some of you may know me from my fingerstyle path (advanced beginner here). I can play something with hammer ons, pull offs, slides etc…
I am not raising my ego here, I am just giving facts so you can see my real struggle and case.
I am trying to learn play with finger strumming and I can change the chords. Down up… different patterns. Also do a little accent on beat 3 for example.
I wanted to make little level up and I found a thing “chord fills” where you start on beat 3 or 4 and you just use some notes to make “bridge” to another chord. It can sound really great and melodic.
But when I try to do it I feel like I have guitar in my hand for the first time. It feels really frustrating a demotivating… like how it is possible when I try to pull off while strumming my rhythm breaks even I know it should not? My strumming hand just stops a little and just does not work. Cant go on…
I feel really bad I cant do such a thing… can anyone please give me little guide how to get this into my brain and hand?
I am sharing here the video Em to C/G and also pattern I am trying to do with pull offs.
I also tried this with 70 metronome and it still feels little wonky… not that great. Ask me to do fingerstyle stuff… I will do that. But this? Oh my god.
I don’t know if you’ve already gone through this stage, but I would start off without worrying about keeping time and just get the muscle memory in place.
Then the music shows 1/4 note strumming but you are adding some additional 1/8 note strums in - I’d take those out (you can add them in again once you have it down if you want to) and just play on the 1/4 notes - that way it’s the same rhythm for the strums and the single note picks. The pull offs are on the 1/8 notes, but that’s the other hand’s problem!
You should definitely cut yourself some slack! You’ve made some amazing progress on your fingerstyle in particular recently. You can’t expect to pick up every new skill without some struggles
I don’t think you’re far off. In my opinion you just need to take a step back and go slowly with this - you’ll have it down in no time and wonder what all the fuss was about!
@mathsjunky Thank you very much. I am gonna slow down. It just feels really frustrating to fail on strumming basic, when you are moving your hand, but your brain stops it.
I watched your video. It sounds to me like when you do the pull-offs you are not plucking only the one string (as shown in the TAB), but are still strumming a few strings of the chord. That makes it hard to hear the pull-offs clearly.
As @mathsjunky said, I would try to simplify things: slow down, don’t worry about accenting the chords and getting a good groove going (for now). When you get to the pull-offs, pick the D and A strings clearly and cleanly. Count it out, the 2nd bar should be one-two-three-and-four-and (I’m sure you know this, just a reminder).
Justin has a lesson on picking single notes for chord transitions, which you might find useful:
@jjw Thank you for analyse and recommending the video. I am gonna check it.
Picking only one string or few at once is pretty tricky… because I am using my point finger as pick and that is much more bigger/fatter than pick. Is it even possible physically to pick only one string with finger strumming motion?
It is giving me ideas how to go over this, but I am making it even more complex. To finger strumm 2 beats, hitting percussive strumm thumb on beat three so I get into position to fingerstyle and then just pick out the single strings with melody line. But that mean hybrid strumming percussive fingerstyle.
Some time ago I was doing something similar with pick and after week it was pretty doable, but fingerstyle is another level for me.
Ok, so I see that you can do this sort of thing with a pick (the video I linked is basically what you palyed in this video).
If I were going to play this sort of thing fingerstyle, I would actually use the thumb to pick the individual notes (since they are bass notes on the low strings). (For the TAB you posted, I might even use the thumb to strum the chords. ) If using the thumb + finger strumming, it does take a bit of coordination (i.e. lots of practice) to switch from the finger strumming to the thumb picking.
Looks like you are getting to what I would recommend after watching your first video: play these little lead lines in fingerpick style. Use the thumb to give it most impact, but if you find it easier to use the index finger then by all means do so.
Just because you are finger-strumming doesn’t mean you have to finger-strum all notes in the piece. (Likewise for fingerpicking where every now and then you can throw in some strums for interest and these would have to be finger-strummed as you don’t have a pick in your hand.)
The skill to develop here is really the smooth transitioning from a finger-strum on beat one and two to a finger-pick on bar three and four and then back again. That is a tricky thing to master, particularly the move into fingerpicking, back to fingerstumming is always easier. To give you a point of reference: The initial “ah I get it” over a simple chord like the Em took a few weeks to sound ok. But it doesn’t stop there. I have been working on this for over two years and it finally starts to feel more natural. Every new lead line needs some special attention. Once you have the two little fills on the Em down then you think you have it but then you on to play something in A and it is awkward all over again. Saying this not to discourage you but to encourage you to pace yourself, give it time and practise slowly - this smooth transition between finder strum and finger pick is one of the harder skills to learn. But with your dedication you will get there and it will feel so good!
And by all means use the slap for re-orientation of your right hand on the strings, but work on re-orientation without slap as well, because you don’t want to rely on always having to play a slap for that.
This is a great threat! Getting down in the weeds of how to improve your tecnhique. Michal, of course getting your one brain to tell your two hands and ten fingers to do a few different things in quick succession over and over accurately is HARD! But we all see your progress happening.
I have a few sets of 3-4 bar chord progressions I put together early on to practice chord changes. Now as a warm up I play them and try to add chord fills while keeping the rhythm.
@jjw Thank you. When I saw Justins video I knew I was doing that recently, so now we know my brain can do it.
About the thumb strumming… I will try to learn it with strumming index, I like the shape of “pick like” without pick and also playing with index finger feels more comfortable and natural to me. Also I have experiences with travis picking, walking some base lines… so I will try to pick this 3 + 4 + with thumb and I will see.
@MollyT Thank you very much for sharing your own experiences. I understand this will take a long time, but I cant remember a time where I had something like “brain block” like this, that I cant do that. And not in this stage of my journey.
One of my role model is Paul Davids and he is using slap “claw like”. Many slap fingerstyle players are flicking other fingers for strum, but he is using it for picking one string. So maybe there will be chords like Am, where I can use that for better transition.
When I am thinking about the chords… I can see some of them will need different treat, so I cant do all this stuff with only one pattern. But I am talking about far future.
You are also talking about adding little strums while fingerpicking… I really love these for example from Eddie Van Der Meer. I will go slowly and daily for this, thank you once again.
@mfeeney0110 Making your own chord progression and then trying to figure out all things you can do here is really smart. I am gonna do that. Right now I know it is gonna be Em to C/G and then I will see… maybe Am and F with thumb over. I will see.
Thank you all for knowing about my journey and supporting me.
