Fingerstyle guitar – Concepts, Techniques and Exercises
Right Hand Technique and posture – Your picking hand:
We will use sort of a classical guitar technique and
posture. We'll use our Thumb and three fingers, the Index
finger, the Middle finger and the Ring finger. Round palm
over the strings. The thumb will pick strings 6 – 5 – 4. The
other fingers will pick strings 3 – 2 – 1, which means that
the index finger will pick string 3, the middle finger will
pick string 2 and the ring finger will pick string 1. I'm
using fingernails and a thumb-pick, but that's only my
way of playing.
The Alternate bass technique
Our Thumb, marked with the letter P, will pick the three
bass strings. In example: in a 4 beats bar, the thumb will
:alternate between the 5th and the 4th string
And the other fingers- Index, Middle and Ring finger,
will pick strings 3 – 2 – 1. Each finger will pick its own
string most of the time. Of course there will be some
exceptions, in which the index, middle and ring finger
will pick the 4th, 3rd and 2nd strings, and also that the
.index and middle finger will pick the 2nd and 1st strings
The exercises: So, we need to develop and aim to get a
thumb and fingers independence, to have the ability to
pick the bass strings with our thumb and ad in between
the beats (between the count of 1 – 2 – 3 – 4) and on the
beats together with the thumb add the three fingers on
:the higher strings, here are some examples for practicing
Exercises on a C chord, or 5th string bass chords
Hold a C chord
Ex 1:
Ex 2:
Ex 3:
Ex 4:
Ex 5:
Ex 6:
Exercises on a C chord, or 5th string bass chords.
Ex 7:
Exercises on a C chord, or 5th string bass chords.
Ex 8:
Adding notes on the beats:
Ex 9:
Ex 10:
Ex 11:
Ex 12:
Ex 13:
Ex 14:
Exercises on a C chord, or 5th string bass chords.
Ex 15:
Ex 16:
Ex 17:
Ex 18:
Exercises on a C chord, or 5th string bass chords.
Ex 19:
Exercises on a C chord, or 5th string bass chords.
Exercise On a G Chord:
Now lets finger a G chord
I prefer the
second fingering (with the 2nd – 3rd – 4th fingers), that
fingering is common in fingerstyle guitar because of the
easier movement between the C chord and the G chord
Ex 1:
Ex 2:
Ex 3:
Ex 4:
Ex 5:
Ex 6:
Exercise On a G Chord
Ex 7:
Ex 8:
Ex 9:
Ex 10:
Exercise On a G Chord
Ex 11:
Exercise On a G Chord
Movement - Melody Exercises: Now we will add some
movement- melody, playing partial scales on top of an
.alternating bass
Ex 1:
Ex 2:
Ex 3:
Ex 4:
Ex 5:
Ex 6:
Ex 7:
Movement - Melody Exercises
Ex 8:
Ex 9:
Movement - Melody Exercises
Scales On Top Of The Alternate Bass Exercises:
in G7 scale
Ex 1:
Ex 2:
Ex 3:
Ex 4:
Ex 5:
Ex 6:
Ex 7: in G major scale
Ex 8:
Scales On Top Of The Alternate Bass Exercises