Ask John

I'm 64 years old and have been playing for a long time but I'm not very good. I learned to play with just thumb and index finger but I would like to learn to play with thumb and 3 fingers. Is it too late to make the transition and is this something you can teach me? (you can't teach an old dog new tricks?)

Well, luckily, I teach old dogs new tricks all the time. There are actually a lot of guys who play pretty darned well with just a thumb and one finger (take Merle Travis for instance). But demanding one finger to do everything instead of spreading the task out to two or three fingers does cut down on the efficiency. It is also slower, less accurate and not as clean and crisp sounding. Most fingerstyle playing is pretty much done with a thumb and two fingers, with the third finger just being on standby for an occasional emergency. But in classical guitar playing in particular, the third finger is used more. I have a series of tunes that I've gathered over the past 45 years of teaching that work out to be good exercises to get you into the groove of using more fingers - and the right ones for the job. It's not really that tough. Once you work through a half dozen of these lessons you can see how it works enough to apply the ideas to the other tunes in your repertoire.

As to how to get this done, there are really only two options; either you take lessons from me here in Vancouver, WA or you take lessons as one of my Skype students online. I don't know where you live, but the likelihood is that the online lessons would be the ticket. It actually works just fine - we can see and hear each other just like we're sitting together in a room. I also email my Skpye people with attached TAB and charts and diagrams as needed for the songs we're working on. If this interests you, just read over the various pages about online lessons on our website and see what you think. Drop a line anytime and we can talk further...

Thanks,

John