Bare Fingers
and Nails
As Ive said already.
Generally speaking I believe it is best to use plastic finger picks when
finger picking guitar. However there are
exceptions. There are times when you may
prefer not to use finger picks for some particular songs. Bare fingers
and nails on guitar strings produce a unique sound that only bare fingers and
nails can make. Especially is this true on classical or concert type
guitars (Those guitars with nylon strings). You simply cant get that
sound with any kind of a pick, plastic or otherwise. So sometimes bare fingers and nails are to be
preferred over using picks when you want that particular unique sound. To get that particular sound quality you must
use only bare fingers and nails and finger picks can not be used. In such cases one will sacrifice volume and
some of the other good qualities that finger picks give you in order to get
that unique sound. For example while
performing a solo guitar song in a recording studio where volume is not an
issue this would be no problem and may be just the ticket. This is a good thing to do and it can add to
the variety of your music that weve been talking about.
There are some styles of guitar playing that always use
only their bare fingers and finger nails. There
are certain genre of finger style guitar that uses only bare fingers and
nails. Spanish guitar, Flamingo, and Classical guitar are among these
schools of training. There are some awesome musicians out there in these
fields that play this type of finger style guitar. Some can do it in such a way that it will
blow you away. The sounds they can get
can simply amaze you. Sometimes they attack the strings and seen to
explode with their playing while at other times they may very lightly touch the
strings and make very subtle hints of the nail going across the string. They also can make use of picking over tones
that finger picks would only hinder. Artists
that excel in this genre are outstanding in their own right and have no
business using finger picks of any kind.
If they were to use them it would take away from their beautiful art
rather then add to it. Obviously that
is not what we want to see. What I
should say is that is not what we want to hear!
However, there are some who say they prefer finger picking
only with bare fingers and nails but who are not of the above class of
artists. For example some who play
contemporary guitar say they prefer only fingers and nails while finger picking. They may say this for example even though
they play modern songs and in a band using only a Dreadnought style guitar with
steel strings. I believe that such a person says this because they have
never learned how to use finger picks.
They may have tried but quickly gave up because it was too difficult
too clumsy or something like that. So
when it is time to finger pick they say they prefer bare fingers and nails
over using finger picks. I believe thats
because they know no better way!
So next Ill be discussing the pros and cons of
using finger picks and using finger nails.