How to Focus on Guitar Techniques Instead of Tone
Many things must be established in the discussion of any skills especially those in the arts. Guitar techniques are no exception to this fact. In guitar, it is often said it is “all in the fingers.” This quote means that a guitarist should value callouses, speed, rhythm, and finger strength over amps, special guitars, and especially effects. The guitar is about talent, not effect pedals. An ‘all in the fingers” approach is the ultimate way to learn guitar techniques.
The tone is secondary in this approach. This means putting a large amount of time into finger exercises, scales, and learning songs without effects or even without an amp. An “all in the fingers” approach can be extremely rewarding for a guitarist because it can enhance going back to effects and amplification after there is a foundation of talent.
The Importance of Finger Exercises and Guitar Techniques
Many guitarists go by an “all in the fingers” approach. Yngwie Malmsteen has a commanding use of music theory, Dave Murray and Eddie Van Halen have used guitar effects creatively and Marty Friedman uses very unique scales from World Music but all of this would be meaningless if not for their constant practicing of finger exercises all designed to strengthen their fingers and ingrain muscle memory in their music.
Finger exercises are very important for these kinds of guitar techniques along with learning a song in its entirety and practicing every day. Finger exercises are done by playing one note per finger, per fret, per string in a sequence forward and backward. Finger exercises make the fingers stronger allowing for faster, more precise playing and larger stretches on the fretboard. Doing scales and runs on the fretboard becomes easy once an “All in the Fingers” approach is started.
The reason why an “All in the Fingers” approach gets such a large amount of results is that guitar requires fretting and picking and without that sound cannot be produced. When playing a guitar solo for example note for note, each note must be picked, tapped, hammered on, pulled off, played staccato, played legato, bent, and slid to and all of this requires good finger strength and timing.
Benefits of Finesse and Technique When Using Scales
Scales especially require an “All in the Fingers” approach to playing guitar because scales are meant to be played up, down, or with improvisation and all of this requires a large amount of finger strength or even stretching to accomplish.
Tapping is a guitar technique that shows how the picking hand requires strength as well when it comes to fretting notes.
Another part of this method of guitar playing is playing chords correctly. This can approached from many different angles. This includes putting enough finger strength on the notes so they ring, playing the notes in the right order, allowing open notes or notes under or behind a barre ring rather than muting it by accident, and barring the fret correctly when playing a barre chord.
A Barre Chord or a Hendrix major chord can often be difficult because Barre Chords can be hard to fret and a Hendrix Major Chord only works if the G String can ring. Transitioning fast between chords can also intersect with an “all in the fingers”.
Mastering Bending and Legato Guitar Techniques
One mistake that can be made by anyone when using an amp or effects pedal is confusing tone with shred-craft.
Bending is a guitar technique that uses a large amount of physical finger strength. The amount of strength used while bending is directly proportional to the increase in pitch of the note. A high bend is often used as the climax to a guitar solo. A high bend is often used as the climax to a guitar solo.
There are many ways to bend a guitar string. A guitar can be bent up and down. A bend can be as low as a quarter-step to as high as a perfect fourth or fifth. A Pre-bend is a bend in which a note has its pitch raised before it is picked often being lowered back to the original pitch.
Vibrato is a technique in which a note is bent and lowered back and forth in rapid succession for dramatic effect. Often considered a skill and an art in itself, many guitarists are famous for their skills at vibrato such as George Lynch and Yngwie Malmsteen. George Lynch especially is famous for his control over his vibrato, able to make narrow or wide, fast or slow, while also being able to vibrato multiple notes in a melodic sequence.
Whammy Bar Tricks, Hammer-Ons, and Pull-Offs
The use of the whammy bar is also included in this guitar learning approach because the whammy can be used musically. A great example of this technique is the whammy bar technique using a whammy bar dip to slide into the next note.
Speaking of which, a slide is a note where the fretting finger is lowered or raised along the guitar neck raising or lowering the pitch of the note while having to pick the subsequent note.
A hammer-on is a note that is played by pressing the fretting finger down on a fret and a pull-off is the opposite being played by removing a fretting finger from the fret. Hammer-ons and pull-offs can be chained together creating a trill. Trills are common in guitar music being associated with Dave Murray of Iron Maiden and being featured in Roundabout by Yes.
These guitar techniques are at least partially related to the playing style known as legato in which almost all notes are played without picking and only with the fingers. Legato often sounds more unique than staccato which is the opposite style where every note is picked. staccato is often associated with rhythm guitar and palm-muting while legato is often associated with lead guitar.
Legato is often considered a harder style to play than Staccato. Whether Legato or Staccato, perfect or close to perfect fretwork is hard to come by. One guitarist who is famous for his fretwork with a high level of skill is Akio Shimizu, a guitarist who played for the Japanese band Anthem.
Versatility of Scales in Guitar Playing: Runs and Signature Styles
A guitarist’s skill is directly proportional to how much they stick to an “All in the fingers” approach. One great benefit of playing with an “all in the fingers” style is the use of runs. Runs are a series of multiple notes usually down or up the fret or along the strings that use multiple notes strung together. A run is often used as a start to a solo.
A scale might be played in full or in part as a run or the notes in scale may be used in some other way, this fact about scale makes them highly versatile and the cornerstone of any guitar solo. A scale is a group of notes in a key played in a particular order often being named after the note they start with, the root note, such as C Major, the Key of C starting on a C Note. The second note is the second, the third note is the third, the fourth note is the perfect fourth, and so on.
There are many different scales. There are 8 modes in each Key, each with their scales, each beginning with a different root note, scales can be as simple as the pentatonic scale or can be as complex as a three-per-string scale or even more complex.
Scales can be very rewarding to use since they can be improvised. Playing scales straight up or down is often looked down upon. Many guitarists have one or more signature scales that they often play.
Advanced Guitar Techniques: Finger Tapping and Harmonics
Eddie Van Halen was one of the first guitarists to not only popularize Finger tapping but also use a scale other than the pentatonic scale.
Finger tapping is yet another amazing guitar technique involving using both hands, the picking hand taps notes on the fretboard while hammer-ons and pull-offs are done by the fretting hand. A fingertip can tap one guitar string or multiple, a finger-tap can even be wide enough to be a run such as Van Halen’s cover of “You’re No Good”. A variation of tapping is the tapping slide or “U.F.O. sound” used in Van Halen’s “Ice Cream Man”.
Tremolo picking is another form of guitar technique in which a note is played an extreme amount of times, far faster than a 32nd note. Tremolo picking is often used as a build-up to the climax of a guitar solo. Tremolo picking has been a part of rhythm guitar since at least Dick Dale’s “Misirlou”, a Surf Rock classic, however like finger tapping, it was popularized by Eddie Van Halen in lead guitar.
Different Types of Harmonics
Another example of a great technique is harmonics. Harmonics are like alternate forms of notes. There are two types of harmonics, natural harmonics and artificial harmonics. An artificial harmonic on a guitar might also be called a pinch harmonic.
A natural harmonic is played on guitar by playing a note while placing a finger lightly over a fret and then removing the finger when the note is played. The best place for natural harmonics is the 12th fret. Natural harmonics have a characteristic bell sound.
A pinch harmonic is played by picking a note and quickly touching the string being picked with the picking hand thumb or fingernail. A pinch harmonic sounds like a squeal. Dimebag Darrel of the band Pantera was famous for using pinch harmonics in combination with raising the pitch of the note via raising the Floyd Rose whammy bar.
String skipping and sweep picking is the ultimate level of the “all in the fingers” approach to playing guitar.
Perfecting Guitar Solos and Daily Practice for Finger-Based Guitarists
One of the greatest ways to play in an “All in the fingers” style is to practice every day. Practicing every day ingrains the parts that a guitarist plays and increases finger strength.
Practicing is the core of muscle memory. Muscle memory is very important for guitar because it reduces the amount of effort required to play a piece on the guitar.
Guitar solos are unique in terms of song structure as an individual solo is usually never repeated in an individual song, making every solo unique. The ultimate level of the “all in the fingers” style is the guitar solo.
A guitar solo is the guitarist’s time to shine and evoke just as much emotion and gravitas as the vocalist. A guitar solo is not everything but the lead is half of the guitar playing and a bad lead will always ruin a song’s climax while a great lead guitar can often save a build-up with lackluster rhythm guitar.
Difference Between Meticulous Playing and Improvisation
A thing that must always be remembered regarding guitar techniques is that there is a difference between playing something improvised in the moment and playing something that was intensely practiced note by note. Both of these techniques have a large amount of musical value, neither are better than the other and they are appropriate at different times. Improvisation can sound chaotic, wild, and anarchic while a well-practiced section can sound faultless and perfect.
The benefit to Improvisation is that it can use any technique on the fly and can surprise listeners and the benefit to playing a well-practiced section is the amazing precision. Something that falls between the two extremes in the middle can be done.
This way of playing also feels great to the player once someone can gain some skills with it, being able to fly across the fretboard.
However, learning guitar is a fluid and multi-faceted process, so no aspect of it should ever be ignored.
A great point a personal friend of mine once was that a finger-based guitarist uses an amp their sound is amazing. However, the way the fingers play on the frets is easily the most important part.
Fretwork is the foundation of guitar playing and no guitarist should ever forget that. Playing guitar is one the of most awesome and rewarding hobbies in the world all because the work that’s put shows in every time you play.
