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Guitar/General rules for fingering

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Navigation:  Guitar | Campfire Diploma

II. Lessons:   1) Forming the D chord • 4/4-beat • D-A 2) D-G • Major Cadence • Western Strumming • 3/4-beat 3) G-C-D • Fingering • Campfire Strumming 4) G-Em-C-D 5) Quick Chord Change 6) C-Am 7) Jumps Em-D / G-Am 8) Completion


See also the Wikibook b:de:Gitarre: allgemeine Regeln zum Fingersatz.


The general rules for fingering

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The fingerings that are taught here for the individual chords did not come about by chance. They are based on the classical guitar schools and are intended to prepare you now if you want to play fingerstyle later on (e.g. in the melody picking course). A chord should always be played in such a way that the fingers have to move as little as possible when changing the grip.

Where possible
  1. Index finger first fret
  2. Middle finger second fret
  3. Ring finger third fret
  4. Little finger fourth fret
If two or more fingers have to be on a fret
  • Index finger goes over the middle finger
  • Middle finger goes over the ring finger
  • Ring finger goes over the little finger

Advantages of standard fingering

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  1. When changing the 9 chords C, F, G, G7, D, E and A major as well as E and A minor, you always have the same fingerings. The fingering changes will therefore all follow the same pattern.
  2. The root note is almost always where the ring finger is. Later in the folk diploma, when you learn the first plucking patterns, you always know where the bass note is.
  3. Once you have learned a bass line or a picking figure (comes in the folk diploma), you can very easily transfer it to other similarly fingered chords.
  4. Fingering changes are usually easier and faster.

Of course there are exceptions, but these can safely wait until you can play all the standard chords with the standard fingerings and have taken advantage of all the learning benefits of the standard fingering.

And if you don't believe it yet: with just a few "mnemonics" you can find all the notes of the C major scale in the first frets. And you won't need more than one lesson to learn it.

Preferred positions

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From the general fingering rules you can derive a "favorite position" for the fingers for the simple chords.

If a finger is not needed for a certain chord, it can lie in wait hovering above its favorite position. It will probably be needed there again soon.

Favorite positions:

index finger
||-i-|---|---|-
||<i>|---|---|-
||-i-|---|---|-
||---|---|---|-
||---|---|---|-
||---|---|---|-

middle finger
||---|---|---|-
||---|---|---|-
||---|-m-|---|-
||---|<m>|---|-
||---|-m-|---|-
||---|---|---|-

ring finger
||---|---|---|-
||---|---|---|-
||---|---|---|-
||---|---|-r-|-
||---|---|<r>|-
||---|---|-r-|-

pinkie finger
||---|---|-p-|-
||---|---|<p>|-
||---|---|-p-|-
||---|---|---|-
||---|---|---|-
||---|---|---|-

It is recommended to always keep your ring and middle fingers close together, as they will most likely be gripped in one of these two positions:

  -  

Tip

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If you have already learned a different fingering, you should simply learn the standard fingering like a new chord and use it for new songs. As soon as you have noticed the advantages of the standard fingering, you will also use the "new" fingering for the old songs.

For those who may have learned the G major chord differently

G without pinky?

 
Chord changes G-C-D 		Campfire Diploma  
Campfire strumming pattern
(3b) Fingering
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