- Yesterday
Can’t Play Fingerstyle Guitar? Try This!
- Lesley Diane
Do you love the soft, intimate sound of fingerstyle guitar but don’t know where to start? This blog post and practice-with-me video will help.
Watch the video and right away you’ll recognize the sound. You hear it in many popular songs and should definitely add it to your guitar skills.
Learn to play this pattern by practicing it with me at 3 different tempos. Note- if you’re new to guitar and love the sound of fingerstyle, don’t assume it’s a far-off goal. You can start learning it now.
We’re going to leave off the fretting hand that holds down the chord shapes. We’re putting all our focus on the other hand- the strumming/picking hand- and playing just 4 open strings: low E, G, B and high E. This gives us an E minor chord, but an easier, no-left-hand version.
Each finger of your picking hand is assigned to its own string, like this:
T (thumb) = Low E
1 (index) = G
2 (middle) = B
3 (ring) = High E
Here’s how the picking pattern goes:
T-1-2-3-2-1
The video breaks down like this:
Quick demo at full tempo- this is the goal you’re gradually working towards
Slow practice section that you’ll play along with me- watch my fingers, copy me, and if you fall behind, don’t worry. You’ll get better. Take your time with this section. This is where most of your improvement happens and the pattern becomes part of you.
When you can play the slow drill comfortably along with me, move to the mid-tempo section.
The last section is just a repeat of the demo we started with, the target tempo to work toward now that you’ve learned and practiced the pattern. It takes awhile to play this at speed, so be patient. It gets easier.
When you’ve learned this pattern with the simplified no-left-hand E minor chord, use it on other chords you know. You just need to make one adjustment- the thumb will change strings depending on where the home base, the root, of the chord is located. For instance, the thumb took care of the Low E string when we were playing E minor. If you change to A minor, you have a different root- the open A string. So the thumb is responsible for a different string. The other fingers don’t change.
QUICK TIPS FOR YOU:
Don’t make speed your goal. You can build speed on top of accuracy. It doesn’t work in reverse.
Stay with the slow section until you can play it with me.
Think well of yourself while you work to improve. Guitar players beat themselves up. You don’t need to do that. Discouragement isn’t your friend.
Accurate repetition is your friend.
I hope this practice-with-me video helps you- enjoy your progress! All best wishes for your playing-
Lesley Diane