• Skip to main content
  • Skip to header right navigation
  • Skip to site footer
Howcast

Howcast

The best source for fun, free, and useful how-to videos and guides.

  • Arts & Crafts
  • Entertainment
  • Food & Drink
  • Health
  • Home & Garden
  • Relationships
  • Explore Guides
  • Contact
  • About
  • FAQs
  • Explore Guides
  • Arts & Crafts
  • Entertainment
  • Food & Drink
  • Health & Wellness
  • Love & Relationships
  • Home & Garden
EntertainmentHow to Play Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Use Tone, Expression & Dynamics in Fingerstyle Guitar

Transcript

I’d like to talk to you about some classical techniques. Being able to explore the classical realm is great to bring into your own playing. The whole thing about classical guitar playing is all about tone, expression, and dynamics.

Dynamics means loud and soft. So, traditionally, classical guitarists would play their guitar on the opposite leg, like this. Now, that feels odd to me, but I thought I would bring that up. You can try this if you’d like. It does help with your left hand, because it helps with your left hand position better, as well as your right hand in order to get good tone, how your fingers come across the strings. But myself, I still prefer this way of playing, and we’ll just talk about those techniques.

Let’s talk about tone. You definitely don’t want to come underneath the string and play it like that. It’s not a very appealing sound. You want to make sure your finger comes over the top of the string. Most of the motion that your finger’s making is coming form the large knuckle here. [plucks guitar string] And you also want to, [plucks guitar string] almost as if you’re pushing the string down, kind of, and you get a nice, round sound as opposed to a sharp sound.

So, once you get better at playing different chord progressions and stuff, you can add some expression to your playing. Expression can be many things. You can slow down, speed up a little bit, play louder and softer. So maybe something like [plays guitar] will bring some depth into your playing by playing expressively and using some dynamics.


Lessons in this Guide

How to Play Jazz Chords in Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Play Fingerstyle Guitar with Adam Smale

How to Play Intros & Outros in Blues in Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Play Trills & Finger Tap in Rock in Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Play Flamenco in Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Play Walking Bass Lines in Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Play Bluegrass in Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Play Folk Patterns in Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Play in Drop D Tuning in Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Read Slash Chord Notation in Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Slap in Funk in Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Play Major Scales in Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Strum in Bluegrass in Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Play Reggae in Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Play Modes in Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Play Runs in Bluegrass in Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Match Modes with Chords in Fingerstyle Guitar

Using Fingers Independently in Jazz in Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Use Tone, Expression & Dynamics in Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Understand Major Scales in Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Play Runs Using Open Strings in Bluegrass

How to Play Vibrato in Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Play Golpe in Flamenco in Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Invert Triads in Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Play Tremolo in Flamenco in Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Bend Strings & Play Vibrato in Rock on Guitar

How to Play Tremolo in Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Play Blues in Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Play Diatonic Triads in Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Play Easy Bass Lines in Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Play Inversions on 4th, 3rd & 2nd Strings on Guitar

How to Plant Your Fingers in Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Play Funk in Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Fingerpick Guitar Chords

How to Play Root 6 & Root 5 Barre Chords on Guitar

How to Do the Spider Exercise Version 1 on Guitar

Copyright © 2026 · Howcast · All Rights Reserved · Powered by BizBudding Ventures with Springwire.ai

Privacy Manager