Choosing Guitar Strings for Finger Picking

Video Transcript

"STEVE ANTHONY: On behalf of Expert Village, my name is Steve Anthony. I'm here in New York City. Today, I'm going to talk a little bit about some beginning guitar picking techniques. And if you want to do a combination of finger picking and flat picking on your guitar, you're probably want to use what's known as a medium gauge string. Again, this is for beginners. So medium gauge gives you a good combination of volume and tone in both styles, finger picking and flat picking. If you're strictly going to do flat picking and driving chords. You--it's a matter of preference. You might want to go with a lighter string where you can really--it won't bother your fingers as much if you're finger picking. But, again, medium--I find medium gauge will probably work best for you. If you use a heavier gauge string, you'll get more volume out of them with your finger picking but it's also gonna--it's going to cost you a little bit more in terms of those calluses. But try the different gauges. They're--every string company makes various gauges of string from light to medium to heavy. Some even have a medium-light and anything in between but it's your preference. You try and see what you're comfortable with."