How to Play Guitar - Pick Hand

This section about the basic ways to strum, pick, pluck the guitar strings. Like a lot of people I play guitar right handed, so although I try to stick to the terms picking and fretting hands if I do talk about right and left hands I mean picking and fretting respectively!

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Why does style matter:
I am, as I have said before, originally a bassist. This has had a great impact on the way I have learnt to play guitar. Bassists tend to play slower than guitarists and mostly one at a time. This increased focus on the individual notes means that each note played becomes more important. In order to increase the range of notes that can be played, the technique with which they are played can offer a whole new way to use the instrument.

Often if you are looking for a new sound as a guitarist the first place you go is to a music shop and pick up an effects pedal, but do you really need it? I am guilty of the same thing, rushing out and buying pedals everytime I get a little tired of my sound. I pick up the pedal, play with it a few times and then it ends up in a cupboard. Don't get me wrong, f/x pedals can be great, but there are 2 things to remember:

1. They AREN'T neccessary

2. Is it really what you need

This might all sound a bit random, but something that I was shown as a relatively new bassist was the range of sounds that can be acheived with your finger techniques.

Fingers vs Picks:

This is a much bigger question for bassists where you are very unlikely to strum the instrument so there are fewer benefits in a pick, yet many bassists still favor a pick. As a guitarist the pick makes it a lot easier to strum, but this doesn't mean that the fingering techniques should be ignored.

Fingering Techniques:

I will right about various finger techniques first, because I am a lot more familiar with them and can write about them in greater detail.

Getting Started:
When plucking strings with your fingers you want to try to pull the string in such a way that it doesn't buzz on the frets. to do this you want to try and get the string to vibrate side to side rather than up and down. Practice this with at least index and middle fingers and if at all possible with the ring finger as well. This will take a bit of practice if you aren't to used to it, but stick with it!

The key to playing fast in the fingering style is to use more than one finger. Although this will seem almost impossible at first (I found it really hard to break the habit of just using my index finger!), once you do adapt you will effectively double (or triple if you can use your ring finger as well) your playing speed. At the moment I am working on playing with my ring finger as well and it is taking a lot of work to get used to it.  All you want to do to start off with is play: index, middle, index, middle. If you want to then progress onto using your ring finger as well there are 2 different ways to play:
i,m,r,m,i,m,r,m - this is a sort of back and forth pattern that most find simpler but slower than the other:
i,m,r,i,m,r,i,m,r / r,m,i,r,m,i,r,m,i - 123 pattern is the faster but arguably harder pattern.

Differences Between Fingering and Picking - Starting on various techniques:

1. Try playing a few notes with a pick and then repeating the same notes with your fingers. See what differences you can hear between the two.
2. Now put the pick down and just with your fingers, play some notes as before with the fingers near the neck and near the bridge. Again see how the sound changes.
It is these changes in sound that are the key to discovering techniques that will change your sound.