Percussive right hand technique on singer songwriter fingerstyle EP372

[Brian H]

Looking for tips how to do percussive right hand technique with back of nails . Sounds like the A chord in measure 2 is sounded with back of nails but when I do it, sounds wrong. I can’t see the back of Brian’s hand on video to see how he strikes the strings. Has anyone else had a problem learning this technique?

[Richard G]

Hi Brian,
I just looked at that lesson and the percussive slaps are on beats 2 and 4 of each measure. Brian explains the technique in detail at approx 4:10 into the lesson.
His percussive stroke is more of a slap on to the strings which resonates against the frets than a downward strum with the fingernails. A number of artists use this percussive style and each is slightly different to the other. Some artists use purely a thumb slap against the strings, (Marco Cirrillo for example)

You can follow Brian’s technique to the letter or develop your own style, as long as the timing is correct . I have posted a number of pieces on AM with this style in my own technique, Lesson ML061 is a good example. Btw Brian also explains this percussive technique in detail at the front of this lesson.

Richard

[Brian H]

Thanks Richard, I think I need to pay more attention to the timing of the percussive slap than to trying to get good tone on the A chord right now. New technique for me but I’m sure it will come along. Fun to learn something new.

[sunjamr]

Maybe ask our member Jola for some tips. She is probably the best slap-fretter among us. And BTW, it seems to me that women guitarists are often better at it than men, not sure why. Maybe they have a lighter touch, or better finger accuracy.

Sunjamr Steve

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