String Love Guitar Lessons

Today, let’s take a look at one of the most important–and fantastic!–arpeggios you can play on the guitar.

The PIMAMI arpeggio.

Where the PIMA arpeggio stops, the PIMAMI arpeggio continues. You go from your thumb through the index and middle fingers to the ring finger, and then you bring things back toward the bass by playing the middle and then index fingers once again.

Even though we’re only adding in two extra fingers on top of the PIMA arpeggio we already played, this PIMAMI arpeggio is much, much more challenging from the standpoint of getting the fingers to move smoothly and freely.

It all comes down to that crucial moment when your ring finger plays and your middle and index fingers have to kick back out to get ready to play their notes the second time around.

Check out this video for a full demonstration and explanation:

No matter how many times I tell you to take this slowly and really work on making these movements smooth, relaxed and fluid, you are probably going to underestimate the challenge posed by this PIMAMI arpeggio.

And that’s okay.

The fact is that you can always come back and re-work this arpeggio down the road. And the fact is that you’re going to want to–this arpeggio is a fantastic accompaniment pattern you can use whenever you play music on the guitar (in 3/4 time).

I play the arpeggio practically every day. I use it all over the place. Even at its most simple and straightforward, it sounds fantastic.

So get to it! Use that metronome and work this arpeggio until it become second nature. Your guitar playing will thank you forevermore.

Arpeggios are like the building blocks of great fingerstyle guitar playing.

Fingerstylists often jump from arpeggio to arpeggio across a piece. Mastering a wide variety of arpeggios helps you in so many ways as a guitarist. You build your hand’s strength and dexterity. You develop an easy fluency that allows you to enter any musical situation with plenty to say. You get to focus intensely on the micro-movements your fingers make as they play.

And out of all the arpeggios you can play on the guitar, one arpeggio above all others stands as the foundation for everything else you will play: the PIMA Arpeggio.

Check out this video for an introduction to the PIMA Arpeggio–what it is and some important things you need to keep in mind as you work on it:

To summarize the video:

It is absolutely worth taking the time to really master the PIMA Arpeggio since so much of what you’ll do in the future on the guitar rests on this sequence.

Work carefully and slowly, and pay close attention to the way the thumb and fingers move.

One of the key ideas to keep in mind as you learn the PIMA Arpeggio is “Preparations.” Preparations involve placing your fingers back on the strings after they play at the beginning of the next arpeggio sequence.

So, as your thumb returns to its bass string, bring your I, M and A fingers into contact with their respective strings as well.

Preparing is something I’ll hit on again and again. For now, just note that as you return to the top of the arpeggio and get ready to play with your thumb, bring your other fingers to rest on the strings they will play.

Finally, work this arpeggio at a slow speed with a metronome so that there’s no yawning space between the end of the arpeggio (when A plays) and the beginning of the arpeggio (when P starts off the next round).

If you work slowly and methodically with a metronome, you will quickly make the arpeggio sound like a continuous stream of notes, which is exactly what we’re after.

When you play fingerstyle guitar, the thumb and the fingers work together but live in different worlds.

The fingers pull up from the higher-pitched strings toward the lower-pitched strings. They pull back into the hand as they play.

The thumb, in contrast, plays from the lower-pitched strings toward the higher-pitched strings. It swings in the opposite direction as the fingers.

It’s extremely important to keep your thumb out of the fingers’ way (and vice versa).

In this video, I show you some important aspects of how to hold and use the thumb for fingerstyle guitar:

One of the biggest things to keep in mind as you play fingerstyle guitar and use your thumb is to bring your thumb back to where it needs to be in order to play the next note.

I call this making the thumb “spring-loaded.” Don’t get in the habit of allowing your thumb to hover and float up and away from the strings after it plays. Many beginning fingerstyle guitar players make this mistake–their thumbs float off wherever and just barely make it back to the string before they play their next note.

As you play more difficult music, you won’t be able to get away with this wasted thumb movement. So it’s a good idea to work good thumb habits from the start so you don’t have to go back and undo all those bad habits later.

I hope that helps!

As always, ask any questions you might have in the comments. We’re laying the foundation for everything that comes next.

This series of fingerstyle guitar lessons targets the central questions that every beginning fingerstyle guitarist encounters at the outset of learning how to play the guitar.

In the last lesson, I discussed how to hold the guitar. There are several options, but you need to understand the tradeoffs between one way of holding the guitar and another. Choose wisely.

In this post, let’s take a look at the basics for how the fingers move when you play fingerstyle guitar.

Now, in this lesson, I am referring entirely to the fingers of your picking hand. Whichever hand you use to pluck the strings.

Many (if not most) beginning fingerstyle guitarists tend to start out clawing at the strings and using their fingers in ways that they’ll have to unlearn down the road.

Let’s get you started off with great, solid technique. If you want to learn how to hold and use your fingers to play fingerstyle guitar, check out this video:

Figuring out the best way to move your fingers just begins the battle–then comes the steady process of applying your desired technique. It takes time to convince your fingers to move differently from how they initially try to move, so be patient with yourself. But also be very aware and attentive as you work on this–muscle memory can be your best friend or your worst enemy on the guitar.

The key thing to keep in mind when it comes to moving your fingers for fingerstyle guitar is to avoid the claw where your fingers move from the knuckle closest to the fingertip.

Generate your finger movements from higher up in the fingers–the joint closest to the palm and the joint in the middle of the fingers. You’ll have more power and control when you move from there, and power and control are everything when it comes to fingerstyle guitar.

A Lot Like Waving

Also, remember the idea that the proper finger movements feel a lot like waving. You wave bye-bye against the strings and pull your fingers back from the big and middle knuckles into the palm.

I know, I know–this feels incredibly strange at first.

However, after a few short weeks this will all feel like second nature.

Patience, Patience, Patience

If you get frustrated as you try to figure out how to move your fingers well on the guitar, just pause and take a deep breath. You’ll get there. This stuff takes time, but working out the proper finger movements is totally worth it.

Welcome to this first installment of a series of lessons on Fingerstyle Guitar Foundations.

Today, I’m discussing the most basic concern beginners face when they begin learning to play fingerstyle guitar: How do you hold the guitar, and how do you position your hands?

In this video, I walk you through several different options you have and the pros and cons of each:

More than anything, what I want you to be aware of is the tradeoffs you make when you choose to hold the guitar one way vs. another.

Be aware of the tension in your body and notice how different ways of holding the guitar impact the straightness of your spine, the angle of your hands and fingers on the guitar and how rooted into the ground you feel.

My Preferred Methods for Holding the Guitar

When I’m practicing seriously, I use the classical position with the guitar placed between my legs and leaning against my solar plexus. However, I use the Gitano almost religiously. It is THAT fantastic. So much better than a footstool.

(If you’d like a Gitano of your very own, head here.)

If I’m looking for a more casual playing experience, I usually just place the guitar on my right leg near the hip. However, I still use the Gitano in this position, which raises the neck of the guitar up to a more comfortable level. I also rarely do any serious practicing while holding the guitar in this position. The tension that results from twisting my spine to orient my body to the guitar on my hip inhibits my ability to play relaxed and fluidly at a high level.

Let Your Experience Guide You

Whatever you do, don’t take my word for how to hold your guitar.

Explore the different options that appeal to you.

But always be aware of the many sensations your body experiences as you hold the guitar in different positions.

This may all feel like a big to-do about a very small issue, but trust me–how you hold the guitar serves as the foundation for all the music you will make moving forward.

It makes sense to choose consciously and deliberately with a good perspective on why you hold the guitar the way you do.