Finger Pickin’ Good
By Linda Carpenter
July 2007


At age 13 I got the bug to learn how to play guitar. It was the 60s and every kid wanted to be a Beatle or Joni Mitchell, but I had long wanted to play an instrument. With a few dollars scraped together from my allowance and odd jobs, I went to the Wal-Mart of the time, Newberry’s, a huge dime store that had the only escalator in Billings, Montana. My only criterion was price, which meant that it had to be an acoustic because there was no money for an amp. I knew nothing about styles, sizes, or even how a guitar is tuned.

I brought home something that had six strings, but barely deserved to be called a guitar. Nobody in my family believed that I would ever learn to play. My father mentioned that he had bought a mandolin in his youth and never learned to play it. I understood the implication that I wasn’t going to get any farther than he did.

I bought a chord book and started to learn the basics. When I had the cash, I would buy songbooks, but mostly I spent a lot of time listening to albums and figuring out what I was hearing. One day I saw two girls from my new school singing in the park. Before I knew it, we were a trio, with two guitarists and a wicked tambourine player. I’d like to say that we went on to get a recording contract and made it big. The reality was that we performed at social clubs, churches, and nursing homes. We even had a paid gig at our high school prom, but only for one song. The rock band that was hired for the dance refused to do anything so tame as the love ballad that was the prom’s theme song.

The years went by and our trio went off to a trio of colleges. At my school, I played at the nondenominational church services and an occasional jam session. Then came work, a house, a husband, and other adult obligations. As a member of the Tempe Community Chorus, I would sometimes play accompaniment on a song or two and my guitar and I would make the rounds of retirement homes, hospitals, and schools with other chorus members at Christmas time. I’d take a beater guitar on camping trips. But by the time I was 50, the lack of practice was showing and I couldn’t play as well as at age 20.

I was able to retire at the enviably young age of 51. After moving out of the big city and getting the new house in shape, I started spending much more time on music. I joined the Sierra Vista Community Chorus and soon found myself accompanying them. I had gone through a few guitars over the years. I now had the camping guitar, another acoustic, and an electric. None of them could be considered a fine instrument.

I now had even more spare time than in high school and a lot more money, so it was time to get serious. I ordered a Gibson acoustic-electric. I had never actually touched the particular model, but I had done a lot of research and it looked like a good fit. It sounded wonderful. We were made for each other. I became so absorbed in playing that after a few months I was even able to do some of the classical style songs that I had done 30 years ago. Before I knew it, I was playing “fingerstyle.” Think a less talented and much smaller female Chet Atkins who doesn’t do country.

My old friends from work ask me how I spend my time now that I’m retired. My answer is, “However I want.”


Physically, “Fingerstyle” refers to using each of the right-hand fingers independently in order to play the multiple parts of a musical arrangement that would normally be played by several band members.

--The Toronto Fingerstyle Guitar Association



Back to Borderline Local Writers Pages

Back to Borderline Mensa