Best Guitar For Fingerstyle

Are you looking to buy the best guitar for fingerstyle playing for your money, but you aren’t exactly sure what to look for? Our team will teach you what you should be checking for and how much you can expect to pay.

 So continue reading all the way through to find out what the guitar shops wish you didn’t know about purchasing guitars.

Best Guitar For Fingerstyle Buyer’s Guide

There is so much confusion out there, even amongst guitar shop owners,especially concerning playing the guitar with a pick, or using just your fingers. Just because you choose not to use a pick, doesn’t make you a picker. Many guitarists use their thumb to play the guitar, but they are not pickers. So let’s look at what makes a good fingerpicking guitar.

Body Shape

The shape of the guitar has a great deal of influence on the comfort and tonal quality of the guitar. Guitar’s most suited to fingerpicking styles tend to have a tighter waist. Guitars like orchestra or concert guitars for example. This will also affect the tone of the guitar.

Tonal Quality

Larger guitars like jumbos produce a loud booming sound, with considerably more bass than is necessary. The way the sound is produced is directly linked to the size and shape of the guitar, dreadnoughts are too loud and create too much sound for finger picking. Whereas concert guitars with their tighter waist, are less likely to sound so noisy. They have a mellow, peaceful, balanced tone.

Wood Used

The quality of the wood used for making a finger picking guitar will greatly alter the tonal qualities of the instrument. It has been known for many years that the body of the guitar acts in many ways as the body of a drum, and the trick to tonal quality is coupling the correct body type wood with the correct top. 

Balance

As the guitarist controls the bass etc through their playing, the guitar itself should be balanced. So any sounds created are also balanced. This is why a smaller bodied guitar is best suited to the finger picking style. 

Guitar Size

The size of the guitar will have an influence on the sound and tonal quality of the guitar. Those with a smaller, tighter waist are likely to sound far more balanced and evenly toned. Plus the overall scale length will create less tension in the strings making them more responsive and easier to fret.

Comfort 

A smaller guitar will be more comfortable to hold, and easier to play. Especially if playing using the fingers. Strumming does not present such a problem and the larger body on a dreadnought or similar will sound better if subjected to extra pressure from a playing point of view, but that’s not finger picking. 

With finger picking guitars, designed specifically for that purpose, using just the fingers and thumb will often create a louder overall sound than strumming could achieve.

Frequently Asked Questions