Fingerpicking Technik und Patterns

c) Fingerstyle with independent melody - your own band in one Guitar

Introduction
I am a self taught player and never ever had any guitar lessons. Therefore the following is not influenced by a teacher's point of view. I just try to lay down my personal experience, trying to log things that turned out essential through the decades of my private study. I sure hope, that some people might find it useful and get some information they can incorporate in their playing.

Well then: Lets leave the wood of patterns and sail the ocean of solo fingerstyle arrangements.

Why leave pattern picking ?
Leaving patterns means to play an accompaniment and a melody at the same time; it's the same thing the piano player does all the time. To provide an impression, I recorded a short part of the old tune "Georgie" twice: The first time I recorded two guitars, one of them playing the accompaniment, the other one the melody: Georgie is a ballad about a man by the name George Stole, hanged anno domini 1610. This is the two guitar version: Georgie with two guitars, (MP3, 279 KB). If I do about the same thing with only one guitar, how would that be ? This is my second recording, accompaniment and melody, played with one guitar only: Georgie with one guitar (MP3, 304 KB). I think this is enough reason toget into solo fingerstyle guitar!

How leave pattern picking ?
Now how do I leave "pattern picking" ? How do I get into a style, that enables me to substitute two instruments, the accompaniment and the solo ? I will try to break the whole thing down to some first steps easy to go. Given you are willing to do a bit of rehearsing from time to time, I believe the information below should get you on the way.

First thing I had to accept and learn by and by was: A fingerstyle player does not always have to fret full chords. With my fingers and the thumb I play three or maybe four strings at the same time. So there is no reason to fret strings while they aren't played. In a way I got stuck with those good old chords because I knew them, they were my reference and anchoring points on the fretboard.On the other hand playing is limited this way. not enough fingers vacant for melody work and the whole hand fixed in one place. But what if I get all fingers off the fretboard, that usually fretted strings that aren't plucked ? If I play the open G chord for example I can reduce fretting down to one finger fretting the low E string at the third fret. I hit the E string, the empty D-string (both with my thumb) as well as the G and B string (with the fingers). If I fret the E string with the middle finger I can use the other fingers for melody work.

Second is the fact, that many open chords are surrounded by according scales or fragments of those scales. I understood this quite early as a young player when I started playing songs, flaticking some bass lines with the chords. So if the bass is played constantly in a similar way it is done with pattern picking, there should be some high melody notes in reach of the fingers on the fretboard.

So the first thing I would do is picking chords and melodies at the same time, to get familiar with fingerings that may have little in common with the full chords and as well get to know where the matching melody notes can be played. I wrote down some exercises that are easy to learn and to play. They should be a good start. To demonstrate how the exercises can be played, there are AVI video files showing my left hand while I play. They don't contain much syncopating in order to keep them easy to learn and to concentrate on the scales.

Three of those examples (the G, D/F# and C chord for instance) can be played together and can be the basics for many songs.

Example: Melody line over the G major chord

Example: Melody line over the D/F# major chord

Example: Melody line over the C major chord

The C example is a bit tricky because the ring finger has to play the e in the chord bass notes, while almost at the same time that same ring finger has to fret the a note on the g string.

The fingerings shown led me to the "Me and Bobby McGee"-arrangement. (click here for TAB) Everybody who can play the three exercises above should be able to play "Me and Bobby McGee" (click here for MP3, 1929 KB).

What to do it the melody notes are high up the fretboard
One thing I had to learn and accept too: Melodies often raise up and up and up that even the longest stretches of the largest acromegalic monster-hands are not enough to remain in a chord position with one or two fingers and at the same time play melody notes up the neck. If this is the case only for a few beats, a workaround can be to play the melody with two voices to the highest point without any bass accompaniment remaining, only to fall back into the whole arrangement again. With "Me and Bobby McGee" esprecially the "Freedom's just annother word"-part is one of these measures. Interesting ting is, that such a "workaround" may even underline a dramatic part of the melody better than an accompanyment of constant quarters would do.

I have annother little exercise here that focuses on those melody peaks. The melody of the exercise forces the player to leave the accompaniment pattern for one measure each time there is a chord change.

Example 6: Combining chords and leaving the bass line for several beats

Annother way to solve the problem would be to find and fret matching bass notes up the fretboard. There are many examples: The first two measures of Leo Kottke's "Last steam engine train" has to be played at the 7th fret. Annother example would be "Falk Zobel's getting 40 years old blues" (click here for MP3, 927 KB, click here for score and TAB). There are even some chords where only a small number of scale notes can be played close to the chord position. This especially goes for E major. On the other hand E major can be played up the neck with some supporting notes fretted on the D string up the neck.

My melodic exercise does not move up the neck that way but the player already has to leave the former chord position:

Example: Melody line over the E major chord

Finally I made an exercise around the open A major chord. It has to be played with the index finger in order to reach up to the 5th fret with the pinky:

Example : Melody line over the A major chord

Some Examples
First one is an arrangement of "Michelle", a well known early Beatles tune. The arrangement has one advantage for a beginner, for it has almost no syncopations througout the first seven measures. All you will have to do is to utilize the first picking pattern shown in what has to be called the "first chapter" now. The next thing that makes this arrangement quite easy, is the fact, that it can be played using open chord fingerings with only little deviations in the third and fifth measure (playing the D and the B). I coloured the melody notes and TAB-digits red to visualize what will be the work of the fingers (red) and the work of the thumb (black). There is one exception: The chords B7 (measure 6 and 7) should be played slightly arpeggiated with a soft brushing movement either of the thumb or the fingers.

Keep in mind that the guitar has to be tuned in dopped-D. This means, that the low E-string has to be tuned down one whole step to D.

Here are the first six measures. Click into the staff if you want to hear them at slow pace. The MP3-file has a size of 127 KB.

The eigth measure is a bit more tricky, because it contains some syncopations. While the bass and treble notes start at the same time, the treble E is only an eigth. This is the same technique as it is used in picking pattern four. The value of the notes differ but the principle is the same. The other difference from pattern picking is the change from D to B in the treble. Measure eight can be started with the fingering of E minor 7 in the open position, but as the melody progresses from E over D down to B, the pinky (holding the D on the B string) has to be lifted, so that the open B can be played. Annother tricky spot is the change from G to F# in the nineth measure (mind the two sixteenth notes). I just play it with the pinky. I fret the e string at the second fret at the beginning of the measure, push it up to the third fret then an pull it pack again. One thing I should mention here: The first note of the second recorded part is the "b" in the last measure shown above. If the part is kicked in with four beats and starts with the 5th beat, the "b" note will be played right at the 4th beat.

Once again: Click into the score to hear the measures slowly. The MP3 size is 138 KB.

The last three measures show the typical bridge between the verses. It is also the intro of the song. The whole thing is very easy to play because fretting is easy (1 fretted string only) and bass and treble play notes of the same length at the same time. Here ist is:

Klick on the score to listen to the MP3. It's size is 90 KB

This way many songs can be arranged in a way that they could be performed as a single piece of solistig guitar music. There is a pattern thatt stands for bass and chords plucked by the thumb and there is the solo melody picked with the fingers of the right hand. Some examples are "Me and Bobby McGee" by Cris Christofferson, the Simon and Garfunkel song "Homeward Bound" and finally "As tears go by" by Jagger/Richards. I have arranged each song for solo fingerpicking guitar.

In my opinion these solo pieces are not too difficult, I would estimate them "easy to intermediate".

Me & Bobby McGee (standard)	C. Cristofferson 1 Guitar	CF Martin DM	1880 KB 2:03 min
Homeward Bound (standard)	Paul Simon Arr. RB	CF Martin DM	1900 KB 1:40 min
Homeward Bound (standard)	Paul Simon Arr. RB	Mandolin	1900 KB 1:40 min

Annother example is my arrangement of "Homeward bound". It widely uses the G, D/F# and C fingerings shown above. And theris the inevitable melody breakout into the treble, that is played 2-voiced and without bass accompaniment for a few beats, utilizing the technique shown above. Keep in mind that the tune is played with a capo at 2nd fret so everything is raised one whole note. (click here for TAB - click here for mp3 - 1970 KB)

Finally I come back to the ballad "Geogie". You should give it a try because it is not very difficult. Two major obstacles are:

1) the D/F# chord because it is only played for two beats. But the chord is essential to the song because it brings that medieval kind of sound to it. The more it is importand to play the D/F# clean and clear and to play that little roll to really develop the sound of the D/F# during that short period,

2) the melody drops down very low into the bass range the second time e minor is played. the index finger has to play the D-string fretted to E for one time, thus forcing the player to shift the right hand adjustment up one string for a moment.

(click here to get the PDF file of Georgie containing TAB/standard notation)