We’ve talked about how to play the guitar with the pick, and there is a whole another approach to playing it. And that is called fingerstyle guitar. Fingerstyle guitar is a means of playing the instrument without any pick at all. Just using your fingers and/or your fingernails, which brings us to an interesting point. A lot of guitar players, who play a lot of  fingerstyle, actually grow out their finger nails. That is certainly why I have them, it’s not a fashion statement. But, you don’t have to... However it is required, and if you have a Nylon String guitar, it’s definitely recommended. That is how the instrument is designed to be played. Fingernails or not, we can move forward to techniques. The basic way that you want to play a fingerstyle Guitar, when you start out with, is to take your thumb and to rest it on the 6^th string. Then just let your fingers fall down and relax. The index, middle, and ring finger - not the pinkie. We are going to leave the pinkie out of the equation. I am going to take these three fingers, and I am going to play some on the bottom three strings of the guitar. One string per finger. If I move the fingers around on the string, slide them around or maybe slide my thumb around, I can explore different angles and heights in my wrist, and different relationships between the thumb and the index finger, for that matter. What you want to do is have the thumb be in front of the index, so that when thumb goes to play a note, for example, it doesn’t crash into the fingers. They should each be able to move independent of the other. So, I am going to place the thumb on the 6^th string,  fingers on the bottom three, and I am going to pluck a thumb note.  [Plucks one string]. Just like that. Now, I am going to keep my thumb placed on the 6^th string, and pluck up with the fingers. [Plucks up the bottom strings with the fingers]. Notice that with the hand I am not coming off the instrument, and if you keep the thumb still, it will actually help you make a nice, quiet motion with the fingers. The fingers are actually plucking up towards the palm. These kind of motions are called free strokes. A Free Stroke (Tirando) is basically when you pluck the string up like that. [Plucks the string up]. The other way that you can produce the tone on the Guitar with your fingers is a Rest Stroke. This is that free stroke with my thumb. A rest stroke [Plucks the string] is when you come downwards on to the next string. Now, if I were playing with my fingers, I would play up, like this. The general way the finger style works, is if you were chording, you can pluck the chords with your fingers. [Plucks the whole chord with fingers] Or I can pluck the notes of the chords. [Plucks the notes of the Chord] Or I can play a melody by alternating the index and the middle finger, and typically I’ll use a rest stroke for that, and I can play my melodies. [Plays a melody riff]. You can also strum with your thumb [Strums once], and you can strum downward with your fingers, with your fingernails [Strums few times].There is all sorts of different ways. It’s a really big subject, so when you start out, you just want to be learning how to comfortably hold your hand, you want to avoid the temptation to put your pinkie on the instrument. You certainly don’t want to take your wrist, and place it down on the Guitar. You do need to have some space between the body of the instrument and your wrist. At first, you might have to raise your wrist up, then you will find it might be too much, or it might not be enough, So, experiment with that. The basic exercise that you can do, just to get this stuff going, is to first start alternating thumb - fingers [Plucks the thumb down, plucks the fingers up], thumb - fingers. In this case, I might pluck the thumb note, and put it back, then the fingers, put them back. Or, I might sort of try that. I am going to pluck with the thumb, and when the thumb is up, I am going to move the fingers, then bring the thumb back. I might also pluck everything at once. [Plucks with the thumb and fingers at once]. This is great to make sure that the fingers and the thumb are not crashing into one another. It is kind of like unscrewing a bottle cap. And then, the last exercise that you can do, is to pluck one after the other [Plucks the strings one after the other]. If you want to get real specific with that exercise, here is the ideal. All four fingers are down, I am going to pluck thumb, index, middle, and as soon as I pluck the ring finger, the thumb finger comes back. As soon as I pluck the thumb, the index goes down. When I pluck the index, the middle goes to its string. The basic idea [Plucks them all few rounds] is as each finger plucks, the next string goes to its string. Therefore, you always have something touching the Guitar, and you can be very stabilized, and you will know where you are in the relationship to the strings. Fingerstyle guitar is a little bit involved. One thing that we don’t recommend, though, is... In the beginning a lot of people have a frustration playing with the pick. It’s awkward, falls out of your fingers, you don’t like the sound it makes. So you throw the pick out, and just start playing with your thumb, doing it in your own way. Not so recommended. If you want to play with the pick, we recommend you just stick with it, and  try to get used to it. Fingerstyle is really intended for the styles of music that you can do with it. For example: Classical, Flamenco, certain kind of world guitar, folk guitar. So, in the end, it is really about the style of music that you are in to. If you want to rock out, when you listen to heavy metal, most of those guys play with the pick. If you listening some delicate  classical guitar music, most of those people are playing with their fingers and with fingernails. Consider the style of music you are after, and pursue the right training for that style of music.