Fingerstyle Blues Guitar

Thumb / finger(s) independence!

The first thing you will need for blues fingerstlye guitar playing is thumb / finger(s) independence! Be it blues fingerstyle guitar playing, or any other style.

How do you develope thumb / finger independence?

Think of a piano players left and right hand. That is your thumb and finger(s). One plays the low part (thumb), while one plays the high part (finger(s)).

If we were to think of the typical blues guitar fingerstyle player, there are basically three things that the picking hand does.

1) Thumb down-”Bass”

2) Thumb down / finger(s) up-”Squeeze”

3) Finger(s) up-”Note” (by itself)

These are the terms I use to talk to my hand, “Bass”, “Squeeze”, “Note”. (They are of course all notes, but it’s a good word.)

The first thing you need to do is get that thumb thumpin’. Using a mono-bass root note is the most basic “bass line”. Lesson #1

This will create the drive, the push, the bottom that you can then ride over. You might add a melody line on top of that bass, or just freely jam over it. To do the latter, you really need that thumb / finger(s) independence!

You can have a number of different types of “bass lines” in blues fingerstyle guitar playing. Alternating bass (like most Piedmont blues), walking bass (”Boogie, etc…), etc…

Sometimes, like in folk style guitar, you might just use a “finger-picking pattern”. But even in that vein, you can really benefit from some thumb independence.

If you can really develope that steady bass (the “stuff on the bottom”) , make it strong, make it the dictator–then you can jam over that (the “stuff on top”). This is really the ultimate achievement in blues fingerstyle guitar playing!

What I am talking about here is laying down a strong rhythm groove. The stuff on top might be your vocals! It might be someone else “soloing”. It could be you dancing on top there with those fiery blues fingers flyin’  on that guitar neck.

Thus, the sub-title of The Blues Guitar Book–Thumpin’ Thumb and Fiery Fingers.

The first 10 lessons are mostly about the “stuff on bottom”. Stuff to really become a strong, rock solid  blues guitar rhythm player. (Fingerstyle or not!)

Possible sub-title #2-”How to fire your bass player and drummer, and still keep em’ dancin’”.

Slow, you know,  back-in-the-alley grind, or a rocking boogie, or just shufflin’ along this way or that. Solid rhythm is the key.

So, as a solo fingerstyle blues guitar player, the idea is to ultimately have your thumb drivin’ the rhythm “the stuff on bottom”, and your finger(s) playing “the stuff on top”. 

See a list of all the LESSONS 

Essays on that subject. Try This.  AND This

(c) 2008 Stan Hirsch