Fingerstyle guitar is the technique of playing the guitar or bass guitar by plucking the strings directly with the fingertips, fingernails, or picks attached to fingers, as opposed to flatpicking. The term "fingerstyle" is something of a misnomer, since it is present in several different genres and styles of music—but mostly, because it involves a completely different technique, not just a "style" of playing, especially for the guitarist's picking/plucking hand. The term is often used synonymously with fingerpicking except in classical guitar circles, although fingerpicking can also refer to a specific tradition of folk, blues and country guitar playing in the US. The terms "fingerstyle" and "fingerpicking" also applied to similar string instruments such as the banjo.
Donald James Ross, or Don Ross, is a Canadian fingerstyle guitarist. He is the only person to win the National Fingerstyle Guitar Championship twice. His album Huron Street reached the top ten on the Billboard New-age chart.
Niall Vallely is an Irish musician, born 1970 in Armagh, Northern Ireland. In 1966 his parents, Brian and Eithne Vallely had founded the Armagh Piper's Club, but he chose to learn the concertina instead, from the age of seven. His brother Cillian plays the uillean pipes and low whistle, learning from Mark Donnelly. Another of his brothers, Caoimhin, plays classical piano, tin whistle and fiddle. In 1990, Vallely founded the group Nomos, which released two albums before breaking up in 2000. In 1992, Vallely completed a degree in music at University College, Cork.
William Coulter is an American Celtic guitarist, performer, recording artist, and teacher. Since 1981 he has explored the world of traditional music as a soloist with ensembles including Isle of Skye, Orison, and the Coulter-Phillips Ensemble.
Michael Chapdelaine is an American guitarist.
Tim Sparks is an American acoustic guitar player, singer, arranger and composer.
Preston Reed is an American fingerstyle guitarist. He is noted for a two-handed playing style and compositional approach that integrates the percussive potential of the guitar body.
Richard Royall "Duck" Baker IV is an American acoustic fingerstyle guitarist who plays in a variety of styles: jazz, blues, gospel, ragtime, folk, and Irish and Scottish music. He has written many instruction books for guitar.
Cathie Ryan is an Irish American singer-songwriter, who has released five CDs and tours steadily with her band performing at festivals, folk clubs, performing arts centers and with symphony orchestras. Known for "her crystalline vocals and insightful songwriting," Cathie Ryan has been one of the leading singers in Celtic music since her start in the 1980s. She first came to prominence in 1987 as lead singer of the Celtic music group, Cherish the Ladies, with whom she recorded two CDs. In 1995, she began her solo career.
Muriel Anderson is an American fingerstyle guitarist and harp guitarist who plays in many genres. She is the first woman to win the National Fingerpicking Guitar Championship.
Pat Kirtley is an American fingerstyle guitarist, composer and guitar educator.
Al Petteway is an American guitarist known primarily for his acoustic fingerstyle work both as a soloist and with well-known folk artists such as Amy White, Tom Paxton, Jethro Burns, Jonathan Edwards, Cheryl Wheeler, Debi Smith, Bonnie Rideout, Maggie Sansone and many others. His own compositions rely heavily on Celtic and Appalachian influences and he is known for his use of DADGAD tuning.
Dáithí Sproule is a guitarist and singer of traditional Irish music. His niece is the singer Claire Sproule.
Rob MacKillop is a Scottish composer and multi-instrumentalist, specializing in lute, theorbo, vihuela, banjo, ukulele and both classical and Russian guitar. He is an important performer of Early Music in Scotland. He is also a photographer.
Folk baroque or baroque guitar, and also sometimes called chamber folk, is a distinctive and influential guitar fingerstyle developed in Britain in the 1960s, which combined elements of American folk, blues, jazz and ragtime with British traditional music to produce a new and elaborate form of accompaniment. It has been highly important in folk music, folk rock and British folk rock playing, particularly in Britain, Ireland, North America and France.
Randal Bays is a fiddler, guitarist and composer. The American-born Irish-style fiddle and guitar player first gained international recognition through his recordings and performances with Co. Clare fiddler Martin Hayes in the early 1990s. He began playing music at the age of eight and was widely known as a fiddler in the U.S. long before recording with Hayes as guitar accompanist. Born in Indiana in 1950, Bays relocated to the Pacific Northwest as a teenager and has made his home in Oregon and Washington since then. His musical life included serious study of the classical guitar, prior to taking up Irish fiddling in the 1970s. At the time, he lived in Portland, Oregon, and was strongly influenced by Co. Cavan accordion player Michael Beglan, also fiddler Kevin Burke and guitarist Mícheál Ó Domhnaill.
Ed Gerhard is an American Grammy Award winning guitarist. He is known for his acoustic fingerstyle guitar playing and lap steel guitar music.
Francesco Morone known as Franco Morone, is an Italian guitar player, teacher, composer and arranger specializing in the fingerstyle technique. He is the author of several books and has recorded CDs and videos playing his original music, which combines traditional Italian and Celtic melodies with jazz, blues and folk influences. He currently performs and teaches across Europe, the United States, and Japan.
Stefan Grossman is an American acoustic fingerstyle guitarist and singer. His discography consists of 22 studio albums, 2 live albums, 12 compilations, 22 videos, and 14 collaborations with other artists. In addition, his production, compositions and guitar work have been featured on a number of albums by other artists.
Terry Robb is a Canadian fingerstyle guitarist, composer, arranger and record producer living in the United States. He plays electric and acoustic guitar, and is associated with the American Primitive Guitar genre through his collaboration with steel string guitarist John Fahey. He is a member of the Oregon Music Hall of Fame and Cascade Blues Association Hall of Fame, and was honored with the eponymous "Terry Robb" Muddy Award for Best Acoustic Guitar in 2011. His original compositions draw on the Delta blues, ragtime, folk music, country music and jazz traditions.
