Watch the The Melody Finger/Hand Posture online guitar lesson by Tommy Emmanuel from Fingerstyle Milestones

I want to touch on a few technique things that I think are important. When I'm playing songs in this style, my main melody fingers are the first two. But I do sometimes use the third finger and the pinkey, and Jerry Reed used to only use those two. You've just got to find your way that works well for you. The important thing to me when I play this style is making the melody feel and sound good. So what I do is I learn a song, I work out an arrangement, I practice it, and then when I've practiced it and my hands know what they're doing I start focusing in on making the melody feel good. The other thing I wanted to point out is that sometimes when I'm playing single line melody with my thumbpick, in order to make different dynamics and different tones, I'll sometimes play a note like that, and then I may turn the thumbpick on a slide angle to give me a different sound. That helps me to get a lot of different tones and a voice-like quality out of the instrument.

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