# Playing in Bluegrass style without a flat-pick



## nbs2005 (Mar 21, 2018)

I'm playing around with Bluegrass style playing and technique to add a different flavour to my folk/country/solo acoustic playing. Most modern Bluegrass players use flatpick most of the time. For the last year or so I have tended to want to play with fingers or thumbpick and fingers. The biggest challenge could be volume when playing with group, though adding finger picks (I have never been able to make those work but probably need to try again) could solve that.

Anyone else playing Bluegrass and if so, what techniques are you using? Suggestions on how to get used to fingerpicks? Also happy to open this up to a more general Bluegrass style playing discussion.

Thanks,

Jeff


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## Wardo (Feb 5, 2010)

Are use a cross picking style with a flat pick.


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## guitarman2 (Aug 25, 2006)

I play bluegrass. 90% flatpick. I will throw in some fingers occasionally due partly because I mostly play electric with a hybrid flatpick\fingers style so those habits are hard to kick even when bluegrass is supposed to be flatpick only. And partly because sometimes for certain songs adding fingers gives me more speed than I can get with the flat pick alone. I'm a lefty that plays guitar right handed so my right hand is weaker than my left.


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## nbs2005 (Mar 21, 2018)

@Wardo when you cross pick do you use the 3, 3, 2 pattern (Molly Tuttle has a couple vidoes about that)?

@guitarman2 same for me, left handed but play right.


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## Milkman (Feb 2, 2006)

guitarman2 said:


> I play bluegrass. 90% flatpick. I will throw in some fingers occasionally due partly because I mostly play electric with a hybrid flatpick\fingers style so those habits are hard to kick even when bluegrass is supposed to be flatpick only. And partly because sometimes for certain songs adding fingers gives me more speed than I can get with the flat pick alone. I'm a lefty that plays guitar right handed so my right hand is weaker than my left.



Although I don't play as much as I used to, I was using a hybrid (flat pick plus three fingernails) a lot when I was still gigging.

It's a great way to have the articulation I like for playing runs, and still be able to play some fingerstyle.


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## Wardo (Feb 5, 2010)

nbs2005 said:


> @Wardo when you cross pick do you use the 3, 3, 2 pattern...


It's not that consistantly repetative; it's more that I woke up one morning and realized "that's how they do that" .. lol


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## Always12AM (Sep 2, 2018)

Finger style 99% of the time.
I’ll use a pick for recording some type of “staccato” (not sure if that’s the right word) pleking for effect. But not for actual playing.

A good band leader will pan louder instruments and singers into the back of the stage or room in order to mix and master the human beings and their noise makers according to their volume.


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## wyq17 (Sep 26, 2021)

Hi,sorry if I bump this old post! I think Wayne Henderson is one of the masters of "fingerpicked bluegrass". Check him out if anyone haven't! Have a great day


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## mawmow (Nov 14, 2017)

@nbs2005 Sorry, I did not see that before...
Happy Traum (Homespun Video co.) produced a DVD as intro to Bluegras for fingerpickers.


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