page_title: Fingerstyle guitar
section_title: American primitive guitar
hierarchical_section_title: Fingerstyle guitar / North American tradition / American primitive guitar
caption_attribution_description: English: John Fahey in studio playing his Recording King guitar
context_page_description: Fingerstyle guitar is the technique of playing the guitar or bass guitar by plucking the strings directly with the fingertips, fingernails, or picks attached to fingers, as opposed to flatpicking. The term "fingerstyle" is something of a misnomer, since it is present in several different genres and styles of music—but mostly, because it involves a completely different technique, not just a "style" of playing, especially for the guitarist's picking/plucking hand. The term is often used synonymously with fingerpicking except in classical guitar circles, although fingerpicking can also refer to a specific tradition of folk, blues and country guitar playing in the US. The terms "fingerstyle" and "fingerpicking" also applied to similar string instruments such as the banjo.
  Music arranged for fingerstyle playing can include chords, arpeggios and other elements such as artificial harmonics, hammering on and pulling off notes with the fretting hand, using the body of the guitar percussively, and many other techniques. Often, the guitarist will play the melody notes, interspersed with the melody's accompanying chords and the deep bassline simultaneously.
context_section_description: American primitive guitar is a subset of fingerstyle guitar. It originated with John Fahey, whose recordings from the late 1950s to the mid 1960s inspired many guitarists such as Leo Kottke, who made his debut recording of 6- and 12-String Guitar on Fahey's Takoma label in 1969. American primitive guitar can be characterized by the use of folk music or folk-like material, driving alternating-bass fingerpicking with a good deal of ostinato patterns, and the use of alternative tunings (scordatura) such as open D, open G, drop D and open C. The application or "cross-contamination" of traditional forms of music within the style of American primitive guitar is also very common. Examples of traditions that John Fahey and Robbie Basho would employ in their compositions include, but are not limited to, the extended Raga of Indian classical music, the Japanese Koto, and the early ragtime-based country blues music of Mississippi John Hurt or Blind Blake.
caption: John Fahey
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