spider picking

[x182]

using all your fingers to play..

do you guys believe in using more than your index and middle to play?

if you get your ring finger picking just as well i guess you can pick faster, but your pinky is too weak for the bass strings.

[No_Fingures]

I tried using 3... but cause of the shape of your fingures you get wierd accent your middle and pionter fingur can be tilted so they are both at the same level cannot do that with all 3. just my view on it

[paniak17]

eh, two fingers is fast enough.

[Adam Barkley]

I mostly play with two fingers or with my finger and thumb if it the line has a ton of string skipping. Sometimes one finger is enough, John Paul Jones and James Jamerson are great examples.

Very rarely do I use a three finger technique, I only use it while playing super fast or the solo on Those Damn Blue-Collared Tweekers.

90% of the time, using three fingers is way to fast. For example the song Parallel Universe by the RHCP is fairly fast and was performed with a pick, but if I tried to play that song with three fingers I would actually play it too fast and ruin that great line.

[Benjamin Strange]

I use 3 fingers most of the time. My pinky won't reach the strings, so I leave it out (unless I'm playing the Warr, then the pinky is used alot).

[xolin]

I use four, if flamenco guitarists can, why not? My pinky sounds the notes fine. I decided one day to use my ring and pinky so i just played songs alternating the two as if they were my index and middle. They got strong enough and independant of each other enough to use em without trouble. It does make playing fast easier, but I only use it for tremolo stuff. For runs I can only use 3 fingers because I can't play that fast/accurate with my left hand . Whatever, I even use 4 fingers in jazz playing slowly just to skip strings or whatever or stutter notes, efficient i guess.

[BassGod]

I mainly use two fingers, but for skipping strings I use three. When I do arpeggios I sometimes use the classical guitarist style (thumb, index, middle, ring).

~Graeme

[Not Mark Westlake]

Yeah, same here. When I'm doing solo bass chordal lines I just use thumb, index, middle and ring if it's needed. I used to play with 4 fingers, but to be fair I started thinking more about getting my fingers playing right and it just wasn't as much fun to just let rip with 4 fingers as it was with 2. I sometimes use 3 now, but I just hardly ever feel the need for it, especially with the sort of music my band are doing now.

[Bass of Galt]

Gary Willis of Tribal Tech uses three (I,M,R) and it gives him amazingly fluid string crossing and syncopation (think Rocco on speed!)

check out some of his quicktime tutorials here.

[Mr.QuakQuak]

Picking- thumb, middle, and pointer.

[mark beem]

Originally Posted by x182

but your pinky is too weak for the bass strings.

Tell that to Billy Sheehan..

[xolin]

Originally Posted by ProgZilla

Tell that to Billy Sheehan..

Umm..I started using 4 when i first saw sheehan, but he actually only uses 3
The fourth is just dangling there, he says you cant get good tone out of it. I disagree, but he can shred like crazy with three, so it doesn't matter.

[mark beem]

Originally Posted by xolin

Umm..I started using 4 when i first saw sheehan, but he actually only uses 3
The fourth is just dangling there, he says you cant get good tone out of it. I disagree, but he can shred like crazy with three, so it doesn't matter.

Nope.. sorry but you're wrong.. He does use it... In fact he uses it quite a bit on the new Steve Vai live DVD.

[xolin]

To tell you the truth, he may have started to use it recently (i did see him play with vai, it looks as though he does). HOWEVER...in every vid ive seen with him (havent got to see Bass day which is more recent) he says he only uses 3 fingers and not the pinky. When I see his soloes from the eighties (vids) he looks like he's using 4, but if you see up close he uses 3.
He has added techniques over the dcade, so maybe he does use it now. I'll look up his new vids to see..

[xolin]

O,, i think i got this figured out.

I just watched a recent concert solo of Sheehan's. He looks to be using his pinky when just shredding, but isnt't really (you can see it just dangles a bit away from the string). HE DOES use it however when he does "raking" (rolling all four fingers in some sequence down the strings) which gives him quick reverse arpegio patterns and such. So, yes he uses all four fingers, but for one string shredding usually 3 (in 1-2-3-1, 2-3-1-2, 3-1-2-3, 4/4 patterns as he puts it).

[learning_towalk]

i guess it's from practicing finger picking on guitar for a few years but...

i play just as well with index finger + pinky or index finger + ring finger just as well as I do index + middle

[FF Petro]

I started strengthing my ring finger and pinky about a year ago. I now use my ring finger just like my index and middle and use them interchangably. My pinky, however, is still pretty weak.

Petro

[tenbellies]

When I was new to playing I got really bad blister on my 1st finger, but I still really wanted to play. Now I use 3 fingers of poping and normall bass playing. Blisters rule, theyextend your playing ability no end!

[OneKillWonder]

I use three fingers (ala Steve Digorgio) to achieve a faster speed. to play sixteenth notes i play like this ... (pointer = 1 , middle = 2 , ring = 3)

one measure of 4/4 all sixteenth notes:

3-2-1-2 , 3-2-1-2- , 3-2-1-2- , 3-2-1-2

its much easier in the long run than using two fingers.

someone may have already said that in this thread...but that is how i word it.

[dTune]

Ring finger is weak when you START using it, but it can be learned to use it like the others. (Speaking out the obvious )

When i started playing (cl. guitar), finger picking was a pain in the fingertip, it was hard to get volume out cleanly. But I learned it, and same happened with all the other fingers. It's all a matter of practice, at least I don't know anyone who could play like i.e. Billy Sheehan right after the umbilical cord was cut....