Guitar pick or finger-strumming?

[A. Roy]

I know there are folks here who are much more adept and knowledgeable than I am about authentic Civil War-era music, so I thought I would see what others think about the best way to strike guitar strings. Would soldiers, traveling musicians, or just parlor amateurs have used some kind of a pick (a.k.a plectrum), or would they have just strummed with their fingers? Or something else?

Right now I'm using a 3/4-size classical guitar that I bought recently. It has fairly new nylon strings. I'm thinking about replacing those after a while with nylgut strings, which I understand are supposed to approximate the sound of old-time gut.

I guess while I'm at it, I might ask about finger technique. The obvious method would be a down-stroke with a lighter up-stroke, in a repeated rhythm. I'm pretty good with what's called Travis style finger picking, but I suspect that is a more recent innovation.

(Besides just enjoying playing music, I have thought about playing some songs in living-history settings, so I've been working on a so far very small repertoire...)

Any thoughts about this?

ARB

 

[Salterr]

I know there are folks here who are much more adept and knowledgeable than I am about authentic Civil War-era music, so I thought I would see what others think about the best way to strike guitar strings. Would soldiers, traveling musicians, or just parlor amateurs have used some kind of a pick (a.k.a plectrum), or would they have just strummed with their fingers? Or something else?

Right now I'm using a 3/4-size classical guitar that I bought recently. It has fairly new nylon strings. I'm thinking about replacing those after a while with nylgut strings, which I understand are supposed to approximate the sound of old-time gut.

I guess while I'm at it, I might ask about finger technique. The obvious method would be a down-stroke with a lighter up-stroke, in a repeated rhythm. I'm pretty good with what's called Travis style finger picking, but I suspect that is a more recent innovation.

(Besides just enjoying playing music, I have thought about playing some songs in living-history settings, so I've been working on a so far very small repertoire...)

Any thoughts about this?

ARB

I love fingerpicking when I play, I gave up playing with a pick years ago because you get so much more variation in what you can play. I'm no expert in civil war period style but I feel like it would be more of a classical styling played with your fingers.

 

[7thWisconsin]

They were still playing with their fingers during the 1860s. That´s the route I go for period music. You´re supposed to hold your fingers like you have a pick in them but don´t and strum like you described. Call me clumsy, but I just can´t play that way. I tend to hit the bass note with my thumb, and the rest of the strings with my 1,2 and 3rd fingers held loosely. Here´s a chart I wrote for a fellow guitarist detailing a couple common folk song patterns. (It was written with Russian folk songs in mind, so that´s what the examples mentioned are.) These 3 or 4 will keep you in most accompaniment situations. The traditional abbreviations for the right hand fingers are P-I-M-A with P being the thumb, I being the index finger and so on. You don´t use the pinky, so it doesn´t get a letter. (Funny - I don´t use my little finger even when playing folk music. I guess you just can´t break some rules.)

 

[Old Soldier]

They were still playing with their fingers during the 1860s. That´s the route I go for period music. You´re supposed to hold your fingers like you have a pick in them but don´t and strum like you described. Call me clumsy, but I just can´t play that way. I tend to hit the bass note with my thumb, and the rest of the strings with my 1,2 and 3rd fingers held loosely. Here´s a chart I wrote for a fellow guitarist detailing a couple common folk song patterns. (It was written with Russian folk songs in mind, so that´s what the examples mentioned are.) These 3 or 4 will keep you in most accompaniment situations. The traditional abbreviations for the right hand fingers are P-I-M-A with P being the thumb, I being the index finger and so on. You don´t use the pinky, so it doesn´t get a letter. (Funny - I don´t use my little finger even when playing folk music. I guess you just can´t break some rules.)

FINGERNAILS. You pick with your fingernails and grow them appropriately. A good classical or folk guitarist can always be spotted by their fingernails - long on the right (picking hand) and short on the left (fingerboard hand), both well cut and filed smooth.

BW - One modern exception is Mark Knopfler who PLUCKS the strings with this finger tips a la bass/strings player

 

[7thWisconsin]

FINGERNAILS. You pick with your fingernails and grow them appropriately. A good classical or folk guitarist can always be spotted by their fingernails - long on the right (picking hand) and short on the left (fingerboard hand), both well cut and filed smooth.

BW - One modern exception is Mark Knopfler who PLUCKS the strings with this finger tips a la bass/strings player

LOL you´re right! I just figured that was understood! I even trim my nails that way.

 

[A. Roy]

They were still playing with their fingers during the 1860s. That´s the route I go for period music. You´re supposed to hold your fingers like you have a pick in them but don´t and strum like you described. Call me clumsy, but I just can´t play that way. I tend to hit the bass note with my thumb, and the rest of the strings with my 1,2 and 3rd fingers held loosely. Here´s a chart I wrote for a fellow guitarist detailing a couple common folk song patterns. (It was written with Russian folk songs in mind, so that´s what the examples mentioned are.) These 3 or 4 will keep you in most accompaniment situations. The traditional abbreviations for the right hand fingers are P-I-M-A with P being the thumb, I being the index finger and so on. You don´t use the pinky, so it doesn´t get a letter. (Funny - I don´t use my little finger even when playing folk music. I guess you just can´t break some rules.)

Thanks so much for replying to this -- I'll be analyzing this chart, but initially I think I see what it's getting at! So in the technique you're suggesting, would your fingernails be striking the strings in more of a light strumming motion, or would each fingernail be picking a string? I'm guessing that either way could work?
ARB

 

[7thWisconsin]

Thanks so much for replying to this -- I'll be analyzing this chart, but initially I think I see what it's getting at! So in the technique you're suggesting, would your fingernails be striking the strings in more of a light strumming motion, or would each fingernail be picking a string? I'm guessing that either way could work?
ARB

What you´re going to want to do is what classical guitar calls a ¨free stroke.¨ You pluck the string, but your finger is curved, and you don´t stop on the next string. The action is more natural than the description. In most chords, you will place your I M A fingers so that they will strike G B and E strings, leaving P to cover the E A and D, which are usually your bass notes. Keep time in your head, or tap your foot ¨1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and.¨

 

[Old Soldier]

Or 'flat picking' where one finger or thumb nail is used to pick across the strings as well as strum. Plectrums were used by people with no fingernails to pick with. Work does not always leave you with long fingernails.

 

[A. Roy]

Or 'flat picking' where one finger or thumb nail is used to pick across the strings as well as strum. Plectrums were used by people with no fingernails to pick with. Work does not always leave you with long fingernails.

Any ideas about what kinds of materials they might have used for a plectrum at that time? A chip of wood maybe?
ARB

 

[Old Soldier]

Any ideas about what kinds of materials they might have used for a plectrum at that time? A chip of wood maybe?
ARB

Just a fingernail. Many used to be made from keretin from other sources such as hooves. It has to be quite flexible without breaking.

 

[7thWisconsin]

I have actually never seen a pick that didn´t date from the 20th century. Back in the 15-16th centuries, the ones in pictures are fairly long, like a quill without feathers. But those would be thoroughly inappropriate for a 19th century guitar. I really don´t know.
Also, be very careful with a pick on a classical guitar. It doesn´t have a pick guard under the tone hole, and you will scratch up the surface pretty quickly. Willie Nelson can testify.

 

[A. Roy]

Also, be very careful with a pick on a classical guitar. It doesn´t have a pick guard under the tone hole, and you will scratch up the surface pretty quickly. Willie Nelson can testify.

Yes, I'd hate to see it end up like old "Trigger"!
ARB

 

[Bentonville]

This thread is great. I've been playing forebears and have been looking at a tackledtack head banjo kit.

Got me thinking about clawhammer vs. frailing. It'd probably be one of the two or I'd say a variation. There are the era's Mel Bay books out there.

Guitar was played but banjo had a bigger sound and following right up to early jazz.

 

[7thWisconsin]

I´m gonna go out on a limb here and say the banjo was the most popular portable accompaniment instrument in our time period. The guitar was really just making the jump still from being a folk instrument to being taken seriously, and was still the folk instrument of Latin America, Spain and Italy. The banjo is louder than the classical guitar, and lends itself to playing in groups like minstrel troupes.

 

[Bentonville]

I´m gonna go out on a limb here and say the banjo was the most popular portable accompaniment instrument in our time period. The guitar was really just making the jump still from being a folk instrument to being taken seriously, and was still the folk instrument of Latin America, Spain and Italy. The banjo is louder than the classical guitar, and lends itself to playing in groups like minstrel troupes.

There is also the gender factor that came into play too. Ladies were more apt to play guitar than banjo.

 

[7thWisconsin]

There is also the gender factor that came into play too. Ladies were more apt to play guitar than banjo.

Oh... you know that´s true! Ironically, a hundred years later playing the guitar had become a symbol of male prowess!

 

[Bentonville]

Oh... you know that´s true! Ironically, a hundred years later playing the guitar had become a symbol of male prowess!

Yes. I didn't know a politic way to say that. Lol

 

[Old Soldier]

Gut strings though, not steel. (No nylon in those days)

 

[Bentonville]

Gut strings though, not steel. (No nylon in those days)

I'm building a minstrel banjo. They have gut and that sounds best totally but if you have acidity in your sweat they have varnished but the tone isn't the same. Them they have nylagut. Very stable so they can be played in various climates, ETC, without a very expensive set going south...

 

[Old Soldier]

I'm building a minstrel banjo. They have gut and that sounds best totally but if you have acidity in your sweat they have varnished but the tone isn't the same. Them they have nylagut. Very stable so they can be played in various climates, ETC, without a very expensive set going south...

The only choice they had in Civil War days was WHICH gut they used. I am sure there would have been some interesting choices.