Fingerpicking Basics - PIMA

Getting started with fingerpicking will require you to get familiar with how your fret hand will interact with your strings. Your fret hand should have five fingers and your guitar should have six strings. The number of fingers don't match up to the number of strings so you need to be able to transition fingers from string to string to cover all the guitar strings. Fingerpicking also doesn't include the pinky (usually) of the fret hand making this discrepancy even bigger.

Notating the fingering on music is done by referring to which finger should play which string. This is done by giving each fret hand finger a letter. This system is referred to as PIMA.

PIMA

PIMA is the first letter of each finger from the thumb to the ring finger. The letters are actually taken from the Spanish language from the old classical guitar heritage that was responsible for developing and mastering fingerpicking from as early as 1500 AD. The image below is how the letters correspond to each finger.