Strumming OR Finger-style OR Flat-picking

These are three fairly common techniques used to play the guitar. The technique you chose will depend a lot on your own personal preference as well as the piece of music actually being played. First, here is a short description of each.

• Strumming – Strumming is probably the most common and recognizable way to play a guitar even from a non-guitar playing point of view. It is where, either using your thumb, finger, or a pick, you play several strings in a single motion in an up or down motion. Usually these strokes are combined to form a strum pattern which we will discuss in a future post.
• Finger-style – Finger-style is the technique of playing the guitar where each finger (and thumb) is used to pick strings individually in a specific order for the piece of music being played. Often this could be a pattern performed on each chord in succession, or this could simply follow the melody line of the piece, or it could also be a combination of the patter as well as the melody line.
• Flat-picking – Flat-picking is a technique that similar to finger-style but through the use of a pick and can provide a distinctive sound and style to a piece of music. In flat picking you may be picking single strings or strumming across several strings to get the correct melody.

Many times you can use a combination of the techniques, strumming along with either of the others, in order to get some of the melody into a piece.  I actually try to take this approach. Not being much of a singer and not having coordinated singing with my guitar playing yet, I find a little flat picking within a song helps to make the song recognizable.

You don’t have to stick with one technique. In fact I would encourage everyone who plays guitar to try them all out. I originally wanted to learn guitar because I have always enjoyed listening to my dad play. He play almost strictly finger-style guitar and strictly creates his own pieces that he plays, sometimes making it up as he goes. So I naturally decided when I started to learn that I wanted to mostly play finer-style guitar. I learned a couple songs and then started to wonder about flat-picking because I had run across a few videos of flat-picking that caught my attention and sounded great to me. So then I learned a couple flat-picking songs. Strangely, those are the only strictly finger-style and flat-picking songs that I play. I now play mostly strumming with a little melody flat picking here and there and enjoy it as much or more than I enjoyed listening to my dad play. So don’t just stick to one technique, experiment.