McGuinn a fingerpicker?

[chingnchime]

Did Mcguinn fingerpick Mr. Tambourine Man and Bells of Rhymney? Seems to me it'd be difficult to fingerpick a Rick 12 for 2 reasons- Not much room between the strings for fingers and not much attack from naked fingers. Fingerpicks, perhaps, or fingernails for more definition? I've always flatpicked those songs w/ up and down strokes. I don't have the McGuinn instructional video,which probably gives the answer.Anyone know?

[grsnovi]

Roger was an accomplished banjo player. His unique 12 string sound has incoprorated a number of styles and techniques over the years. His video shows him using a banjo-style finger-picking on the Tambourine Man intro.

[Scastles]

He finger picked just about every tune. I saw him just last year and the finger pickin' style was still very much in evidence on nearly every song he did.

[janglebox]

Roger's finger picking style is unique, but with some practice, fairly adaptable. He uses a flat pick between his thumb and index finger, and metal Dunlop finger picks on his middle and ring finger.

When I saw him live right after he went acoustic solo, he was alternating between straight flat picking and finger picking with a banjo thumb pick and finger picks. But after a few years, he adapted to his current style, which was the finger picking style he used in the Byrds.

[mark_telfer]

I understand that it was after the time of the Mr Tambourine Man album (which includes The Bells Of Rhymney) that McGuinn switched from a thumbpick plus fingers to a flatpick plus fingers.

Now of course it was the latter style that gave us "Eight Miles High", so let's not complain, but it was with the earlier method that he created some of his best twelve-string work in the summer of 1965, in my opinion. A perfect example is the early version of "She Don't Care About Time" (track 16 on the expanded Turn! Turn! Turn!) where he delivers an incessant volley of eighth notes during every verse.

Better still are two takes of a backing track of an unreleased version of "It's All Over Now Baby Blue" on the "Never Ever Before" bootleg, where this mesmeric volley of single eighth notes lasts for the entire song! Unlike on the released version of this unreleased single (if you know what I mean) McGuinn capoes the guitar at the second fret to allow the top two pairs of strings to ring out continually while he plays the actual melody of the song using the thumbpick!

I find that the best thumbpicks to use on a Rick are the yellow Ernie Ball ones, because they're so flexible that you can do upstrokes with your thumb quite easily.

The important thing about the finger part of fingerpicking a twelve-string guitar is that you need the Rickenbacker's reverse stringing for your fingers' upstrokes to actually produce anything audible.

[mark_telfer]

The sessions for the above two tracks are both dated 6/28/65, so I thought that I'd better make a hasty attempt to back up my theory about which picking method came when.

I've just checked my Hullabaloo Volumes 1-4 and 9-12 DVDs and McGuinn is using a flatpick on its own for the mimed May 11 1965 performance of "Mr Tambourine Man" and "I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better" and a flatpick plus middle and ring fingers by the time of the mimed November 29 1965 performance of "The Times They Are A-Changin'".

Does anyone else fancy taking up the challenge of studying early photographs and film clips to find out how early McGuinn stopped using a thumbpick?

[leftybass]

Hi Mark, I'm wondering if the thumbpick technique would pre-date The Byrds altogether; In May 1965 McGuinn would have owned his Rickenbacker for roughly 5 months by then, and MTM was recorded when, Jan '65? Pretty early on in the history of the band.

Roger says he switched to the flatpick/fingerpick method, but never really hints as to when.

[mark_telfer]

Thanks, John, I tend to agree with you. Unless he had practised the two methods side-by-side for a while, only the most confident guitarist would risk changing his picking style from relatively easy to relatively difficult under the spotlight of international acclaim, which for McGuinn was the summer of '65.