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How To Strum An instrument With no Pick

acoustic guitar lessons - How you can strum a guitar without a pick is really a question beginners and advancing guitarists often ask, specially as they become excited by the discovery of recent guitar styles. Definition of strumming versus plucking

"The left hand is the smart one, as the right executes"

This famous phrase was the response given by Paco de Lucia on the Spanish television show a few decades back. It did indeed cause him a lot of suffering when it comes to physical injuries. Those injuries were inflicted by a group of extreme right wing fanatics simply because they decided that Paco's response had political connotations.

The question posed by the interviewer was: "As a guitarist, which of these two hands carries the largest challenge?"

As with Paco's answer, yes, it is true that the best hand executes the notes prepared (or fretted) by the left-hand, in addition to open strings. (Please be aware that the example covers right handed guitarists, obviously the alternative holds true for a lefty guitarists).

To learn how to strum a guitar with no pick, there are many different techniques through which this can be done, but they all belong to either from the following main groups:

Plucking and
Strumming

Plucking happens when each string is picked individually. This can be done in succession, as in executing arpeggios, or concurrently, as with "claw hammer" style.

Strumming happens when the strings of the instrument are played in fast succession, one by one, inside a sweeping motion, which may be descending, ascending, or a mixture of.

With the possible exception of some "rasgueado",( I'll come back to this later) strumming is definitely done over several strings consecutively. Plucking can be done either using claws and thumb picks, as with banjo styles, or with bare fingers or natural nails, as with classical and flamenco guitar styles.

Strumming can be achieved with the aid of a plectrum, aka pick, or with bare fingers or natural nails. We'll focus on this short article on how to strum an instrument with no pick.

Finger strumming styles

The basic finger strumming styles can be divided into three main groups:

Thumb strumming Index or index and thumb strumming "Rasgueado" or ripping style

Plus all mixtures of the three in the above list.

Thumb strumming

Perhaps the most basic of the finger styles. Thumb strumming is performed by resting either the small finger or both little and ring fingers from the right-hand on our bodies, underside from the strings and running the tip of the thumb over the strings.

The motion can be descending only ( most typical), ascending and descending (less common) and ascending only ( rare). As we grow the nails on the right hand, the descending stroke is going to be done by the nail striking the strings, which provides a far more percussive tone and sharp attack.

The ascending motion is definitely done by the nail striking the string. This technique doesn't involve any wrist movement, hence the little finger resting on the body of the guitar. Some typical uses are in playing jazz ballads, specially one chord per bar type songs. The very notorious jazz player Wes Montgomery used thumb strumming as his main right hand technique. To learn efficiently how you can strum an instrument without a pick, it will likely be very useful that people observe such players and grow from them.

Index or index plus thumb strumming

Perhaps probably the most widely used way of strumming a steel string acoustic guitar, although not necessarily only at. The fundamental motion is, as its names indicates, done with the index finger alone, or both index and thumb pressed together.

guitar chord charts - When playing with the index finger alone, the ascending stroke will attack the strings with the back tip of the finger, or nail, based on whether we've grown it.

The downward motion always requires the finger nail striking the strings. When using finger and thumb together, the ascending stroke will always attack the strings with the thumb's nail.

Again, nail attack is sharper and brighter. The most important part of this technique is the wrist movement. The right ways of executing the strokes are: Before starting the down stroke, the back of the hand is facing slightly upwards. To execute the down stroke, the arm must descend gently because the cuff is rotated inwards and also the index finger attacks the strings starting at the The upstroke is performed exactly reversing the down stroke, starting to rotate the cuff first, then raisin the forearm as the finger begins attacking the strings We are able to choose to grow the fingernails depending on what sound and tone we're trying to accomplish

"Rasgueado" or ripping style

Probably the most difficult of the strumming techniques may be the "rasgueado". The reason behind this is because it involves more muscles from the right-hand compared to other styles, even though it does not require a rotation from the wrist for the down stroke.

The fundamental technique starts by looking into making a fist with the thumb extended from the hand. The palm from the hand supports the tip of the fingers, which are primed to spring out. Then, because the arm lowers the hand to the strings, we spring each finger with force in rapid succession, beginning with the index. Some players will release the index first, as the most common technique is to produce the small finger first and index last.

This results in a ripping effect since four fingers are hitting several strings, creating a very percussive, drumming and dry sound.

The upstroke, if neccessary, is performed usually using the upper part of the thumb, the nail, requiring then for that wrist to become rotated. Styles completed with just the down stroke could be tango plus some flamenco "palos". Styles done with both of them are mostly flamenco styles or "palos", rumba, along with other South American styles such as milonga. Almost all players have a very solid foundation on how to strum a guitar without a pick.

Mixtures of the above

acoustic guitar - Most flamenco guitarists, for example Paco de Lucia allow us very advanced right hand techniques in addition to those explained above

This concludes the description from the basic styles for how to strum a guitar without a pick.