What is Guitar Fingering?

Playing guitar requires coordination between the right and the left hand: as the right hand strums, the left hand must be coordinated enough to take care of the guitar fingering. In other words, the right hand is responsible for plucking the strings to make them vibrate, and the left hand is responsible for pressing the strings against the frets of the guitar to create different pitches or notes. The action of the left hand is called guitar fingering and requires much practice to accomplish effectively.

Guitar fingering can be difficult for a variety of reasons. The brass or nickel guitar strings themselves can be somewhat painful against the fingertips until the player develops calluses, which can hinder quick and solid movement among the strings. Seasoned guitar players maintain the calluses on their fingertips to aid in guitar fingering and beginners often seek to develop them quickly in order to aid their fingering capabilities. Seasoned guitar players also keep their fingernails as short as possible so that the nails do not interfere with guitar fingering.

Another reason guitar fingering can be quite difficult for a beginner has to do with training the muscles of the hand to stretch far enough to reach the correct positions on the fretboard. While a guitarist may simply position a single finger anywhere on the fretboard to create a musical note, a guitarist must train his hands to reach the correct position for chords, or multi-note combinations that create a tone. In this case, guitar fingering can prove to be especially difficult for individuals with short fingers or generally smaller hands.

For beginners looking to improve their guitar fingering, an electric guitar might be a better choice than an acoustic guitar. Electric guitars typically use lighter-gauge nickel strings that are easier to press, and which yield to finger pressure more easily than the bronze strings of the acoustic guitar. Once the player has developed sufficient comfort on the electric guitar, he can then move onto the acoustic guitar which can be somewhat more difficult in regards to guitar fingering.