Thatās my take on it. Great for some stuff, not for others. Definitely any complex chords, we need curvature to not mute the other strings in the chord. I do think for single note playing flatter fingers are useful. Eric Johnson uses very flat fingers for his solos, yet his bends/vibrato are among the best in the business. Iād have to check his playing and see how he negotiates the change required when bends come up.
Pulloffsā¦yeah. Thatās gonna be hard. The āall hammersā legato technique that Marshall Harrison, Rick Graham et al useā¦probably possible and weād get the needed dampening help that comes from flat fingers thatās so important. In this videos, Iād say Marshallās fingers look pretty flat:
But, I guess thatās where the technical mumbo jumbo comes in, because Iād call this flat relative to the curved fingers classical guitarists have to use in the bulk of their playing. Maybe to someone else, Marshallās fingers donāt look flat at all.
Same thing here, Rickās fingers look flat-ish to me,
but thatās just ārelativelyā speaking. I donāt know Iāve ever seen anyone play with their fingers completely āstraightā so, I donāt know how flat weāre talking here. The above 2 monsters donāt use what Iād call ācurvedā fingers though.
At any rate, thereās probably going to be very few times anything is useful in all situations.