Fingerpicking For Metal Options

[Martin la guitar...]

hello!

I love to play metal, aswell to play blues. The thing is that mostly blues lessons are made for fingerpicking. Except that my fingerpicking is really, really bad, i dont know if i need fingerpicking..... If i play metal, you rarely play with fingerpicking.

What improves if you play fingerpicking?

[Robin]

With fingerpicking you can play several things at the same time. Be your own band by playing bass, solo and chords all at the same time.
Like this guy http://youtube.com/watch?v=Pfte-sL1Jtc

Not sure if it will improve your metal playing though but maybe you can make it sound original with fingerpicking, idk

[Bogdan Radovic]

Well I recommend learning as much styles and techniques as you can..Fingerpicking is very useful and fundamental one..

[Martin la guitar...]

i guess u are right, i've seen yngwie malmsteen doing some awesome classical songs, Echo elude for instance. But he uses the pick....anyway, where do i place the pick when i am fingerpicking, because its quite rare that you are fingerpicking through the whole song. (lets say you are playing a classical piece then break the whole song down with some awesome metal riffs)

Do i put it in my pocket?

[Bogdan Radovic]

Well you can buy a pick holder which attaches to your guitar body and its really easy accessible..Or you can hold it between your little finger and palm of your right hand if you are not going to use that finger for picking..Or you can use good old mouth to hold it ehhehe

This post has been edited by Bogdan: Mar 30 2008, 06:58 PM

[g-forcelover]

your overall skill improves with mastering fingerpicking. just like you need to learn to play with alternate picking, you should learn to fingerpick. im learning to do it, and i play shred, rock, and metal.

[Ivan Milenkovic]

You can use the rest of the fingers for fingerpicking while holding a pick, or maybe even do the thing Eric Johnson does - he sometimes tuck the pick between his thumb and the meat of his palm and plays with his fingers.

[Martin la guitar...]

ok, thx for posting! it helped me a lot

[Fsgdjv]

If you don't like fingerpicked stuff, don't learn it. Really, if you don't want to play like that don't awaste your time, learn something you want to. But on the other hand, fingerpicked acoustic parts fit really well with metal, so if you like fingerpicked stuff but don't know if you'll ever use it with metal, learn it, and find places where it fits. But don't learn anything just to improve your overall skills if you still don't want to learn it. Allthough I do have to say that I personally love finerpicking and I recomend trying to learn it.

This is all coming from someone who's just played the guitar for 1.5 years, but I still think there's some truth in this.

EDIT: The one thing that improves if you learn to fingerpick is your fingerpicking.

This post has been edited by Fsgdjv: Mar 30 2008, 11:25 PM

[Marcus Siepen]

Even though you won't use finger picking for "basic" metal you should still try to learn it, it is always good to learn new things. And after all, also in metal there will be chances to use fingerpicking, I use it for some of our ballads like the Bards song for example, or take a guy like Zakk Wylde, he uses this chicken picking thing for his leads (he uses the pick AND 3 fingers at the same time)