Fingerstyle for the Curious Guitarist

1. Preview: Hi, and welcome to finger style for the curious guitarist. I'm Dan address MAC on your guitar teacher. I've been teaching guitar lessons for over 25 years. I've written a number of guitar method books, and I've created well over a dozen online guitar courses. I also have a background in classical guitar. I am the perfect person to get you started with your finger style guitar playing. So in this course, we'll, we're going to focus on, is really just a series of techniques. So I'm going to show you the basic language that we need to be able to talk to one another regarding the techniques, how to use our hands and how to use our bodies. And once we are up to speed with the language and the vocabulary than the rest of this course is just going to be technique after technique. So the way that I approach finger style or finger picking guitar is that it is a tool. It's a tool for me to put with all of my music, all of the things that I understand about music, which really is kind of like my left hand, my left has all of the music and music theory and the guitar theory. All the different chords and scales and melodies. That's all my left hand and my right-hand, my finger style hands is all of the rhythms. It's all of the technique. How I'm going to execute this, and how I'm going to pull all of the music, that guitar music out of my left hand. So if I want to use finger style as a creative element that I'm going to try to improvise using fingers style than I need to have a wealth of techniques at my disposal. And that's what we're going to work on. I'm going to show you all of these techniques so that you can pick a bigger tar and just be creative anytime you want to without having to play memorized pieces. So one of the things that, and remember from my days as a classical guitar students was that it was all memorized music. There was not any improvisation. And I love to be creative on the guitar. I loved to improvise, I loved to solo and make it up. And when you're playing classical music, you have to learn to read music and you play exactly what is on the page. And I didn't wanna do that. I wanted to be creative, but I also wanted to use finger style. And so that's what we're going to do, is I'm going to show you all of the techniques that you'll need for every situation. Any situation that you can be in need. Just you are open hand your fingers style to get your point across with anything that you might be playing on your guitar. And many of the lessons that the video lessons are going to include a PDF that print those, download those, and open those up at the beginning of every lesson because they are for you. I've made those to make the lessons a little bit easier for you to give you another visual to look at while we're doing the lessons. So get the PDFs to PDFs are hugely valuable. And I'm really glad you're here. This is going to be a lot of fun. And this is going to be a new chapter for you and your guitar clang. So wonderful. Thanks for watching this video and let's move on to the next lesson. 2. Welcome to the Class: welcome once again to finger style for the curious guitarist Dan and I'm your guy. 30 truth. I wanted to take just a couple minutes to talk about what we're gonna do in this course. It's fairly straightforward. The first video or two after this, we are just going to cover the very basic things that we need to know to understand. Like the language of finger style guitar, finger picking, finger style ends. After that, we're going to just jump directly into techniques, techniques and techniques is just a series of techniques. So once we understands the language of what it means to talk about how to finger pick and finger style, then we just need to go through the techniques morning in time. And I'm going to try to give you examples of how you can start using this to improvise on your own. Because the entire focus of this course is I want you to be able to improvise. I want you to be able to come up with your own finger style patterns on the fly on the spot in the moment. I don't want you to have to memorize patterns Course when you're learning this stuff. If you're going to get good at finger style, then you're going to have to work on these shapes and get the muscle memory and get really strong with your hands and your fingers. But this is pretty much all of a right hand exercise or the finger style hand exercise. We're not really going to be learning anything about the left hands in this course. Okay, So if you want to learn about our theory, music theory that a lot of that stuff is going to be in a different course. So we've got tons of other stuff for that. This is all about focusing on the bigger cell, which is the rhythm. Okay, um, one of the things that I talk about with the guitar students I may have heard me say this before, and some of my other courses is that if the guitar wasn't drunk, then the pick or finger style hands would be the stick. Okay, So if the guitar is a drum and we're like, what is going to the little drummer, the bass drum or the symbol or the snare drum, or that Tom Tom, like what drama is going to be gonna be on the left hand with what? Friendly player? What chords were playing. The stick is over here. It will be with our pick where or using our finger style. So that's what the stick is going to be. OK, that's what this is all about is how to use the stick, how to use our fingers to make sounds come out. Senates were working out. So once you have these tools, then you're going to build to apply all of these tools in real time to your guitar planks that you're going to be some corns or you're playing some melodies or scales or arpeggios or diet or whatever it is that you're doing. It really doesn't matter. You're gonna be ready to handle any situation no matter what your left hand is doing. Your right hand is gonna be ready to go, OK, And if you're a left handed guitar player that just reverse everything I just said I am also going to have there will be PDFs attached that you can download. I would highly recommend you get them. It's going to just help out even more to see exactly what's going on. I will sometimes you putting some images on the screen directly onto a video screen to help us to. She was going on. We were supposed to be doing, and that's about it. I don't think it's a good use of your time to just memorize how to play songs. Because, um, what's good about that is that you'll you'll be crazy. This one song that that's it. Okay, so to apply these techniques to another song, you might not have any idea how to do that. That's what we're going to work on is how to just take one technique and a plan to every song applied to every core, every scale, everything that we play on the guitar. So all of these techniques are things that we can just be adding in tow. Our tool built that we could eventually just pull out whenever we need it to start using as our finger cell technique. Have you seen many of my other courses? You'll know that I almost exclusively play with a pick, and that is 100% true. I usually will play with a pick that is my preferred style of playing guitar. Like I said in my promo video. I have a huge background classical guitar. It was how I got started on the guitar was as a classical guitarist, spent years as a young boy and then as a young man when I went to university studying classical guitar. And so that is what my background is on the guitar and classical guitar is all about finger style. OK, so Oh, when I learned how to play classical guitar when any class booked, our students starts learning, they will teach you the basic technique. And then after that, you start working on the music so you don't spend a ton of time just memorizing like exact patterns. You get the basic technique, and then after that, you start playing music. So I want to kind of bring that into this course. Okay, that spirit of like, we're going to just get the technique. And after that was gonna get back into music again. Which is what happens after this course back into the music. Okay, so I don't want to get to bug down and memorizing patterns. I just want you to have all the tools and, um, a lot of times when if we were you know through talking about any technique. Every guitar player and every guitar teacher will have their own slight approach to how they use that technique on DSO and I'm no different guy. I'm going to show you the way that I will approach finger style guitar. But like I said, mine is going to be based mostly on classical technique. So is the proper original way to play figures, dollar guitar and honestly, there are very few people in the world that have the actual proper technique that could say I have the only proper technique. Andres Segovia, the master of the classical guitar. He is one of the few people that ever walked the Earth that could say I've got the perfect classical finger style technique that you should use. So most of the guitar players have sort of adapted their own style, and I'm no different, but I'm going to be basing it mostly in the classical theory. So okay, I think that is about it. Go through these videos as many times as you need to get the PB efs and let's jump right it . Let's start learning this stuff right now. Okay, I'll see you the next video 3. Guitar Basics (page 2): All right, let's quickly go through some of the guitar basics that we absolutely need to know. OK, so tablature how to read tablature. Super easy guy. So we've got these six lines. Hey, it looks like a grid with six lions. The six lines are representing the six strings on our guitar. Okay. And then what we do is we write numbers on those lines and the numbers are telling us What fret. Okay, so what friend we've got. So, for example, if we had, like, an open on the bottom line that is telling us the low e string has played open way had a one on the bottom line used to play in the first fret if we had a one on the top line. It's telling us the first friend on the high e string so and a way that you can always think about Tab. People get dyslexic, they reverse tab all the time. Get confused on which is the top in which is the bottom. If you get confused, all you do is this your door flat on your lap like this and you will be looking at your guitar streets the exact same way that you were looking at the tablature That makes us so. Like the bottom line is the bottom line and the top string is the top string. So the little string is the top and big fat string is the bomb. The numbers on each line is telling us what fret to press on if we see a zero is telling us to play open moving okay on whatever string has zero on it. That's tablet. Super easy, right? The names of the strings. Okay, so the names of the strings going from a low pitch too high pitch. Okay, Going from the bottom line to the top line is E A D g b on e. OK, so a g e An easy common way to memorize the string names. Um, any eight dynamite. Good by any any A dynamite. Goodbye, Eddie. Pretty common. What a lot of guitar players used to memorize the streams going from low pitched a high pitch. Any eight dynamite. Good bye. Okay, So that's how you re tub. These are the string names. Okay, So if I tell you, play the A string eight. Okay, play. The low e string low is a low pitch. Play the bees string. So any eight done my good bye. That's it. OK, also, I may talk about doing things like playing quarter notes where we'll be doing something like 1234 Okay. Or we might be doing eight notes where it's one and two and three and four ends one end to end £34. Or we may be doing something where it's even, like 16th notes, where it's like monkey and the two D and three and four. Okay, so we might be working on just quickly those kinds of rhythms like wardrobes. 123 4/8 notes one and two and three and four end or 16th notes when he and A to B and a three and a 40 end up all right and that is it for your guitar basics. Okay, work on these. Refresh yourself on these and let's move on to the next video 4. PIMA (page 3-4): All right, so now we are starting to get to the phone stuff. Let's talk about FEMA. FEMA? OK, P i m huh? All right. Pema is telling us which finger to use to pluck the strings, Peas or thumb. I is our index m is our middle finger and a is our rain finger. We don't really user pic UK. Um, so we're not when he's air picky. So it's just not part of FEMA. There is one or two techniques where we might use your pinky, but we'll talk about that later. Pema is just these fingers. Okay, be I am a And, um, they are Spanish. Words was the It was people from Spain that came up with this whole method of of finger style guitar. So these are Spanish words to pee is the thumb that I is. The index doesn't really stand for that, but that's what it is. I is Index, the ama's middle and the A is your ring finger. Now when we're playing something, what's going to happen is maybe we'll have some tab and we'll have a little bit of tab and the the right hand finger letters will be over the notes to tell you which right hand finger to use to play them. So, for example, if I was going Teoh do the p on my open low string that if I was going to go the eye on the low string that I would use the index finger to pluck it if it was the M that I would use the middle finger to pluck the low string bond. If it was the A, I would use the ring finger to pluck the low string. If I was meant to do that over the high string that I would have the P over the high strength or the eye or the M or the A sometimes will be doing things like we'll be doing a diet or a Triad war will be doing a chunk of accord, in which case will be doing something like like this, where we might use all of PM OK, where you go. Like P. I am a on the bottom for strings. Ah, amusing all of these at the same time, it will investigate that later. So we're going to use combinations of the fingers together or where the time, but it is for their exercises so we can learn the basic tools were going toe. Have the finger letters above our notes to help us get started. Okay. And that is pretty much it as a general rule of thumb the P Arthel. He's going to be the base notes. Okay, So the low knows the base knows will usually be what the thumb is taken care of. And then the other fingers will be doing either the middle strings, middle notes or the high notes. So the thumbs main function is going to be over the low notes, the bass notes. But we're also going to investigate how we can use the thumb to start working on some fast scale patterns using our fingers. Um, so that's it? That's pema. Okay, so, P i m a We're gonna be using this for the entire course. Got it. All right. Good job. Let's move on to the next video 5. Rest Stroke & Free Stroke : Now that we've gone through PBA, you were probably wondering. Okay, so how did I do that? All right, that's exactly what we're going through right now. The two main moves in finger style are going to be either the rest stroke or the free stroke. So, um, let's look at what they are. First the rest stroke. Okay, the rest stroke. Essentially, what's happening here is we are going to pluck the string, and then we're going to finish it on the next string. So if I'm goingto say, play this note right here, Okay? Get any note of the low string, But I'm just doing the third front, and I've got my thumb on the low string ready to go, and I'm going to pluck it. But I'm going to rest my thumb on the 80 string. Who? Okay, that is a rest stroke. So I am resting my thumb. Check out what's going on right here. Resting my thumb on low string. Okay, I whenever I'm playing a rest rook, I want Teoh. Stop it on the stop it on the next string and really was happening with the rest. Brooke is that is giving us a lot of power, and it's helping us to kind of do the exact same move every single time. Now, if I was gonna do the restaurant with one of my fingers, I am. A guy says So far we're just doing with P. But if I go, I am a I'm going to do with the restaurant with I. So let's take this high note right here. I've got my index finger on the high strings ready to go, and I'm going to go on and I'm just going toe, ring it up, plug it up towards me and finish resting it on the B string. Gives me power so I could go as hard as I want to. And it's always been arrested. The exact same spot, the's air restaurants. I just finish it a Stop it on the string right below it. Okay, do this with my fingers. Do this with the, uh, finger way Do with you. Yeah, OK, rest. Rocking is just about stopping on the letting it hit and stop on the string blow. It were the next drink, and that's rest broke. This is really common in classical technique not as common in modern finger style. Though I said there are two main moves. The first move is the rest stroke. The second move is called the free stroke, and the free stroke is going to be our main move. Okay, the main thing that we do is going to be the free stroke, and it's exactly what you would think it. This essentially, I'm going to pluck. Okay, But I'm not stopping on the next string. I'm letting it hit the air year year. Okay, let me try with my index finger. Just letting hit the air. I'm not about stopping it on the next drink and try free stroke with our middle RM and are a middle and on the finger. So when we're doing the free stroke, we really don't have any restrictions here. Okay, so we're just going for the air and way. Just let it go. Now, as far as what's happening with our arm and our wrist, I would recommend that you want to kind of have your arm on the butt of your guitar. And what I like to do is I like he's a very similar technique to when I'm using a pick is that I like to sort of rest my the edge of my hands in my wrist on the bridge. For me, this is a comfortable place, and it gives me a lot more accuracy. I don't have to constantly be looking to see where I am. So if I just come down here, then I'm good to go. So these are all free strokes, okay? Just playing three strokes. So the free stroke in the breaststroke, When you get into the finger style world, you're going to hear about the restaurant. You're going to encounter it. But honestly, you're not going to use it that often. Every now and then you may need to use a rest stroke. Just to control yourself were if you need to get a really powerful notes and you just don't want to get out of control, so you may use a rest stroke. But for the most part, when you're playing, you're just gonna be doing free strokes. Okay, free strokes. You just hitting the air, really worrying about it. You're just free to kind of like it's on the side of your finger and let it just hit me. Oh, when we're doing her free strokes. We don't want Teoh. We usually don't want the strings twang too hard. We don't want it to be like way. Don't want it to be like banging up against the the friends too much. Okay? There is a perfect amount you can hear if I go too hard than it starts being a little bit like God's banging. So Okay, so we want to really get that sweet spot. And where I'm actually getting it is just on the right on the top pad of my last free drinks. Makes sense. Okay, so everyone will do this a little bit differently, and I want you to experiment with ways that this works for you. Okay, So what I would recommend you do is you try to make contact with the string right about here, Okay? Sort of like halfway between your last knuckle and your fingertip. So, for all of your fingers, this is a great place to try to make contact with the strings when you're doing your free stroke, okay, You're getting enough into the stream. But you're not digging in too far, okay? Because we want to be able to get a little speed eventually so we don't want to dig in too far at the same time, we don't want to be just doing our fingertip, because it's not gonna be powerful enough. I just do my fingertip. I don't have any kind of power. I need to get in a little bit more way. Okay, free strokes. And you see how I'm just kind of, like, anchored right here on my bridge. Okay, so this is like a really good position for me to just kind of relax and focus on trying to get those clean sounds coming out free strokes in restaurants. But the free stroke is really going to be your best friend. So work on that. Also, if you are brand new to finger style than one of the things that might want to be aware of is that Remember what he started playing guitar and your left hand. You started getting kind of blisters. That's gonna happen on your right hand. Okay, Just in the beginning, it's kind of the same thing. It's only gonna happen for the first couple days. Or maybe weak. You can start getting blisters, so try not to play so much that you get a blister. If it stings, That's okay. A little stinging is okay. But if it gets to the point words certain blistering take a break for the day, take the day off and come back to it tomorrow. That's my recommendation. Okay, get a blister. That is the pain. You know, if it breaks open and I could really hurt and just kind of make you have to wait even a couple more days till you can play again. So don't push it too hard in the first week or two. But after that, go ahead and push it hard. All right? I think we covered off on the restaurant in the free stroke. So work on these and let's move on to the next video. 6. Dyads & 2-String Rolls (page 5): Okay, let's work on some Diane's and some of our to string rolls. Okay, When we are doing finger style, a lot of what we're going to be doing is rolling. Okay, we play these roles. Now, that is not some classical terminology. That is actually something that I picked up from some of my banjo friends when I was learning how to play bluegrass music. So, um, banjo is an instrument that is all about the rolling finger style parents, and so your ability to play these really cool finger style rolls on the banjo. We'll determine how good of a banjo player you are. And I remember when I was learning all about bluegrass and hanging out with these these bluegrass banjo players that at yet the role really is kind of the same thing as it is a classical music. It's like your ability to roll really will determine what kind of a finger style guitarist you're going to pay. So we're going to use the term role a lot. Okay, your ability to roll is going to determine how good you are. A finger style. All right, so we're going to get started with some basic rolls and some basic di adds a dia de why a d is a to note court, okay to note court. And so, like, it's got its own name because the definition of a cord is that has got three different notes. Okay, the definition of accord is never has three separate notes, so we need a different name for a to note chord. It's called Die Ad D Y. 80. All right, well, we're going to do, though, is going to take my G court. All right, I'm going to do my thumb on my low string bass note. Okay? And then So my p is my bass note in my eye, my index finger is going to do the a string. OK, so he is on the low key and the eyes on the A string do these together. When I'm doing these together, I'm kind of I'm making sure that it's almost like I'm making it group, like, making a fist, and I'm doing it in a way so that they're not getting in each other's way. All right, so my thumb and my index finger or not, they're not coming together. They're kind of going across each other. OK, so that they're out of each others way. So they both have freedom. Toe move. Okay, this is a diet cakes and playing a little too note chord. Okay, My thumb is going to stay on the low string, but now my index is going to move to the D string together school. My thumb, my p is on the low e I'm going to go index I on the G string. Great. Okay. Thumb on the low index on B street, Thumb on the aloe and index on the high e string. Very cool, isn't it? Okay, so let's let's go down and back. The thumb is always going to be on the low string, and my index is just going to travel to the other five strings. OK, we're just going to make some diets way. Okay, so we are getting into our rules. This is the beginning of some tools that you can start using, and I actually use this one a lot. So all that's happened here is we're just using r p and R i r thumb in our index. All right, so for the diets, we can just start improvising with mixing this up together, just using our little claw to get notes from court for our role. Let's just alternate between the thumb and the index doing the exact same move. Okay, so we're gonna be thumb on the low string, and our index is just going to travel around. Okay, so So that is a basic two finger roll. Okay. And now there are a lot of improvisation possibilities because we just very basic right there. But obviously, my thumb doesn't have to stay on the low string. I can start moving my thumb down to the other base. Strengths, keeping with the G court. Good. So keeping with G court. But I can start my thumb to the A string way through the A string to the east. So that is rolling with two fingers. Now, have you noticed that I'm just doing this over a G court? All right, so here's once important, too. Think about my Geico or is a six string chord, obviously. So when I go to another court like a d chord, it's a four string chord. Okay, so I've got less options. I've got less streams to play with, so I only got the four strings. So my thumb my thumb is going to go for the lowest note. That's usually what's gonna happen with the thumb. So here we're on the d string. Um, in index just gonna go diets diets together. Cool. Now let's go for our role. See how that works A C chord. Okay, a C chord is a five string court. So again, we have a different sequence of things to play around with. All right, but this is good. It keeps it interesting. All right, so the last thing we want to do is get in stuck in a box. We don't want to get stuck in a box. We won't have lots of interesting things we can do. So now my thumb is on the a string because that's the lowest note of my Seiko. Okay, so let's go through our diets together. P and I. All right, so great. Now let's do our two finger roll p and I alternating okay in our thumb like we did on the G chord can move around. We might not want to do that on the d cor just because there wasn't a whole lot of options for moving around, but we may decide to do it over a five string court so we may do something like, uh, now bring the thumb down D string your help, like bang back and forth between the d d string in the a string I give me a little bit of stuff I could play with over the sea court but then desert with Diane and I got the way role and I can also roll Going between the D string and the index finger strings. Okay, Everything is a free stroke. Everything is a free stroke. All right, so we just did this over three chords. Obviously, I could do this over every chord, but it's just going to be the exact same thing over and over again. So that's what you're going to dio go through your dear friend court shapes and start working on doing these roles, going through your die as your little two notes together to, you know, of course, together. And then your role separately. Think of them as like, um maybe the dye agile. Think of them as quarter notes like 1 10 34 on. And you may think of that role is being like eight notes one, and you may think of them 16th notes if you really want to go fast. Okay, So a lot of different cool possibilities there. Just be aware of the fact that this is gonna be something that comes up all throughout the scores. All threat, your finger style playing is that when you change the courts, you have to kind of rearrange what we're doing based on how many strings we've got available to us that our rhythms will have to maybe shipped. So whatever pattern we're gonna do, we have to apply it to however many strings we've got. Okay, so just be aware of that. All you're playing, all right, have a basic move that you can dio and then be able to expand it. If you've got more strings that were, just keep it, keep it small if you don't have that many strings. Okay, great. I think I think that about covers the dye, adds the two finger roll. So let's move on to the next video 7. Triads & 3-String Rolls (page 6): let's go through our triads and our three finger rules. Okay? This is where really starts to get exciting. Eso normally in music when we talk about triads, we're talking about the three notes that are used to build a cord. So, like the 1st 3rd and fifth that's normally wouldn't try. It is in this case, I am just referring to the Triad as three strings from Accord. Although when we're doing accord, we take three streams that are from the corn is going to be a triad, probably. Okay, there may be some redundancy of the intervals, but essentially, we're taking three strengths, okay? And that will be our triad Now. It was happening here for this particular technique is I'm going to be going thumb on the base. Always. That's like one of our main moves of thumb on the base by restoring. Look. Come on. The base now going to do these two fingers. My eye. Okay, so I am are going to be working together. All right, so I am going to be playing two adjacent strings, So two strings right next to each other with the index and the middle finger. All right, so when we're trying to make our triads, we want to have three strings all being plucked at the same time. So, like, if I go Thumann Low String index on a string middle finger on the D string. Okay, so Right, right. Awesome. So what's happening now is I am getting the a lot of those to ring out together. So now what I'm gonna do is we're going to move my index and Middle Teoh different sense of strings, and I'm going to keep my thumb on the base here. So let's that pretty cool right? I mentioned before Bluegrass banjo. So the who's considered the, uh, like the father off the bluegrass banjo was Earl Strokes. He's a guy who is said to have invented the three finger banjo role. Okay, um, you may have incident. That may be true. Definitely made it popular, because before he came around, banjo players would just be strumming through courts. All right was mainly how banjo players would be playing. They would be using the claw hammer where they just be strumming through the courts. And then Earl Scruggs Earl Scruggs came along and he just started doing this three finger roll, which is so cool soundings Theo Iconic banjo sound. If you think of a banjo playing, that's the sounds, the Earl Scruggs three finger roll. And so, for a lot of finger style guitar players and also for, ah, lot of just modern finger style guitar players, the three finger strumming is exactly what we're gonna do. This is the technique I'm gonna use, all right, So when we are going, let's do a basic role. Alright, we're just going toe thumb index and middle like that. Way going. P I m p i M p. I am okay. This'd is just a basic role that I'm doing so I can start doing this. Moving the street makes sense. OK, three finger roll. So a lot of times you know, the ring finger that A is going to be the one that's neglected and that's just common. That's a lot of my style. But a lot of other guitar players will also have the same kind of approach for all the way that some you do with the the banjo influence on finger style music. All right, but now let's take a look at our four string court R d chord, okay? Or any force during court. And so when we're doing the triads together, So thumb on the d string on, then the index and middle will be working together on the next two strings. And I could bring the to fingers to my high strings so I can move around e doing there just moving my like to fingers to the different set of strengths. Now, a lot of times when they're working together to play either a, uh, well, it's usually going to be a triad. Um, I can actually have my fingers kind of touching each other just like this, because the spacing of the Qataris usually going to be about, you know, however wide your fingers are usually going to be about that kind of space that you can keep your fingers kind of together. And they can just way start going through alternating and playing with the with the role. Then we can start looking at a role is being like the P ends the em in the eye together these two fingers together. So I think this is a sounds that we're familiar with a lot more when we go to our C court. So now I've got my thumb is going to go on the a string. I understand. I'm going try. As with these two fingers, Theun, I could start doing my alternating role where I'm going with these two fingers together. Or I can do them separate. Okay. So I can go that I can do them separate way D court. Go Have be separate, Gopi. I am okay. That makes sense. All right. So I think this covers off on the Triad in the three finger roll. The basic three finger roll. So go work on that. And let's move on to the next video. 8. Full Use of PIMA - flams & rakes (page 7): Okay? You're doing great. We're getting deep into it now, So let's talk about full use of Pema. Okay? So if we were going to use all off came up, then we would be doing this kind of thing where we said we want Teoh, Get four notes. Simultaneous plumped guy, four plucked notes. Simultaneous. So full kema is the way to do that. So I am Thumb of the low string. I am in a lot of times. Like I said before, my figures could be pretty close to each other. If your fingers are bigger than mine, then you know you may have to really squeeze them together. If they're smaller than mine thinner, then you may have to spread, not just slightly, but it's not that much, because I you know, my fingers are long, but I would say they're kind of medium size in the thickness, and so really, you just need to have them about almost closed to be the distance off. How? Spread out your strings are. Okay, P. So now you wanna move? I am a down a set. Okay, so just, uh, pees on the low, and then I's gonna start on the D string And then everything is just gonna come down below that. Now let's go pee on the low string and I's gonna start on the G string. I Hey, thank you. OK, so this is a really cool way to start getting a lot of the court out. When we're doing a deep chord, we get the entire thing by using all of FEMA, So p on the d string, I am way everything in our d chord. That's pretty cool. Let's go to our C court. Okay, five stream court. So he is going down here on the a string and then I am a on They were just like I am a down to the high streets. The three high strings way could kind of alternate between theory. I am a is going to be high set in the middle set. Okay, so wait. Okay, So this is using Pema to get everything is most weekend out of the cord, plucking it, Alright. Plucking it. There are two other moves that I wanted to mention when it comes to these techniques, especially when you're using all people, or sometimes if you're just using some of the roles for going through diets. Try. It's so like Diane's would be the two note chords. The Triads would be the three note courts and using all of chemo before note chord doing any of those courts. We can do these things that are I call them flans, or sometimes they are like a rake. OK, so they're either like a flam or a rake. Ah, Flamme is a drone term, and basically what it is is it's a rhythm is a rhythm thing that happens where there two notes that are so close to each other. They're so close, they're not exactly at the same time, but they're so close that you don't really call him 16th for 30 seconds or anything like that. You just call him a flap because they're so close. There's but but but there like that and so they don't hit exactly the same time. But there was just so close. But like that and so we can do this flam technique, say, with our die abs. So if we're just doing thumb and index OK, so we're going instead of at the same time. I mean, that's the same time. Now I'm gonna do my flam technique. Okay. Can you hear that? That's a little different, Mr Working my index a little bit. So let's go. The G string with my index. Okay, that's the same time. Now let me do my flam technique. So, like if I go same time, I'm gonna flam technique way you're It's cool, Very cool. So it adds a lot of kind of like, really interesting rhythm thing, and it's so fast, it's happening so fast that it's not really 16th for 30 seconds or 64th is not really a rhythm. I mean, everything's rhythm, but what happens is that we just call it a flam. Okay, so, user flame technical. What I'm doing is that my thumb is sitting first and then after that, so just trying to make us that my thumb hits first, and then my index hits after that flower. Okay, so we can do this when we're doing the triads. We just want to do it three times, right? So now it's gonna be instead of together, we're going Teoh. Now, this is what I was circling a rake, OK? And when we're doing either the Triads or the full use of Pema. Okay, Ford Accords. It's really more of a rake. And it's like, Okay, when we're doing a rake, if we're playing a rate with a pick, we would be just kind of like raking down the court. And so that's the same effect is what we're doing here is we're just kind of hitting them all one at a time, but superfast close together. So even though it might, it might be hitting on the same beat. It's supposed to hit on the same Be boo like that, but it's gonna be like broom mom kinda like that boom. And so it's from the thumb. Thumb comes off first on index middle on the way. Bring his last day or the last finger his last. So, like we're doing three in the middle. It's last way. Full use of chemo that way. And that is basically how you go full use of Pema, and you can start using your flames and your raking technique to start getting really cool sounds. So instead of just so we could start really getting some awesome different rhythms happening and some cool figure style techniques in the mix. Okay, so we're not just up with hitting like quarter notes and eighth notes. Now I can start adding a lot of like a really cool, spicy, spicy rhythms to it. All right, so go work on all this stuff. Work on your full use of FEMA and then trying to experiment with throwing in the Flamme is for the two note role and then the raking technique for the triads and the full use of your people. And I'll see you in the next video. 9. Thumb Strum: All right, let's work on our thumb strung. You are probably thinking, uh, please tell us you're not gonna show us how toe strum the guitar with our thumb. We know how to do that. I know you. I know you can strum the guitar with your thumb. I just want to mention a couple quick pointers on how classical finger style would approach the thumb strong. Okay, so number one when we are doing a down strong, we want to come at it like we're doing rest Brooks. Like Siris of restaurants. So, for example, I'm not going like the side of my thumb. So much is I want to come at it a little bit more directly. Like I want to come at the guitar directly with my thumb. Almost a ziff. I was doing restaurant on everything I was doing. So you see how I come all the way down to my guitar? I did all the way up to the high strings so way, when I am coming backwards, I'm actually going to use my phone nail. Okay, so on, I'm not coming to touch the guitar on the way up. Okay, So I am. It's like I'm finishing with a free stroke using my nail on the way back up. But I'm finishing with free stroke weight down. It's all restaurants on, and I'm kind of landing on my pick guard or somewhere below myself. Okay, way. Ah, it's like a free stroke that I'm doing with my thumbnail. So there are times that we're doing figure style that we're going to want to do a strong. We want to mix up his many different possible techniques as we can. We're playing finger style. It's just is a fact. That's a sounds that way. We want that sound amount more. Theo. Only way we could do it is by doing the Thal strong now, of course. Same as with any guitar technique. When I am coming back with my thumb Strom, I want to try to mute the strings that I don't want Teoh. Normally we were playing finger style. We don't have to worry about this because we're just almost like surgically approaching each string that we're going for. When we're doing the thumb strong, though, then that puts back into like, picking territory where will be careful not to over strong. Okay, so one of the things that we can do is we can use our thumb. By the way, this is not classical technique. This is actually awful, really bad classical technique what I'm doing with my thumb. But, uh, I personally think that is just an arbitrary rule that your thumb has to be back behind the behind the front board like this. This is the way that they would take a roller than smack your with it if you was hanging over like this. I do this because that's Dan style. All right, this really works well for me to kind of beauty. I'm not pressing. Just getting these two strings that I was coming back like that. Accidentally, Ricky. Same with the sea court on. Of course, this could be done with any court like, okay, could be the D minor court. So whatever it is, um, I personally think it's just flying to mute. So do it mute. If you're able to do it, use the thumb to mute anyway. Some strong. I think you get it. That's basically every now and then we want to do it, so treat like a restaurant and try to just your technique. If you've been doing like using the side of your thumb toe todo strum, you'll notice that it's not as powerful as if you come out it directly. You come directly at the guitar like you're doing a rest. Brooke. All way down your out. Powerful, that is. So if we're playing finger style, we need this thumbs from to come directly at a restaurant. It all the way down way like finished with a free stroke on the way up. Okay, that's it. Work on your thumb strong, and then we'll move on to the next video. 10. Invisible Pick : all right. I want to stay with our streaming techniques before we get back into our roles. So I want to talk about the invisible pick. OK? Can you see it? Can you see my invisible pick? Right. It's a this fall. So invisible pick is a technique that I teach people to help them with, you know, actually strumming and picking. Uh, and essentially, what's going on is that we are going to make a grip as if we were holding a pick. There's no pick, but if we were holding a pick, this is kind of like how we would grip it. And I'm going to strong, just like if I was holding a pick. It's my invisible pick. And so I am going to strum like that. And what's so important about this technique is that I am still technically, I'm doing a finger style because I don't have a pick, right, and I'm just using my hand with the shape of how I would hold it. Pick and I could actually strong my guitar very similar to the way I would almost exactly the same Hollywood if I had a pig in my hands. Okay, no pig going to pretend I have one, though. I'm going to strum my guitar, so sometimes you may want to use the invisible pick trick when you are doing your no pick. So it's the invisible pick. So essentially all I'm doing is I'm just making a grip as if I had a pick and I'm strumming as if I had a pick just really using the exact same technique that I would do if I was holding a pick. And it's just this light sensation where I'm kind of getting, you know, the nail on my index finger in the nail and on my thumb, and they're kind of banging against the strings. The reason, by the way, that I do work on this with get our students who play with the pick is because most people they, they over extend, they have too much pick. And so what we want to do is we won't have less pick, and we want to choke up on the pick and have less pick and have more of that finger sound. Okay, we won't have a little bit more of the flesh and the nails, and then more organic sounds so I'm always telling it. Talks to you is less. Pick less. Pick choke up on your pick. I want to hear more of the skin in the nails being against the streams and the visible pick is the way to do it. Okay, way visible back. Cool. All right. So practice the invisible pick. And it's just another thing for your tool belt to use. Every now and then, you may want Teoh jump into a little bit of strumming and you don't want to have toe mess around with trying to find a pig or Yeah, I do this whole thing. We have one in your pocket or you stick line between your strings. Just use your invisible pick if you want to do some strumming. Okay? That's all you need, right? Work on your visible pick, and I'll see you in the next video. 11. Rasqueado (page 8): Okay, let's work on our Pasquato. So this is a flamenco technique. All right. On dso the Spanish people from Spain are the people who really invented classical guitar, which, you know, is the birth of all finger style. The grass guy Otto is a cool technique on it is very similar to our rake. All right, so we talked about doing the brake on, and that's where we're kind of plucking in this rake fashion. This is a similar sound, but this is us getting that sound, using the backs of our nails. So okay, that accord say Aggie court. All right. Now what I'm going to do is I am going to Oh, I'm gonna pluck like this. Okay, that's it. That's right. So what I'm doing is I'm this closed fist, and then I am opening up. Pinky hits first with the back of my now and then the ring and then the middle, and then the index, Okay? And I do this really fast, but it's kind of like pinky first and the ring and then the middle, and then the index, OK? Eso scotto. And so this is a cool technique that we could use bring to get that same kind of bring sounds right now. That was, like, extreme, probably over use of the rescue, Otto. But when you would do is it's one of the tools in your arsenal. So you're playing. You know, maybe you used is like one of those finishers. So it's just like this. Really good, right? Powerful. Bring that you can do if you want to really emphasize, it's kind of like a great way that accent accord used to do the Resco. Okay, Now, uh, there would be some flamenco guitar players that would probably say, Dan, you could use it a lot more often than just to finish a phrase. Use it all the time. In flamenco music, it is used frequently. The rescue out is a style that is definitely used a lot. So it's a tool that you can use. Use it at your discretion. The whole purpose of all this is to give you some improvisation, ideas, tools that you could use when you're improvising. So if you want to use this one all the time, I say go for it, right There is nothing wrong with the way, right. So something like that rosca. So that is how you do. It's just like a bring starting with Pinky and working your way up to your index opening up and you're hitting with the back of your fingernail. Okay? We're not going for a skin when we're doing this. We're going that nails on Lee. So Blake like that? Okay. Hitting brain like that. Backs of the nails, Roscoe. Very cool technique. Go work on it. And, uh, see you in the next video. 12. PI for Scale Speed (page 9): Let's work on our speed picking with P and I so that we could go through our scales and melodies, uh, finger style and get some decent speed. So the way that I approached this is using P or thumb and I our index, okay? And so if we just go through one note at a time like a Sarah logo on the G here, so thumb Yonex ther e. So what I'm trying to do is that I don't want you to be able to hear the difference between if what I'm doing my thumb moral. If I'm doing my index, I don't want you to know which one of doing so. If my thumb is more powerful that I need to back off on it and make my index a little bit more powerful, I want them to sound identical. I want them to sound exactly the same. If I can wear OK, it's getting there. So when we do that on the high spring, it's going to feel different, all right, because a little string now, so it's going to feel very different, okay, is totally different, and I'm feeling less accurate, so just need to go through and practice doing these on the different strengths. When I am going through a skill, though I think this is the technique that I'm using. I'm just going p and I just alternating. I was playing with a pick. I would be just going down, up, down, up, down, up Constantly Alternating. Okay, this is the way to get speed with a pick. The way to get scale or melody Speed, finger style. My opinion is to go pee, and I just get really good practicing, going alternating between p and I. - Okay , You see, what I'm doing is I'm just going alternating between the P and the eye through a simple it's super simple. But what we want to do is we want to get used to every single time we're alternating. So it's very similar to if you played with pick ever before. If you're going down and then up, down, up, down, up, down, up Kind of like that you want to get used to changing strings sometimes on the up, sometimes you change strings on the down, and sometimes you change strings on me up. It's the same thing when we're doing this technique, sometimes when we changed to the next string will be doing it with the index. And other times when we change strings will be doing it with the oh, so you just want to get used to it. It doesn't make a difference. Just and the FBI will just tell your brain it's OK. I could change strings on the index, right? Can shoe strings on the thumb. It doesn't matter, does not matter. Just tell your brain. I just do it. And it's just thumb index Tom Index, Some index. Just keep getting comfortable doing that. Every time. I'm just ultra into my thumb and index. Now when you're watching me do this, I realized that it's hard to see what's happening with my right hand because I've got everything tucked away, and I'm kind of doing this little, you know, kind of fist right here. And I'm just doing this. You can't really see anything that's happening with my index, but it is. It's here, it's underneath, and it's just the oh, it's Every other note is being done with this. Okay, that makes us great, and that's it's really simple. So if you're in a situation where you want to be doing some kind of solo or, um, you're not rolling through the courts. You just want to do straight melody or straight scales and like that used the P I technique to get some speed with your scales are good job work on this, and I'll see you in the next video. 13. Roll #1 PIMI (page 10): All right, let's work on silver rules. So, uh, this role is going to be P i m i o k p I am I So thumb index, middle Index thumb Index Middle index. All right, So we have a G court, we're gonna keep her thumb on the bass note for now. Thumb index Middle. So, like, one too basic. Pretty common roll. Okay, so this is a really common role. This is maybe one of the most common rules that we could do. We don't need to be hanging out in all the bass notes that with our with our index and middle. So what I'm gonna do is remove them to the G and D Strings. So let's see what? How? They sent it in the middle. Okay, I'm gonna keep thumb here on the base, though. Way alternating between the power of the base of times. I'm hitting harder sometimes after, so I'm just trying to kind of give a little heaven for like that with sound. This sounds really good, Especially when I'm bringing these to the middle strings. I'm gonna bring him down another set. Let's go to the G string and the B string this time stays on the basement way like that. Let's go, I guess one time. Let's go to the to high strength, right? Let's try over de corps. So we've got the thumb is going to be on the D String way. Great thes two districts. Way good. Let's try and making this a little bit harder. So we're on the d chord. I'm going to alternate every other time moving the index in the middle of a set of strings way, all right, and forces trying to see court. So my thumb is now on the way. Good. All right. You saw that. I was moving down sets of strings every time with my index and my little. So that's how we can start really experimenting with gays, different sounds of these courts. And we're not even really doing anything interesting with our chord changes. Okay, we're just doing J. D and C, and we're doing like, a measure of each one, so there's not even anything super interesting happening there. I'm just trying to, like, play around with these roles as much as we possibly can. So a lot of options and that's just one roll. So we really playing around with strings just going through this roles. All right. Work on that one, and I will see you in the next video. 14. Roll #2 PIPI (page 11): Okay, let's go through some of our roles. So we're going to do the P I. P. I All right, P, I okay, I Okay, so this role is really simple, but, um, this is probably going to be one of your go to roles. So if we're on the g cord Nevers going thumb index. Tami next, every single time thumb. That's pretty simple. So now I'm going to just keep it with them, index, But I'm gonna alternate the index on the strings of so right. So with the P i p. I what I can do is I just keep the p word is and I can start moving the index the other districts way. That makes sense. So Okay, just alternating p and the I go work on this. I'll see you in the next video. 15. Roll #3 P (IM) P (IM) (page 12): all right. I want to revisit this role because it is so cool. It's p and then we're going to do I am together, so we're gonna do a diet, but we're gonna put this into a roll. All right? So on my jeep court, I've got my peak on. I'm going to do my diet. So the index and middle two strings together. OK, but turn that into a role. So it's gonna be like and I think you know what I'm gonna do here. So let's start moving these two guys together. Doing ruling die adds up the adjacent strings and to keep my thumb in the base way. It's so cool. Let's try that over a d chord Now we don't have as much to work on, so just going to have the two sets that I can start moving around with. I am. I am together way, see, quarter face, extreme way. And you see how I'm trying to do some interesting stuff. It's not always like formulate what I'm doing with my moving of my I am. I am just trying to do something really cool rhythmically to removing them different times . So it sounds like different. I've got a lot of different improvisation possibilities here. All right, so this is a great role. I love using this one because it's loud. It's got a lot of harmonic stuff happening and it's a role. So go work on this one. I'll see you next video. 16. Roll #4 PIM (page 13): All right, let's work on our P I m roll. Okay, So this is a role Where if you wanted to have a built in sort of a three field or a triple feel with the re feel p, I am This is a great one to Dio. Andi is the most logical one. If you wanted to get that three sound, okay? 123123123123 So we have a G chord. Okay, my thumb is the base, so right. All right. So I'm just going one time be. I know now the trick here because a lot of a lot of stuff that we've been doing so far has been in a like a ducal. Feel like I want to 12 or on 2341234 Something like that. That's based on two or four. So what? We're doing something that's based on 3123123123123 There's no pause after the three. We just go right back to the 1123123123123 That's how we established. Three Feel like 331 3123 Thanks. Okay. Thank you. Know what? I'm gonna dio remove these I and down a set of strings keeping my thumb in the base. Another set of strings. Let's try this way. I tried over the secret. Okay? I'm just gonna keep on my eye and em down back sets of strings makes sense, and it's got built in three feel. So this is a great way to start getting your triplet feel with a role. P i m o k. So go work on that, and I will see you in the next video. 17. Roll #5 MIP (page 14): Let's work on the reverse of P. I am. We're going to go, M i P. Okay, so this is still going to be a three field. But this time we're gonna start with the high note, okay? For the high string. So for on the G chord, our thumb is set up for the base index, some that maybe a string in the middle is on the d string. So starting with the middle finger, So m i t. So am I p M I p 123123123 Starts with the middle finger every single time Let's bring these fingers down a set of strings to to middle strings. Ah, school a little bit different still has a three sound, But when I'm starting on the high street, it has a little bit of a different feel. Let's take it from the being the G strike straight on the be straight. Nice. All right, let's go to our D court. All right, Now, some is on the d string. We're gonna roll for the B strain on G street down B string starts first, so we Oh, let's go from high strengths Let's alternate between the two. Oh, that's tricky. I tried on a C court, right? A c chord. I was on the a string. Right. So we're going to start with G string down a set of strings on again. Great. Okay, so that is M I p. Coming at the set of three backwards. All right, so sometimes we want to start it with their little on. Sometimes we want to start with our high. So it just really depends on what the sound is that we want to go for. Okay, John, go work on this. I'll see you the next video. 18. Roll #6 P (IM) (IM) (page 15): Okay, Uh, one more roll for you to play around with. And this one, I honestly think you would have come up with us on your own, but I just wanted Teoh show you how I would approach it. Okay? And so what we're doing is we're doing the thumb, and then we're going to do the I am together, but really twice. Okay, So what's gonna happen here is we're gonna wind up with the three fill. 123123123 We're gonna be doing it with these diets. So if I am, like, thumb on the low and then I am on the a the D string, I'm going to go like this, okay? And so then when I do that continuously, I'm gonna be, like, bring these down a string trio, trying to decode way that makes sense. So we get a three field with a diet and it really just as a lot of life to our plane. And now, in between the stuff we can start throwing in roles and all kinds of stuff. So we've got a lot of different tools in our tool built at this point, so um, doing really good. You're really doing great. Um, my guess is that your fingers air public pretty sore right now, but if they're not, then keep on playing. And if they are, well, then we'll done still. Keep on play, and I'll see you in the next video. 19. Going Forward : So you got to the end of the course. Can you believe it? Oh, my goodness. Well, so we worked on a bunch of stuff, and I told you at the beginning that I was going to give you all of the tools that you need it to be able to improvised and to come up with doing your own finger style techniques over all of the guitar, songs and stuff that you already play. We did that. It's Dylan. It's already happened. So you did a good job. You were exposed to a ton of different techniques because that's really all we were talking about in this course was just a whole bunch of different techniques to do with our finger style hand. And so what I would recommend you do is just keep going through that. Watch these videos again as many times as you need to. Okay, that's what it's here for. And so keep going through this. Keep working on these techniques. A lot of the stuff wines of being muscle memory so that you may or may not know. Muscle memory just means that more time you've spent doing it, your body gets used to it OK? And it just becomes natural for you to do it because you done it so much that you physically are used to doing it. Okay, you physically have the memory in your muscles. So the more time you do it, you're just going to get more comfortable with it. Also, you're going to start developing tougher skin on your fingers. Um, just like you did on your fretting hand. Okay, When you first started playing guitar that's going to starts, you develop on your finger hand on your finger style hand, so give it a little bit of time, Keep working on the stuff you will get stronger. What I recommend you do is get your hands on different songs, core progressions, things like that and try to play them all finger style. There is really nothing that you can't play finger style with techniques that I showed you anything. Any song, pretty much should be playable with the techniques that we worked on because I showed you how to do things that even a lot of finger style guitar players cannot do So like way worked on a technique for going quickly through our scales place. Um fast riffs. Um, if you needed to do some strumming, I show you a number of different things with the thumb. Strom the Rust guy, Otto the visible pick. These were things that we can use to start strumming things on. But then, beyond that, we've got tons of different role possibilities combining our rules and our diets, triads and using all of our puma. So what were you want? You have a ton of different things that you can do now. You really have a lot that you can show finger style waas. So now it's just a matter of putting in the time practicing and getting some core progressions to work on this through. So what I mean by that is, um I told you in the beginning this was not about the left hand, because mainly we just did G. D and C courts throughout the entire course start putting all of these across some or interested core progressions. If you're a jazz player and start putting them across your jazz courts, putting them across your bark words, your progress player doesn't matter. Go through these. You should be only use all of these techniques. I give you the tools to be able to execute any technique that you need to do over any song that you need to play. So you are ready to go. I'm really proud of you. You did so good. So thanks for going through this course with May. I had a lot of fun doing. It had a lot of fun putting it together. I'm really excited for you because I know that this is going to just take you way up to the next level of your guitar playing. Um and whether or not you be a pig player or finger style player, you know, Why do we have to choose? Why do we have to choose? Why can't we be both if we want to? So that's what I think, you know, Play with the pick. Sometimes when you're in the mood and play finger style, sometimes when you're in the mood, a lot of times I'll just grab my guitar and I'll just play a little finger style. If I just I wanted to play for a few minutes and didn't have a pick. Candy, I don't need a pick, you know, have my invisible pick. Anyway, thanks for going through the course with May I have a lot of fun. I'll see you next time