recorded several
Folkway LPs was the best known exponent of this style. I still recall
the heady experience of mastering "Poor Howard" using this style in an
open G tuning.

When I got hold Of John Hurt's first (Piedmont Label) LP in 1964, I quit
trying to play this way.

Final note/query: Ari, on those long dazzling runs do you ever use thumb
down index finger up on the same string. As close as I sat at your Corn
Festival performance in Yardly, I couldn't tell. I did notice that you
don't "plant" your picking hand and that you have a preternaturally
mobile thumb.

Date: Mon, 8 Sep 1997 17:39:49 -0400
From: ari@secondmind.com (Ari Eisinger)
Subject: Feedback: Fingers
Message Number: 36.2.1.1

>Final note/query: Ari, on those long dazzling runs do you ever use
thumb down index finger up on the same string. As close as I sat at your
Corn Festival performance in Yardly, I couldn't tell. I did notice that
you don't "plant" your picking hand and that you have a preternaturally
mobile thumb. <
Great to meet you there, Ray!
Yes, I sometimes do use thumb down and index finger up on the same
string--I do this in, among other tunes I play, "I'm Throwin' Up My
Hand," a Rev. Gary Davis tune I learned from his 1935 recording reissued
on Yazoo and Document (originally on ARC, I believe).
I don't like to "plant" my picking hand by touching the face of the
guitar with my pinky or ring finger because I find that doing so cramps
up my hand and tends to leave me playing from too great a distance. I
like to be right on top of the strings--not necessarily touching them,
but very close to them so I can pick them easily and strongly. I do
sometimes like to plant my palm on or near the top (the part farthest
from the ground) of the bridge, again for strength and sureness of
attack. At least, I _think_ I like to do this. Whether I really do it or
just think I'm doing it is something people who watch me are better
qualified than I am to judge!
Thanks again for coming to see me. It's very exciting to see people jump
off the Internet into real life like that!

Date: Mon, 15 Sep 1997 21:19:30 -0400
From: rivnrev@memphisonline.com (Andy Cohen)
Subject: Feedback: Re: How many Fingers
Message Number: 36.3

This is in response to Rob Hutton's question about fingers. I did a
Master's thesis on precisely this subject, which was subsequently
amended, emended, sliced up chopped down and added to, ending up as my
first "academic" article. Although I have realized some of the
information in it is incorrect (I'll get to that later), what I did was
to make orderly a lot of information that had existed heretofore only
impressionistically. In other words, I set up a Blues Player database,
guessing when I could not actually know. This whole mess was published
as "The Hands Of Blues Guitarists" in the Winter, 1996 edition of
American Music, published by U. of Illinois Press, edited by David
Evans.

        I had 118 players in the database, but only 94 records were complete enough to use.  I ordered them by birth year, and sored them by region and state.  The general conclusions were as follows: of 94 in the database, 89 used a thumb and index finger on the right hand.  Libba Cotten used thumb and index on the left hand, but since she was upside down, her thumb played melody and her finger played bass. Look at a picture of her playing set opposite a picture of Etta Baker, it's like a mirror image. Skip James, Sam Chatmon and John Hurt used two fingers and a thumb (Sam used three and a thumb), qand Son House used T-1-3.

        What is interesting is how, what and when the various players played.  My DB included thirteen states and sisty six years.  Henry Thomas, born in 1874 was the oldest and Robert Belfour, b. 1940 was the youngest. 

        The best predictors were age and region: if the player was from east of a line connecting Knoxville and Atlanta, and extended north and south from there, likelihood was very high that they would extend their thumb to the left of the index finger ("nutward"), because they used the two digits to play "T-1" runs, and often played with an alternating bass.  The same holds true for deep South "songster age" players, born before 1906.  After that, likelihood is high that the thumb will either be on top of the index finger, whacking out a monotonic bass, or actually to the right of it, like you see in films of John Lee Hooker or Sobert Pete Williams.  The four-beat alternating bass is virtually absent in these players, except as a time-stroke (Robert Pete), or as a "slow-time" alternation (Skip James).

        My errors were  conservative in nature.  I mistook Furry Lewis, for instance.  He used an alternating bass most of the time (he also played in open D and G most of the time), but held his hand in such a way that when his  finger  struck just after his thumb hit the higher bass note, it would pass to the left of the thumb.  In other words, the thrust of the paper is that there is a very strong regional component to the way different players held their hands, which  at least in part explains the regional differences in sound and in style.

        Argue with me!

        Andy Cohen  

Date: Tue, 16 Sep 1997 07:17:48 -0400
From: rob@hub.org (Rob Hutten)
Subject: More: Re: How many Fingers
Message Number: 36.3.1

Fascinating stuff, Andy!

Anyone following this discussion might want to check out the gallery of
Dick Waterman's photographs of blues guitarists' hands, found on my
BluesNet site at:

http://www.hub.org/bluesnet/waterman/

-Rob

Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 22:09:13 -0500
From: jvtdc@electro-net.com (doc John)
Subject: Feedback: my version of finger picking
Message Number: 36.4

When I play standard tuning rags and finger picking blues I use a long
plastic thumb pick and two plastic finger picks, index nd middle. My
pinkie is sometimes welded to the guitar. When I play my dobro in
standard, my pinkie laches to one of the holes in the face plate and
Iget a little more wing out of it.

In open tuning, either slide or fretted, I use a short thumb pick with
the two finger picks. This, for me is a different style. The three
fingers are independant (2 fingers and thumb.) I sometimes use i &m
alternating for single string runs. sometimes thumb and index. I use my
wrist and palm for muting as well as tapping the strings against the
finger board for rhythm. I didn't know I did this until someone recorded
me and pointed it out. The most fun though is when I get it cranked up
and the two fingers are each going back and forth, playing melody while
closing and a rhythm strum when opning.

hard to describe but fun to do. great question

Date: Mon, 6 Jul 1998 12:45:48 -0400 (EDT)
From: blues_75@hotmail.com
Subject: Idea: Whatever it takes....
Message Number: 36.5

I have always been of the mind to use whatever approach is neccasary...Depending on what sound your trying to get..In country Blues finger pickin there are no rules...