Jared James Nichols: The advantages of a fingers-only pick-hand technique
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- Опубліковано 9 лют 2025
- For tabs and text of this video lesson, see the December 2024 issue of Guitar World -
bit.ly/GW2020w
FINGER TIPS
Welcome to Jared James Nichols' new column for Guitar World! Over the course of these lessons, he'll discuss everything from his pick-and fret-hand techniques to his approaches to rhythm guitar and soloing, as well as some of his biggest influences.
Jared is exclusively a fingerstyle player, and in his case it stems from the fact that he's left-handed.
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Thanks. I play pickless; seems the hands make the tones. And, at 74, I don't have to worry about dropping the pick or losing it😊
You old fart you!
I’ll use a pick sometimes. When I do… It usually ends up somewhere on the floor
Dude thank you for this. It totally blew my mind when you talked about being left handed and the fighting the pick. I am also left handed dominant playing right handed and I have giant hands where the pick always felt like it was getting lost. I thought I was crazy the way I felt but you just brought it all home for me. I’ve been playing with fingers for a while now and will never go back❤️
As a fellow banana hander, I agree completely!
Mr Nichols..... thank you for what you do mate. You're a great talent.
Fantastic Player/Musician. His tone and dynamics are definitely attributed to his incredible technique.
Thanks so much Jared. Very much appreciated Brother! Been playing a little over 50 years non-stop, and half of that time without a pick, but never quite the way you do. Your style is definitely helping me out in many ways Brother!
I’m a guitarist and a surfer. I’ve heard of left-handed players playing a guitar upside down. But I don’t know that I’ve ever heard of a “goofy hand” player. I’m right handed and couldn’t imagine picking with my left hand and using my right hand on the fretboard. God that would feel weird. But then again most left-handed people I know have a different experience when it comes to the whole dominant hand thing. Like a lot of left-handed people I’ve known have more of an ambidextrous quality compared to right-handed people. I’ve had two left-handed stepdaughters and when they were young they would often do this thing when trying a new activity (like a sport) where it wasn’t immediately clear to them which hand felt better to work with.
I will certainly not give up my Fender Medium Picks forever, but this lesson is great and ear and mind opening! Thanks!
I started learning to play guitar after I retired at 68 years old. The pick just never felt right in my hand. So I finally just threw it down. And that was when I really began to feel like I was making headway.
I could listen to that all day long!!! Many thanks, Jared. Inspiring.
This is so great, thank you!
What a great feel and tone you have.
This is so rad, thanks for sharing your style!
Love pick and fingers.
me too. Both add something to playing
Thanks man!
Excellent vid! Thank you for sharing! I’ve been digging your guitar style for quite awhile now!
Awesome! So happy you are doing these lessons! I just ditched my pick and I been working my technique! I am sure your lessons will help me improve! You Keep me Rocking!
fellow lefty in the same boat, always knew I was compensating and still not able to achieve what pick-users can do. BUT, always knew that it felt right and sets my sound apart. I fingerpick and strum chords interchangeably without realizing it and it's my own thing. Thanks for the validation Jared!
Gary Moore, Wilko Johnson and Mark Knopfler are all in the same boat. It's also widely rumoured that Hendrix was the other way round and was in fact right-handed, but many disagree so I'm staying out of it.
The best story I've heard on that matter is Dave Wakeling of The Beat who though right -handed, naturally took to playing guitar left-handed when he first picked one up simply because as a young Beatle fan, he'd mimed along to Paul McCartney with his tennis raquet and the habit was set.
i play without a pick about 10-15% of the time. It's such a natural feeling. It started because I was learning classical guitar but then I just applied it to everything else.
Great tips! Amazing tone and style. Playing pickless has been a goal of mine for some time. Thanks for the inspiration!
Great vid, thanks for doing this.
I'm a southpaw as well. Strictly left-handed on everything, except the guitar. Shoot I started playing 42 years ago at 12, and I didn't think there was even a choice back then lol. I play with a pick though. I always thought that the right-handed one should be called left-handed and visa-versa. Because we're doing all of the chording and such with our left hands. Anyway, I've picked up and tried to play a left-hander, and it was so awkward! Rock on!
Playing with your fingers only instead of a plectrum you can get so many different funky tones and rhythms and it's so soulful 😊
Funny to hear: I'm a lefty too, using no pick ! Gives a lot more dynamics and expression to one's licks, mixing single notes and open strings. Love it ! Cheers Jared ;)
Great vid! Great tone too!
Thanks for sharing! Another of my favorites, Richie Kotzen went to fingers almost exclusively years ago. He did start using a pick occasionally recently.
Great technique and Dorothy sounds awesome as usual
I'm an acoustic finger picker. I need to feel the strings to feel the music. I'm looking to start playing more electric guitar, and this gives me confidence to know that I don't need to use a pick. Thanks for sharing. 😊
Very Kool. Cheers
Awesome, iv played since the 60,s self taught , so I happened to come across some of that double string playing to fill in, I like that plucking thing you pointed out, I unconsciously use a upstroke and down stroke when I’m using a pick. And do some of those piano licks you pointed out, I’m trying to get into more finger picking, but yea great tips there. Thanks much. Very interesting. 😊
Thanks I too am a lefty who plays guitar right handed and I have a big problem keeping hold of a pick! I did find when I tried bass it became an asset playing finger style. I think a lefty player will understand your video more than a righty. It’s a weird thing to explain,so well done 🏴🇬🇧
Use my index finger as a pick and alternate other fingers in a semi finger pick style. Been doing that for decades. Just not comfortable with the feel or the sound with a pick, the attack is just too "sharp", if that makes sense. Never played metal, not a shredder, never been my thing. Everyone eventually figures out what works best, feels best, sounds best, for them for their own style. Great video. Thanks 😊
I'm lefty who plays right-handed guitar... with a pick. In my experience it's the right hand dexterity that drives everything else. The cleaner I could pick, the faster I could pick. And the progress happened in other areas: improved 2 handed sync, more fluid and faster strumming, quicker chord fretting & changing, accurate hammer ons & pull offs and so on.
I use all the different techniques. Sometimes I hybrid pick, sometimes I use a thumb pic, sometimes I don’t use any pic
Why limit myself to one technique when there are so many choices out there depending on what style you are trying to emulate.
Thanks so much for this. Lefty learned guitar right handed, terrible with a pick. Bookmarked this vid and will study your approach. I thumb down and bang on it caveman style
Finger tone is the best!!!
left hander the same way
I shifted away from using a pick over the years. I just makes sense to me.
Picked for years... Fingerstyle for years... Working on Hybrid now... I still suck, but I'm still loving it 😊
Ernie Ball Prodigy 1.5mm Tri is 🔥
I started on Fender bass so when I picked up the guitar I just kept using my fingers. It was second nature. I’m left-handed too. Thanks.
From a lefty using a right hand guitar ,-I use fingers - *the pick can be great for getting louder bright strumming sound - (yet feels a bit clumsy ) , I feel I can innovate & control the strings better with 'bare' fingers, picking snapping etc
pickless player frm Sarajevo here ! Knopfler happend to me and I loose the pick, or should we say plectrum ? Tommy Emanuel sealed the contract ! Anyhow much more soul into my playing than with a pick.
Thanks for the lesson.
If anyone wants to get blown away by the absolute finest electric finger stylist check out Matteo Mancuso. Otherworldly. You won’t be disappointed
Jared has an amazing picking style and looks like TJ Miller to boot!! ❤
Whatever works for you. I often use the clawhammer style, or BACK of the fingers; but switch off onto a Herco GOLD pick. Both have their characteristic sound and feel.
Chris Buck has developed a nice bridge between pick and no pick playing.
Using a wrap tailpiece as a bridge is interesting.
I like fingers but there is nothing like the sound of a pick hitting the strings especially on an electric guitar. One thing pick players forget to work on is accenting. It’s a very important technique. You have to practice without distortion to perfect it
The Reverend BFG has said to use both. Best of ALL worlds 😉.
I’ve come to find that for me, there’s a place for both pick and fingers. Very cool sound and technique though 👌
As a lefty I prefer using my best hand for fretting. But I've never been able to get the small motions for tremolo picking right. I'm mostly ambidextrous and I started with piano so it's not that the right is useless, but that just never happened no matter what.
Lefty here who plays righty. I don't sound like anybody else and have my fingers to thank...
I'm a lefty, play right, don't use pick. Use mostly my fingers pinch together like I'm holding a pick, but can split my fingers and pluck anytime I want. I mostly use just forefinger and thumb when I pluck around, makes for an interesting combo, good when ur playing solo. The music sounds more full, rhythm, lead and bass at same time.
The pick never felt right for me. I think it is easier to control the dynamics of my playing when I play with my fingers.
Because I can
Good Video. It looks like he replaced his bridge with a stop-bar tailpiece. Never seen that before.
How does he intonate that guitar?!?
Les Pauls before the mid 50s had wrap around (or wraptail) bridges, which looked the same as a stop-bar tailpiece except the top surface is shaped for approximate intonation. The strings were attached to it instead of continuing further down the body to a stoptail. It looks like he is using that kind of wraptail bridge, but instead of wrapping the strings onto it, he added a trapeze tailpiece to the guitar.
@@darwinsaye Yeah doesn’t look like the tailpiece has grooves or any tweaking for approximate intonation settings. Sounds great though
@@chiefline7084 No, the old ones didn’t have string grooves. They just had a slightly angled ridge - angled at about the angle you would see bridge saddles angled on a tune o matic when it’s set up. And so they were not adjustable for intonation. There was pretty much only one gauge of strings in the 50s so there wasn’t really a need to change the intonation. Some of them had an adjuster screw that pushed in against one of the bridge posts, so you could angle the entire bridge a bit more though.
But you will never play as fast without a pic.. well - who’s this Matteo Mancuso? 😂
Mancuso is amazing but that right hand fingerpicking of his looks terribly strange and uncool.
“They didn’t innovate, they just played fast”- Miles Davis.
May be paraphrasing, but the sentiment remains.
I only play with my fingers too, that’s because learning on classical and acoustic, besides the pick feels odd to me. Play with your fingers make a Tele warm and buttery too.
Arguably the best jazz guitarist (who also basically invented playing octaves) to walk the planet, who influenced clapton, srv, benson, etc. was wes montgomery... AND, he played ONLY with his thumb... up strokes AND down... and with incredible speed. wrap your skull around that.
I played without a pick for years, now I’m about 90 percent without a only use a pick for triplets sometimes
mhm
Yeah me too I stopped using a pickleball 2 years ago maybe and I love it.. help me a lot when I play slide
...because one day you want to be as good as #MatteoMancuso? 😊😉
Lindsey Buckingham!!!!! 💪
People respond to a percussive style!
I don't like blues/rock, I just wanted to see someone confidently endorsing fingerstyle
Fingers or finger nails?
5 vs 1..i start tomorrow.....
bite. lots bite..
He left out Jeff Beck.
Literally NONE of these things can't also be done with a pick AND your fingers. I think it's just foolish to cut off any of the tools at your disposal. Why would anyone want to do that?
It's also funny that out of all things, you didn't mention the very few things that can actually be done with just your fingers versus a pick + fingers. That being said, there are definitely more things you can do with a pick than without.
And for that guitar slapping sound: Not my favourite if overdone. Exactly like with slapping on a bass.
Hate picks.
No Jared it’s not pretty cool it’s fucking amazing. You are an inspiration. I’m also a lefty that plays right handed and the pick just doesn’t feel right in my hand. Gonna try using my fingers and see if it helps. Thanks!