Forum

Neil,
In many of your videos for picking tunes, you stress heavily the importance of "sequentially" placing the left hand fingers on the strings individually as the strings are picked--rather than placing all left hand fingers down at once for a given chord shape. What is the reason for this? This idea is new to me and, other than a desire to have strings to continue to ring out from previous chords, I don't understand the benefit. I find it more difficult, so I would like to better understand the benefit to help me persevere.... Thanks, Sonny

Hello Sonny. Welcome to the TG Forum, we are glad you are here.

Neil had mentioned that on many songs it is a good idea to place
the fingers down in the order that they are played because it makes
for smoother chord transitions and it is also easier to maintain
the rhythm of the tune.


Haoli - Bill

haoli25 wrote:

Hello Sonny. Welcome to the TG Forum, we are glad you are here.

Neil had mentioned that on many songs it is a good idea to place
the fingers down in the order that they are played because it makes
for smoother chord transitions and it is also easier to maintain
the rhythm of the tune.


Haoli - Bill

I think it also buys you some time making chord changes. By fretting the notes as you need them it gives you time for the other fingers to catch up.

Sonny is right, it is very awkward to do at first but with practice it does gets easier. I'm so used to slamming into the chord that fretting it slowly and carefully is tough. I only do it when I'm playing fingerstyle! :cheer:

As well as buying time between chord changes it helps emphasise individual notes, it also encourages greater accuracy of getting correct fingering and fret placement. And I think it was said already but it can help with timing.

Welcome to the forum Sonny. It is mostly important to place fingers as needed when playing finger style songs and songs that may have a bass note played before the chord is strummed.

It is important is case #1 because you need to be able to pick the strings and have the fingers there when needed. Sometimes trying to put down all of the fingers at once an still pick the song correctly is not possible or at least not very easy.

In case #2 you would want to be able to hit the bass note without having to wait for the rest of your fingers to arrive. It helps to keep the song flowing correctly.

Ric