Skip to content
Cadenza

Fingerstyle: Two Voices

When to read this: after Session 11, “Two Strings Plucked Together”, “Two Voices”, “How to Learn a Study” (15 minutes). None of this reading is part of a session’s 50 minutes.

What You’ll Learn

Section titled “What You’ll Learn”

This handout is about playing with the fingers of the picking hand. It covers plucking two strings together, finding the two voices of two-part writing, and how a study is learned. Session 11 sends you to all three sections: “Two Strings Plucked Together”, for two fingers together and the pinch; “Two Voices”; and “How to Learn a Study”.

The pinch over an eighth-note accompaniment is taught in Session 14, in the session itself: this handout has no section and no drill for it.

Two Strings Plucked Together

Section titled “Two Strings Plucked Together”

The plucking fingertips may be tender this week: the pain rule covers this hand too. If they sting, stop fingerpicking for the day and do the pick items of the plan.

Pain rule: tender fingertips are normal. Pain in the wrist, forearm, thumb joint or knuckles, numbness or tingling, any sharp pain, or pain that lasts into the next day means stop. The full rule is in START HERE.

  • Two strings plucked together — Plucking two strings at the same moment, so that the two notes begin as one sound. Two fingers together are written im, ma or ia in the Finger row; the thumb with a finger is a pinch. (Session 11)

  • Pinch — Plucking two strings at the same moment with the thumb and one finger, so that the two notes begin as one sound. In a Finger row it is written pi, pm or pa: the thumb’s letter first. (Session 11)

Each finger keeps its home string. The thumb (p) plays strings 6, 5 and 4, the index finger (i) string 3, the middle finger (m) string 2 and the ring finger (a) string 1, as the beginner course taught. Two notes that begin together are plucked by the two fingers whose strings they are: two fingers where both notes are on strings 3 to 1, and the thumb and a finger where the lower note is on string 6, 5 or 4 (this is the pinch).

The drill below is played on open strings, one pair to a click, in this order: i with m on strings 3 and 2, four times; m with a on strings 2 and 1, four times; then the pinch, the thumb with m on strings 4 and 2, four times.

Copy of Session 11: two strings plucked together

e|----------------------|---0---0---0---0---|-------------------|
B|------0---0---0---0---|---0---0---0---0---|---0---0---0---0---|
G|------0---0---0---0---|-------------------|-------------------|
D|----------------------|-------------------|---0---0---0---0---|
A|----------------------|-------------------|-------------------|
E|----------------------|-------------------|-------------------|
Count:  1   2   3   4       1   2   3   4       1   2   3   4
Finger: im  im  im  im      ma  ma  ma  ma      pm  pm  pm  pm

Letters written together in the Finger row, such as im or pm, are plucked at the same moment. The letters keep the order p i m a.

Tempo: 50 BPM, one pair per click

The figure is not raised: the drill stays at 50 BPM, and only the piece’s tempo rises.

One check of the drill: record its three measures at 50 BPM with the metronome sounding, then listen pair by pair and count the pairs whose two notes begin at different moments. Pass: 12 pairs with no stop, and at most 1 pair whose two notes do not begin together. This is question 1 of Session 11, “Self-Check Questions”, with its pass mark: one recording answers both. If a pair comes apart: place both fingertips on their two strings first, then pluck the two at the same moment. Do not lower the metronome for it. Try again the next day.

Two Voices

Section titled “Two Voices”

  • Two-part writing — Music made of two lines of notes that sound at the same time, a tune above and a lower part under it. (Session 11)

  • Voice (part) — One of the two lines of notes in two-part writing. Where two notes begin together, the higher one belongs to the tune and the lower one to the lower part, which is called the bass whichever string it is on. A note that begins alone belongs to the part that is moving at that count; the lesson of the piece says which. Where the two parts share one note, it belongs to both. (Session 11)

In two-part writing the higher note of two that begin together belongs to the tune, and the lower note belongs to the lower part, which is called the bass even when it is not on strings 6, 5 and 4. A note that begins alone belongs to the part that is moving at that count; the lesson of the piece says which. Where the two parts share one note, it belongs to both. In 3/4 both parts are counted together: 1 2 3.

You can find the two voices on the page of Giuliani’s Andantino, measures 1 to 8. Its TAB is in Session 11 and is not printed again here. In a pair, the higher string is the tune and the lower string is the lower part; in the TAB the higher string is the upper of the two lines. So on beat 1 of measure 1 the note on string 2 is the tune, and the note on string 4 is the lower part. A note that stands alone is told by the rule in the statement above; measures 1 to 8 have none, since every place where something is plucked there holds a pair.

How to Learn a Study

Section titled “How to Learn a Study”

Learn a study in five steps. Each step ends in something you can count.

  1. Read the page without the guitar. Count each measure aloud, and say its Finger row as you count. The step is done when you have counted every measure of the week’s work once.
  2. Play the open-string drill of the skill first, at the study’s starting figure for the week. In Session 11 that is the drill of two strings plucked together at 50 BPM: its three measures, 12 pairs.
  3. Take the study a few measures at a time, in the phrases and as many times as the lesson’s own “How to Learn” steps say. In Session 11 that is four measures at a time: measures 1 to 4 three times, and each of the next three phrases twice.
  4. Join two phrases and play them once through without stopping. Session 11 leaves this step out: its lesson goes from the phrases straight to step 5.
  5. Only then play the whole of what the week’s row names, once through: in Session 11, measures 1 to 16, once each phrase has been played three times in a row with no stop.

The tempo of steps 3 to 5 is the piece’s tempo for the week: from the figure its tempo line starts at, and never above the figure that line works up to. Raise the metronome 5 BPM at a time, and only after three clean runs in a row.

A run is clean when every note or chord lands on its count, every string that should sound rings, and you do not stop.

At the Phase 3 checkpoint the whole piece passes with at most 3 wrong or missed notes. That is the mark of a whole performance: it is not the test for a step.

If the plucking fingertips sting, the line at the head of “Two Strings Plucked Together” holds for every step.