Hi fellow picker here,

Caren is no longer with the site which is too bad as she has some great tutorials. I learned a lot from her. I too completed both courses from Caren and Lisa and from my take on it is I don't think it's required to add the third finger as Lisa did talk about that in one of her lessons if I recall, but that it doesn't hurt to start to get used to it because fingerpicking can lead to so many more variables down the road and it helps to have that third finger available for more melody notes. Classical style, for instance, would probably use more of the third as well as any chord melody style you may want to get into later on. Acoustic level 2 Anders has some exercises that use it. It feels awkward I know, but it's like anything else on here just got to give it some time. Trust me it won't take as long as you might think, however again im not saying you have to learn it. Lisa and I'm sure many others do just fine without it. Im starting to get better at it. The good thing is it stops there. I don't think anybody is using the pinky. At least let's hope not. [br]One of Carens lessons I would suggest you look at is the song "Foolish Games" by Jewel which was done on piano but Caren converted for us on guitar. There's only a few chords in there she uses the third finger so it's a great lesson to get started on using it.

Hope that helps.

good luck,

Moe