Born Fingerpicker?

Are you a born fingerpicker? I think that I was born a fingerpicker. Maybe because I was never very good at hanging onto a guitar pick. Fortunately, a thumbpick is hard to drop.

My name is Jim Pharis and I've been interested in fingerpicking since I was a kid. When was I a kid? Let's just say that Paul Simons version of Angie was a hot new release.

My first guitar was a 3/4 Silvertone made by world reknown instrument maker Sears and Roebuck. I raised the funds for that one as a 12 year old pushing a lawnmower. After my parents saw how obsessed I was with it, they bought the next one for me as a Christmas present. It was another Silvertone. This one was full sized and a beautiful sunburst. I thought that I'd arrived!

I set about learning to play by ear. I was working on things by Sonnie and Brownie,John Fahey and Chet Atkins. It didn't go so well. So I tried lessons. There was a man in our small town who had been stationed at the nearby Air Force base. He stayed in the community after retirement and ran a small music store. He was also a HUGE Chet Atkins fan. So I started taking lessons from him.

I wasn't a model student but he was able to teach me to read music and good left and right hand techniques. I had also started fooling around with an electric guitar. I was first influenced by the rock music of the times. Bands like Led Zeppelin, Cream, and The Grateful Dead. From reading interviews with the players in those bands I became aware of the classic electric blues players.

Wanting to see the wider world, I left central Louisiana at the age of 19 and ended up living in several other city's and states. I was still trying to figure out the guitar. I had also started playing electric bass.

I lived in Austin,TX from the mid '80's to the mid '90's. I was playing bass in a blues band that was a popular bar band in the area. While it wasn't much of a living it was adequate and I was doing what I wanted to do. Then I had a stroke of incrediblly good luck.

I got fired. Like all bands, there were personality conflicts and I got the axe. Back to the 9-5 world, playing one or two nights a week. That's when I decided that maybe I wasn't a band guy. I got rid of my bass equipment and started focusing once again on solo fingerstyle guitar. I would be the band.

In the mid '90's we ended up moving to Madison,WI. Once again I had a stroke of good luck. Three weeks after we arrived in Madison my long suffering wife convinced me to go to the doctor. I was diagnosed with cancer. Well, that took a while to get straightened out but it did. It's been 11 years and I'm doing fine. (Thanks for asking).

Here's the good luck part. I struck up a friendship with the manager of a local music store. Their specialty is acoustic guitars. Everything from $200 imports to $7,000+ high end models. I started part time and was eventually able to work full time. In the 7 years that I worked there my awareness of what makes an excellent guitar was greatly expanded. So was my awareness that simply owning a wonderful guitar doesn't take the place of developing your playing abilities.

So now I'm older and grayer. Hopefully I've become a little wiser too. I'm back in Louisiana, which has always been home. And I'm still working at becoming a better player. I'm not going to kid you and say that I have all of the answers about how to fingerpick. After all, we all know something but no one knows everything. But I do have some of the answers. I hope that this information helps you in your playing.

Let's start picking.

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