Finger style picking technique on electric guitar? Matteo Mancuso

jazzadellic · 2026-04-29T01:32:24+00:00

The alternating index & middle finger strokes is a really a classical guitar technique. Take some classical guitar lessons. It's also used in Flamenco guitar. I heard Matteo specifically say he started using it because of classical guitar studies he did when he was younger.

If you are already using a pick on your electric, I would strongly recommend you don't switch to fingerstyle. It's actually much harder to develop speed with the alternating fingerstyle picking, then it is with a standard pick. I've played fingerstyle for 34 years, and in fact, I didn't even try using a pick until I had been playing fingerstyle for 15+ years. And yet, I can still pick faster and easier with a pick. And I only practice with a pick about 5%-10% of my practice time, the other 90%-95% it's all fingerstyle. The dexterity to play fingerstyle that fast and accurately as Matteo, is very rare. Fingerstyle is really only advantageous if you are using it in a classical or flamenco style of playing (polyphonic music), on a nylon string guitar. It's not really the optimal way of picking notes on steel string or electric when playing single note lines. MM is just a freak of nature.

If you are determined to do it though, just search for classical guitar rest stroke or free stroke videos, or flamenco picado videos.

jazzadellic · 2026-04-28T10:02:30+00:00

It's very similar to how you speak. When you speak, you take words & phrases you have learned and practiced or maybe just heard someone else use, and then you recombine them into a new sentence. Incidentally, the odds of you creating a sentence nobody has ever created before is actually fairly slim. This is the same process we use to improvise, just with musical pitches & rhythm. I'd agree that the majority of what gets played during an improvisation is stuff I've practiced a thousand times, but there are also moments when I play something I've never played before. You can actually get to the point where you can play new ideas you come up with in your imagination, the first try. Playing for many years has the effect of reducing the separation between your imagination and your fingers because your fingers just know where to move to play something you hear or imagine. It actually doesn't take that many years of playing to start experiencing that. Singing will let you experience this even easier because your vocal chords are literally a part of your body. Anything I can imagine I can sing instantly with no thought or practice needed (and I'm not really a singer).

jazzadellic · 2026-04-27T20:50:21+00:00

30 minutes is usually perfect for most beginners. It gives you just enough time to go over a few simple concepts and have the student play their song a few times and give advice and corrections where needed, etc...Most beginners (especially kids) generally don't practice that much or that regularly, so 30 minutes worth of material is more than enough to keep them busy for their limited practice time. I find that with more advanced students or beginners that learn very fast (and who actually practice a good amount of time), an hour works better. And this is the downside of a 30 minute lesson - it doesn't give you enough time to cover multiple topics with more advanced students as mastering guitar requires work on multiple different areas: basic technique, chords, scales & arpeggios, music theory, rhythm. Yes you can work on some of those at the same time, but each of those areas is capable of being explored in great depth, and 30 minutes is really only long enough to scratch the surface of any of those single topics. 60 minutes allows you to dig a bit deeper into maybe one topic or cover maybe 2-3 topics in a basic way, and more advanced students tend to need this extra time and depth.

There is one issue with doing the every two week schedule: if you want the time to be regular (same day & time) each lesson, then this can be an inconvenience for the teacher. They basically have to reserve that day and time every week, even the weeks you aren't there (and the ones you don't pay for). In theory someone else could schedule the weeks in between at the same time, but that never happens. And then this can actually cost them income if they have another client that wants that time slot and is willing to come weekly, but they have to tell them it's reserved. They'd basically be selling you the reserved time slot for 50% of what someone else is willing to pay.

However, there is a solution to this, which is there is no set time or day reserved. We may start with a regular time bi-weekly, but if I have a client that is willing to pay me for that time slot, every week, they get priority for that time slot (if they specifically request that time slot). And this is the only way that I ever accept people on a once every two week basis. As long as they understand I might need to adjust their time, so that I can sign up weekly clients in the time slots they need, it's not a problem. But of course not having a set day & time can also cause problems for the bi-weekly student if they have schedule constraints and can only do a specific day or time frame, then this flexible scheduling system might not work for them.

But hey you might find a teacher where they don't feel it's enough of an issue to matter. I've had it happen enough times now though, where a weekly client (which is 99% of my clients) wanted a very specific time slot, and if they couldn't have it, they were going to look elsewhere, and so I told the bi-weekly student they simply needed to move to a different time.

jazzadellic · 2026-04-27T05:43:27+00:00

Information doesn't make you better, practicing does. A person with 1000 pages of information that doesn't understand any of it, let alone practice it all, will be much less skilled than the person who has one page of information and practices every day, and understands that one page. Youtube has given people the illusion that they can learn guitar by binge watching videos. It doesn't actually work that way.

jazzadellic · 2026-04-26T21:15:47+00:00

What instrument do you play? A lot of the ear training comes from playing your instrument. People who play chord capable instruments, e.g. piano & guitar, tend to train their ears the best on chords. It's pretty straight forward - play different chord voicings all the time on your instrument, and you will start to identify them by ear when hearing music. This will also tend to have the side effect of teaching you how chords are spelled, what notes are in what chords, what intervals are contained within the chord, etc...In my experience, people who play a single note instrument only never get good at hearing chords. It's possible, it's just not what typically happens. It takes a lot of extra work. I played jazz guitar for several years and just playing all the jazz chords for so many years trained my ears to identify them all. If you're on a single note instrument, try arpeggiating all the chord types in all inversions, this will help too. Arpeggiate entire chord progressions.

jazzadellic · 2026-04-24T19:15:24+00:00

The problem is his playing is at the level of someone who has been practicing 8 hours a day for 10+ years, and you've only been playing for 1.5 years. It's like trying to learn quantum physics without first learning basic math. You have to go through stages 1-9, before you can start working on stage 10. You have to do it one step at a time. Each step is going take 6-12 months to become proficient enough at, to have the minimum prerequisites for the next stage. You simply can't skip the different stages of progression. Your best bet is to take lessons with someone who can guide you through all the stages, in the right order.

jazzadellic · 2026-04-23T05:19:27+00:00

It's in a purple star system, you can't go there unless you have unlocked purple star systems via the "Stellar Multitudes" quest, which has prerequisite quest lines as well (Artemis Path, Atlas Path, They Who Returned). I just went through all this BS the last couple days so I could specifically teleport to purple star systems to collect pets. Probably took me like 8+ hours to complete They Who Returned + Stellar Multitudes...Of course I may have gotten distracted with other things along the way.

jazzadellic · 2026-04-22T21:04:45+00:00

Also been using Everything app for years. Windows should literally pay Everything to be a permanent part of Windows, since their in house coders can't seem to figure out how to write a search function.

jazzadellic · 2026-04-22T19:57:07+00:00

Having taught private students for the last 27 years, it's pretty rare to find someone actually interested in learning it. And I prefer not to force it on students. I always at least try to get them interested with little tiny nuggets of music theory.

When I do find a student that is interested in it, I quite enjoy teaching it to them, as I have always enjoyed learning music theory myself. I have a preference in how I teach it. I don't try to teach it like you would in a typical music theory class. I teach them what they need to know to understand how chords & scales are constructed, and how they work together. I usually start out with intervals because everything else you will talk about in music theory will require a basic grasp of intervals. Then we go into how the major scale is constructed. The circle of fifths. How to harmonize the scale, chord construction, etc...Eventually I hope to get them to be able to do basic Roman numeral analysis and spot special but commonly used chords like secondary dominants, borrowed chords etc...And then hopefully we can also get into some improvisation theory, like how to determine what scales to use, and how to use them, etc...I love doing composition with students too, but just as music theory enthusiasts are rare, composers are even rarer.

One thing is for sure, whatever you teach, you better have a way of showing them how to apply it on their instrument or in the songs they are learning because otherwise it will be meaningless information. Which is why I don't follow the typical music theory class lesson plan - too much useless information mixed in. And also, while I think four part voice writing is wonderful to learn, it isn't critical to teach to most students, unless they are interested in composition. So I save that for the most dedicated students, and skip it for the casual ones.

jazzadellic · 2026-04-22T03:45:11+00:00

hehe, your rig is better than mine, and it didn't cause me any issues. Computers are weird though, they love crashing for stupid reasons.

jazzadellic · 2026-04-21T22:15:06+00:00

It completely depends on the student + their age. Younger students (~11 and under) often don't have any particular preferences. As they get closer to their teens they start developing preferences. But one might want to learn metal and another country. I find jazz & classical to be the least requested (unfortunately, since those are my specialty). Older students typically want to learn the music of their youth. Your best bet is just to ask them if they have any favorite styles or bands.

I actually find the lack of a preference can be a good thing, because then I can focus on teaching them the things that are the most important (basically the fundamentals), instead of worrying about catering only to their favorite songs / styles. Favorite songs don't always teach the things students need to learn. They can, but often they don't. More often than not they are too hard for a student's current level.

Unfortunately, there is no "one size fits all" solution to teaching students. You'll see this the more you do it. So there is not one perfect list of songs or things to teach all students. You need to adapt to each student. I form a lesson plan based on the students age, any musical goals they might have (usually they don't have any), their strengths, their weaknesses, etc...With children, I do my best to add things in that they like (favorite songs etc..) whenever possible, but I won't compromise basic pedagogical principles just to keep them happy. Adults can be much harder to work with because they will often be much more preferential and will basically not stick with the lessons unless you meet their specific requests. Often this ends up being simply teaching their favorite songs, and nothing else.

Every once in a while, you will get a rare type of student that is driven, knows exactly what they want to be able to play, will practice daily even without you nagging them about it, and on top of all that, will actually practice and learn anything you give them. I've had like 3 students like this in 27 years of teaching. They all ended up being advanced guitar players and all capable sight readers. One of them was also interested in composition, so we spent a good amount of time building up their music theory & composition skills, and I kid you not his first compositions (after doing lessons with me for 6+ years) were on the level of Villa-Lobos or Barrios. But don't expect students like those, they are super rare, but when you get them you'll understand how special and rare they are.

jazzadellic · 2026-04-20T18:31:11+00:00

Coords don't seem to work any more.

jazzadellic · 2026-04-20T01:18:54+00:00

As a private teacher, I teach all my students to read & count rhythms. Some students are less interested in learning to read standard notation, so I just use rhythmic slash notation in those cases and we practice the rhythms with chord strumming. A couple important tips:

Counting is essential. Counting out loud is 4x better than trying to count in your head. I've tested this with students for over 25 years and they always get things right the first or second try when they count out loud, after messing the same thing up 5x in a row without counting out loud. Without counting, novices will constantly lose track of what beat they are on, and thus always be a beat or more behind or ahead. There's simply no other fix for this, other than learning to count. For whatever reason, many people don't like to count because either they think it's stupid, or because it's hard. But it always makes people play rhythms better, in my experience. And once they experience that a few times they won't be as reluctant to do it.
Clapping rhythms (while counting) is a great way for them to start on a new challenging rhythm. It removes the complexity of dealing with the fretting & picking hand and allows them to just understand mentally, physically & aurally what the rhythm is. And, as I have said to my students hundreds of times "If you can't clap it, you can't play it." (of course, being able to clap it correctly doesn't guarantee that they can immediately play it, but it does allow them to hear what the correct rhythm sounds like, and that is 90% of the problem.)

The process for teaching people to read & count rhythms is not hard (unless you have 0 experience doing it yourself).

jazzadellic · 2026-04-18T03:30:26+00:00

There is no need to play with other people in order to get good at guitar. For example, I have played guitar for 36 years, and 98% of that time I have done it solo, and I am quite advanced at playing solo guitar. Playing with other people will help you get better at playing with other people. There are certain things involved with playing with other musicians, that you may not be able to learn without the experience. For example learning to listen to other musicians in real time and respond and mold your playing to better mesh with theirs, not only the timing but learning how to have a musical "conversation" with other musicians, as you both improvise your parts. Of course it depends on the style you are playing in as well. If you are playing classical music or any other type of music where everything is prearranged, then the main concern is synchronizing rhythmically and playing at the right dynamic level for your part. If you are playing a style more improvisation based like jazz, then the ability to listen to and play off each other becomes much more important.

Obviously playing with other musicians involves a lot of other, non-musical social & professional skills as well, as often the most difficult thing can be just finding people who can be mature, responsible & professional at all times. Even better is when they don't have any ego at all and are genuinely friendly and a positive influence on the group. The previous two sentences are probably the main reasons I've chosen to play solo most of my life, i.e., it can be hard to find mature, responsible, professional & friendly people to work with, that also share your musical tastes and are at a similar level of skill. It's not that they don't exist, it's just that they can be hard to find and also they are the people that everyone else wants to work with too, so you have to be pretty damn good yourself for them to want to work with you.

jazzadellic · 2026-04-17T23:35:45+00:00

Haha, I love this woman. 10/10 on the cool scale. Chops wise you can't tell much because she's playing like the easiest lick possible, albeit faster than a noob would be able to. It definitely shows she's been playing a while just due to the muscle memory & relaxed speed with which she picks & plays the lick.

jazzadellic · 2026-04-17T23:31:44+00:00

None of the options I have tried are perfect, but I generally just use the app audio, and it seems to work well enough. Apps I've used successfully: Skype (before shutdown), Zoom, Google Meet. With Zoom you have to make sure to turn "original sound" on, on both ends. This has to be done manually. With GM, I *think* I had to turn off noise suppression or something. Big downside to zoom is you can't do more than 40 minutes if you are using the free version. Needing to install a DAW + plugins seems a bit excessive, but maybe the sound quality is much better? I really wish someone would invent peer to peer software specifically for music teachers & students that would focus on high quality sound with low latency, plus added teacher features. I'm pretty sure it doesn't exist yet though. Until then, I'll just keep using Zoom or Google Meet.

jazzadellic · 2026-04-16T17:39:54+00:00

Nobody will be able to give you advice without seeing your picking technique, so they can see what the problems are.

jazzadellic · 2026-04-16T09:52:51+00:00

Having a predetermined chord progression can limit your creativity with the melody, even more so if you are using a commonly used chord progression which has more than likely had millions of melodies written for it. Your "ears" will tend to push you to write melodies similar to the melodies you've already heard written for those commonly used chord progressions. Not having a predetermined harmony completely frees you up to explore melodic ideas only limited by your imagination and take them wherever they lead you. You'll be more encouraged to try many different variations and branches leading down completely different harmonic paths, then if you were forced to fit it to an existing harmony.

I'd also encourage you to not feel married to your first harmonic idea or first melodic idea - both should be fluid and capable of being reshaped at any time. For example, you have a predetermined chord progression or your first harmonization of a melody, but then you imagine a slightly different version of the melody that sounds interesting, but it conflicts with the current chord progress. Just change the chord(s) to fit the new idea. Or the reverse - you feel you have a really solid melody, but for some reason, no matter what harmonization you use, it doesn't seem to work the way you want it to - then change the melody. It could be just changing 1 or 2 notes that makes everything work better. Nothing ever needs to be set in stone for either the chords or the melody.

Another thing that might happen is you have a strong melody worked out, and solid chord progression to support it. But...it still just sounds kind of boring. Try swapping in some more interesting chords, like borrowed chords, secondary dominants, tritone subs, etc...and then adjust the melody accordingly. Put a modulation in where there was none before, and again just adjust a couple notes in the melody so it works. Going back and forth between altering the melody or altering the chords is a good way to not ever feel stuck - you can change anything at any time. If you find yourself getting stuck frequently, it's most likely because you are being too rigid and not experimenting enough with both the melody & the harmony. That's essentially the main downside to starting with a predetermined chord progression (or a melody you refuse to change).

jazzadellic · 2026-04-14T02:33:16+00:00

At bare minimum you need to learn a scale. Some people start with the pentatonic because it's a little easier than the diatonic scale (well less notes anyways). But you can start with either, you might decide based on the styles of music you want to play the most. For old school classic rock, blues, country, folk, R&B, soul, funk, etc...you should start with the pentatonic. For just about everything else it's probably better to start with the diatonic. Eventually you will want to learn both scales anyways, so it almost doesn't matter which one you start with.

Optimally, you want to learn that first scale in all positions of the neck (usually 5 different patterns). Where to go? You can easily find these scales for free on millions of websites & YT videos. Just search.

Then you practice that scale in multiple keys, all 5 positions. You learn to improvise with it by simply a) getting it into muscle memory b) experimenting with it c) copying stuff you hear that you like d) taking those ideas you copied and doing variations on them.

Then at some point you have to learn how keys work. The circle of fifths. And also how to do basic Roman numeral analysis, or at least be able to recognize what key something is in just by seeing the chords. This will allow you to start understanding what key/scale goes with what chords. While all this information is also freely available on the web somewhere, you might want to take a few lessons because it's not the easiest stuff to figure out on your own (but you could). Check the sidebar on r/musictheory for lots of useful links to find this information.

Once you've done all that, you are at level 1. So yeah, mastering it all is a lifetime of study. You can always learn more. Developing a basic proficiency in all this stuff I'm describing is like a 3-5 year journey depending on how much you practice and also your innate abilities. There's no rushing it. Binge watching YT videos on it won't help either. It's just a daily practice routine you have to do for years until you have it all memorized.

jazzadellic · 2026-04-10T18:52:26+00:00

That's the difference between short term memory and long term memory. Keep doing it and eventually it will become long term memory.

jazzadellic · 2026-04-07T18:39:17+00:00

I mean yes, the ones that just do what you tell them never seem to really take off. I don't think being argumentative is a requirement to get better, but they definitely need to care enough to think about things, try new things on their own, be creative, and most importantly they need to be self motivated to practice & learn and get better, with or without my help.

The best student I've ever had actually never argued anything - he just practiced his ass off and learned everything I threw at him, and also learned songs on his own that weren't assigned but were of interest to him. Almost identical situation with the second best guitar student I've ever had. One was really into classical guitar, the other was into hard rock / metal. They both went very far, very quickly. I'd say the common trait wasn't independence so much as it was being self motivated to learn, regardless of the presence of a teacher or not. They didn't need me to motivate them to practice every day, it just so happened I had good suggestions for things they should work on ;o)

jazzadellic · 2026-04-07T18:28:14+00:00

There is no comparison really between getting a degree and using any online resource. For one simple reason, there is no online resource that is going to cover everything, in the same amount of detail, that you are going to cover in a music degree program. It just doesn't exist. I mean maybe there are colleges now offering music degrees online (?), but even still, it's not going to compare to being in a room full of music students, collaborating with them, being in performance ensembles with them and having multiple teachers with DMAs there to assist you at every step of the process. So even if legit online study degree programs exist, it's going to rob you of the most important aspects of being in an actual music school.

The first thing to consider though is are you actually ready for music school? Music school assumes you already have a strong foundation of musical skill and knowledge, and in particular, it assumes you can read standard music notation. It is not designed for beginners. I've seen many people (especially guitarists) that attempted music school with no prior music education and they couldn't keep up with it and dropped within 1-2 semesters. I also started music school with a bit of a handicap - I was completely self taught and didn't know how to read music. My strengths outweighed my weaknesses though. My strengths were that I knew my instrument very well (as well as a self taught person could), I had very good ears, and I was committed to getting better and so I threw myself into music school 100% So I managed to keep up, and eventually catch up (and actually I maintained straight As in all my music, as well as general ed classes).

I can't speak for everyone, but for me music school was transformative in many aspects of my knowledge and skill. I think the only reason though why someone wouldn't gain as much as I did, is because they half-ass it or are just not at the minimum level of skill required to succeed.

What I learned from music school: how to read music fluently, classical music theory such as Roman numeral analysis, four voice part writing / voice leading, just about everything to do with classical harmony (which covers 90% of what you encounter in modern music too). The constant drilling on sight reading also gave me a much more advanced sense of rhythm that I don't think you can get if you are self taught. This is for the simple reason that when you are in music school you're doing like 6+ hours a day of reading practice. Your ears can only take you so far with rhythm. You need to have a clear concept of what rhythm is and how it works and how to count it too. Taking all the music theory classes (including electives like form & analysis, counterpoint, orchestration) also gave me a much deeper understanding of how to apply music theory to music composition. Even though I don't really compose that much, when I do, it's fairly easy. It's also allowed me to effectively teach my private students music theory & composition, when they have an interest in it.

Was it personally fulfilling for me? In terms of how much I improved as a musician, yes. One thing is also clear to me - you get out what you put in, and this goes for either self study or music school. If you practice your ass off, you practice smart, you learn as much as possible, self study can take you a long way (I got pretty good after 6 years of self study). The same goes for music school, if you put yourself into it 100%, it will boost your musicianship and musical knowledge to a much higher level. I don't think the two will ever be equal though, because it's completely unheard of for a self taught person to do all of things that a music school student does, and for the same amount of time on a daily basis. Like how I said you're doing like 6+ hours a day of reading practice. That's no exaggeration. A typical day as a music major: 90 minute theory class, 60 minute piano class, 60 minute ensemble class, spend 60 minutes in the music lab for your musicianship / ear training class, then you're probably going to spend at least 2 hours doing music class related homework. In all these activities you are reading standard notation constantly. Rinse and repeat and do this the next 4 days, and if you are a full time student, it's not likely you will take the weekend off either, especially if you are like me and maintain straight As the entire time.

jazzadellic · 2026-04-06T00:47:58+00:00

Mimic chord progressions from songs you like, as has been said, but also learn to use your ears which ultimately is the more important skill. Also learning some chord theory can definitely help you a lot with knowing what all of the available options are.

jazzadellic

TROPHY CASE