Learn Guitar Fingerstyle: A Beginners Guide To Fingerpicking | Marc Barnacle | Skillshare
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Learn Guitar Fingerstyle: A Beginners Guide To Fingerpicking

teacher avatar Marc Barnacle, Music Instructor

Watch this class and thousands more

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Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Lessons in This Class

    • 1.

      Introduction

      1:52

    • 2.

      Class Project

      1:06

    • 3.

      Numbering & Positioning

      3:58

    • 4.

      Acoustic & Electric Difference

      2:59

    • 5.

      First Exercise

      9:55

    • 6.

      Timing

      2:31

    • 7.

      Moving Between Chords

      5:11

    • 8.

      Fingerpicking Song: R.E.M.

      5:16

    • 9.

      Fingerpicking Song: Radiohead

      8:28

    • 10.

      Travis Picking

      8:03

    • 11.

      Pinching

      5:19

    • 12.

      Song: The Beatles - In My Life

      6:04

    • 13.

      Strum & Pick

      3:36

    • 14.

      Classical Introduction

      4:45

    • 15.

      Conclusion

      3:40

    • 16.

      Bonus Song - Dean Lewis

      11:29

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About This Class

Welcome to the 3rd class in my series of guitar classes on Skillshare - this one presents a beginners guide to guitar fingerpicking. It’s suitable for the complete beginner and works up to an intermediate fingerstyle guitar level - on both acoustic and electric guitars.

Fingerpicking is a highly valuable technique to develop and will put you in great shape as you progress through your learning journey. This fingerstyle technique crosses many genres and enables a great level of diversity to your playing. It helps improve finger strength and independence - develops ability in both hands - creates access to a wider mix of musical styles and adds extra possibilities to your own creative expression.

We begin with simple picking patterns, which will progress to enabling you to tackle some well known songs. Along the way, we learn a range of fingerpicking techniques and I will encourage you to implement these in to your own composition, that will form part of the class project. I believe that encouraging a student to find their creative voice, is a great approach for further developing confidence and awareness of your own individual and unique musical output. I will also link you to guitar recording and music production software and mention some tips for these areas along the way. 

There are various chords used throughout, so if you are completely new to the guitar, you may also wish to checkout my first class: ‘Learn Guitar: The Complete Beginners Guide’. This class covers every essential topic you need to get up and running on the guitar and has a large emphasis on helping you to develop your own - unique - creative ability. 

** Want more!? - please check my other classes:

Resources:  Lots of PDF’s are attached to this class, that contain the tab for each song that we work on - with some extra ones thrown in too. Check out the "Projects & Resources" tab to download them. I also provide documents explaining finger positions and other techniques we cover throughout the class.

I am available for any questions or comments you might have, so please feel free to email me or write in the classes discussion area. I login everyday and am always keen to help students wherever possible.

I wish you all the best with your guitar journey! 

Good luck! 

Meet Your Teacher

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Marc Barnacle

Music Instructor

Top Teacher


Hey! I'm Marc - A full time musician and instructor. I've been playing guitar for 20 years, and teaching for over 15. Alongside tuition, my roles include live & studio session work, music production, songwriting & music therapy. I also co-run the multi-award winning music charity T.I.M.E - Together In Musical Expression. Our aim is to make music inclusive and accessible for everyone.

Sign up to my newsletter for exclusive class discounts & content, regular playing tips, music & gear recommendations - and all round obsession for guitar and the world of music.

"This course was a brilliant experience. My special thanks to Marc ... See full profile

Level: Beginner

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Transcripts

1. Introduction: Fingerpicking on the guitar is a method that adds great variety and huge possibilities to your play. It's brilliant for building fingers strength and independence, it unlocks tons of songs and styles on the instrument, and you will notice a big improvement in your overall playability after tackling this class. Hey everyone, hope you're doing good. My name's Mark and a big welcome to the third class in this particular series of guitar classes. This one's all about fingerpicking. I've previously posted two other classes in this series and you can find the link for them in the description. If you're completely new to the guitar and you'd like to learn a lot of codes that we're going to cover in this class, then I recommend checking out my learn guitar, the complete beginners guide. But if you already have this initial knowledge in place, then this class is for you. I'm holding an electric guitar now, but this class is suitable for both electric and acoustic guitar players. I'm going to be using both throughout, so if you've got an acoustic guitar right now, don't switch off. The idea of these classes is to get you confident and creative on your instrument in a short space of time. We're going to cover all the essential information that you need to implement the correct techniques and build good foundations for your musical development. But we will balance this out with more creative exercises and a mix of songs for us to learn. I'll also play some extra songs attached as PDFs to this class for you to have a guide as well. I've been teaching guitar for over 20 years and have a lot of experience of working with people of all ages and abilities. This has enabled me to adapt my approach to many different teaching styles, offer numerous ways to adjust to each individual's needs. This class is also going to give you the opportunity to create your own song as part of the class project. I find that encouraging this form of creative expression really helps engage students, maintains their interests, and develops a greater sense of self belief and confidence. My aim is to leave you feeling confident in your ability, able to take some of your favorite pieces of music and play along to them. Generally put you in a position where you feel ready to continue taking your plan to the next level. I hope you'll join me in the class and I look forward to seeing you in the next video. Take care. 2. Class Project: Thank you for joining me in the next video. I'd just like to have a quick chat about this class's class project. In later lessons, we're going to learn lots of different picking patterns. I'd like you to take this knowledge and then come up with your own finger-picking pattern. You'll be able to choose a mix of codes and then put these patterns over the top of them. But recommend that you stick around 2-4 codes so you're not giving your code change in hand, whether that's your left or right hand too much work to do. Then you can just focus on what your picking hand is doing with the pattern that you've created. Once you've done this, you would have composed and created your own piece of music. As simple as that. It'll be great if you could then record this and share it in the class's Project and Resources section. Then can all learn from each other, share our achievements, and gain some feedback. I'll speak a little bit later on about how you could record this, but even if you were just to record it on your phone and share it that way, that would be amazing. You can also share it online if you wish, using the #SKILLSHARE and GUITAWITHMARC and then it will be picked up by myself and the Skillshare team. I'll speak a little bit more about his class project later on when we're working on the finger patterns. I'll mention again about how you can record it. See you in the next video. 3. Numbering & Positioning: One of the best places to start is actually learning how your thumb and fingers are numbered for when a piece of music is written down or described to you or performed to you. We're also going to have a little chat about placement, so where you put your thumb, fingers, and hand. To start with, you will see your thumb labeled as T, and then your index, middle, and 3rd as 1, 2, 3. Obviously, if there's left-handed players watching this video, just change what I'm doing over to your left hand. Your little finger tends not to be used. But I'm not ruling this out. There are guitar players out there that will incorporate and use their little finger when they're picking, but it's generally not something that's enforced. It's not to say you can't use it. The songs that we're learning and the techniques that we're covering in this class won't incorporate that little finger. Don't be freaked out if you put on a video and you see someone using their little finger. Personal preference is a big thing when playing guitar. But for this particular class, we're not going to be using our little finger. Your thumb generally covers the E, A, and D strings. This isn't the set in stone, it's just a good place to start. Then your 1st, 2nd, and 3rd finger will play G, B, and E. Again, this will alternate at times, it doesn't have to be that way. It's just a good place to start, so E, A, D, G, B, E. Just try and play that filming yourself. So E, A, D, G, B, E. We're now going to look at how you want to position your picking hand. Generally, we want to be in the middle of the end of the neck and our bridge, so around here. I'm also going to demonstrate this on an acoustic. In the next lessons, you'll get an idea of the differences. Sometimes you will see people rest their little finger on the body of the guitar. Now, this is not something that you have to do. Generally, people will keep their little finger free from the body of the guitar. But again, this is another thing that's not set in stone. Some guitar players will, some players won't. If you have your little finger down, it can reduce the mobility of the other fingers and how far you can move, and how quick you can move up and down your stream. A lot of players will tend to keep that little finger free, and it just gives them a little bit more flexibility. On the flip side, some people find that having their little finger down gives them a little bit more stability when they're plane. This can be another thing that comes down to personal preference, but also hand size. If your hand is quite restricted, and you don't have a lot of independence and stretch in it, then putting your little finger down will make that worse. Having your little finger free will allow you to have a bit more flexibility. Also, your 3rd little finger share a muscle, which makes it a bit harder for them to be as independent from each other. Again, putting that little your finger down, might restrict that movement of the 3rd. Through this class, I'm going to encourage you to keep your little finger up and have that freedom, but if there's times that you feel like it has to go down to help you apply a certain part, that's okay as well. The same applies to when resting your hand on the bridge of the guitar, and this is not something that's generally said you have to do, but you will see some guitars do it. I prefer to have that free flowing independent field of your hand just hovering over the middle between the end of the neck and the bridge just here, and our wrist is nice and curved just above the strings. I feel like that gives you a lot more freedom and flexibility and has no restriction of the mobility when you're moving up and down. But like I say, you will see a lot of guitarists rest their hand down on the bridge. That brings us back to that point of stability, and also if it's just the way that they initially learned, it might be something that they're more comfortable with. Throughout this class, I will encourage you to build the style where your hand is free from the bridge. But if there's times where you feel like is aching and it's not comfortable, it's not right for your hand size and shape, then you can just bring your wrist down onto the bridge of the guitar, not too close to the strings, because then we end up with a muted sounds that par muted, which I explained in more detail in my first guitar class. So we bring it back. So it's just on the edge of the bridge and if we now come through nice and clear. I will demonstrate this on the acoustic guitar in the next lesson as well, just in case you need a bit more clarity on where you would place your wrist if it was on the bridge of an acoustic. So let's jump into the next video and have a little look at electric and acoustic guitars and the difference in regards to what we're covering. 4. Acoustic & Electric Difference: We're now going to have a little chat about the difference between acoustic and electric guitars when it comes to finger picking. Now traditionally, when people mentioned finger picking, they tend to think of an acoustic guitar, but electric guitars incorporate this style a hell of a lot. There's tons of musicians and tons of songs, some that we're going to cover later in this class that use the electric guitar for their finger picking style. Like I said, traditionally, acoustic guitar is what people would picture. First and foremost, because acoustic guitars existed before electric guitars did, so it would have been a style that was adapted and developed on them. Now, folk music, country, you tend to picture an acoustic before you do an electric, and obviously within the classical world. Now classical guitar is something I'm going to talk a little bit more about later, but throughout these lessons, we're going to just try a balance of acoustic and electric guitar. Something to pick up on first is the size of the neck of an acoustic guitar, that would tend to be thicker or wider than that of an electric guitar. It can be quite hard, particularly for beginners to bring your thumb over the top when required and hard to stretch your fingers to where you need them to be. This is where an electric guitar doesn't take as much toll on your hands and your fingers and can be a bit easier to play in this style because the stretch isn't as tough. Another element to look at is the strings that are used on the acoustic guitar. Now, a lot of acoustic guitars will just be steel string. This is a classically strong guitar. All six strings are nylon. They have a much warmer and cleaner tone than that of a steel string acoustic guitar. It doesn't mean it's any better, it's just the preference for the style that you're looking to create. The strings on acoustic tend to be thicker as well. They have a thicker gauge. This is another thing, when you are a beginner, it can take more of a heavy toll on your fingers. It can be harder to press down those strings onto the threads that you need to play because of the thickness of the strings, so that's where an electric guitar, again becomes a little bit easier for the beginner because the strings aren't as thick. They're not as harsh on your fingers. You don't get as many of those lines across your calluses when you're first playing. Obviously, because these are a bit thicker, they will build the strength and before you know it, the ends of your fingers will be really tough and you won't be feeling any of those initial pains. Finger references are the same, the thumb 1, 2, 3. We're generally not looking to put our little finger down unless we have to, unless we have a preference, unless that feels more comfortable, it's more suited to your size of hand. As mentioned in the previous lesson, if you do end up resting your hand on the bridge, it's the same mechanics on acoustic guitar. We're going to place back of our wrist just down onto the bridge where the strings start. Making sure we're far enough back so that strings come through nice and clear. We're not coming over. Again, that new tone sounds nice if you're after that. To get that full tone, we just slow it back a little bit, so everything comes through nice and clear. To to, both electric and acoustic are used for finger picking. Acoustic style was something you'd more traditionally think about, still used into modern day. Electric guitar finger picking is also very common with the modern guitar player and it's a style that's adopted a lot. We're now going to get started with our first picking exercise. 5. First Exercise: Now we get on with some proper playing. Thank you for sticking with me through those first few lessons, I just thought it'd be good to cover all those essential bits so that we're best prepped for our playing. The first thing we're going to do is take a thumb on our right or left hand, whatever our picking and is, place it on the center part of the guitar just above the lower string and just glide across and pluck that low open A. You notice I'm not angling my hand, completely straight across the center of the firm. I'm on more of a diagonal slant like so. If we were slanting it would really restrict the movement of our hand. We want to make sure just a bit of an arc like this. The same applies to our first, second, and third finger. We're just going to play the open strings, to begin with, not worry about a fretting hand. Let's play that open A again. Then your first finger is going to play that open G. We've got A, G. Just try that for a second for me. Nice and slow. Then we're going to add the second finger to the B string. We get thumb 1, 2. Let's try that together a few times. Thumb 1, 2. Thumb 1, 2. A, G, B. Let's now add our third finger and that's going to play the highest A. We're going to have thumb 1, 2, 3. Excellent. You notice how I'm not snatching the string too much as well. We don't want to get too far under the string otherwise we end up with this real snatch snap. We're not after that. We want to just glide across the string. A nice, gentle pick of those strings, so we're not getting anything too aggressive. Once you're comfortable with that, try moving your thumb to the open I and then play that same pattern that we were just doing previously. Thumb 1, 2, 3. This time it'll be A, G, B, E. Once you're comfortable with that, move down to the D. D 1, 2, 3. This is a great little exercise to start, very simple but build up the independence and the strength and positioning of your picking hand. Once the A, I, and D are working well with the 1, 2, 3, combine them together. So you're going to go A 1, 2, 3, I 1, 2, 3, D 1, 2, 3, and then back to the I 1, 2, 3. I'll quickly demonstrate that for you. Try that pattern for me, we start nice and slow. Excellent. You see I was starting to build the independence in the thumb now as well as our first, second, and third fingers. If you're someone who is accomplished with chords, you're up and running in that respect, then fret a G major chord for me, the chord box is going to appear on the screen as well. Don't panic if it's something you're not too familiar with. Like I mentioned earlier, I've got a beginner's guitar class which you can have a look at and that covers loads of different chords this one in particular. Or you could pause this lesson now, have a little look at the chord box and see if you can build that and play along to this part with us. But just to give you a brief overview, our first finger goes on to the second fret A, the second finger up to the third fret G, the third finger onto to the third fret of B, and our fourth little finger onto to the third fret of the highest E. We're now going to try those same patterns we were working on. You could start just with the lowest E, that's now fretted on the third fret. Move to the A when you're comfortable and the D. Then you can move through the E, A, D, and back to A progression like we just did. If you're good with a few chords think of others that use all six strings. You could jump to your E major. All the time looking for that clean tone. Catching one string at a time will give your thumb or your first, second, or third finger. We could maybe try the C major shape that also has the G in the bass. Excellent, so just take a couple of minutes to practice through those thinking about other chords you could use that picking pattern with and just really focus on getting that nice, clear tone. We're now going to look at the 1, 2, 3 part of that pattern and change the order of those numbers so we add a bit more interest and variety to our playing. This is also great for building independence in your fingers. We initially just did open E with our thumb and then 1, 2, 3. We're now going to play 3, 2, 1. Move through those other bass notes. Then when you're ready we're going to move on to thumb 2, 1, 3 and continue to move through our bass notes. One more, the thumbs still moves in the same order but this time we're going to go 3, 1, 2. Here we go. I recommend you pause this lesson in between each of those just so you can fully digest what's been advised and you get a good chunk of practice along to each part. Now, all the time I'm playing that open again, if you're comfortable with chords start fretting the chords to play those shapes. Let's see if we can combine all of those and I'm actually going to play the G major chord while I'm doing it. We're going to do our thumb 1, 2, 3, thumb 3, 2, 1, thumb 2, 1, 3, thumb 3, 1, 2. I don't expect you to take that all in straight away but just think about the order we just did. We build them one at a time. As you're feeling comfortable with each one, start to add that pattern in. To make it not as tricky, to begin with, we'll keep our thumb playing the lower E, but we'll alternate the 1, 2, 3. I'll put the order up on the screen as well to make it easier for you to follow so you know what's coming next. Once more. Now, if you're feeling brave then start to move that thumb as well. You really have to concentrate and start to think about that separation now that's going on between the thumb and the first, second, and third finger. But it's a brilliant technique to get and you can start to hear you're really making those chords sound a lot more interesting. Let's try that on E major. Excellent. If you kept out with that you've done so well but don't worry if you're still on those first one or two patterns. You want to make sure you get everything correct, get all that groundwork done. There's no point skipping ahead, cutting any corners because you're already going to suffer for that further down the line. Take your time with each of those steps, really focus on that nice clear tone coming through. Positioning your hand if you're doing the chords as well with your other hand, your fretting hand, make sure they're all nice and solid and in the correct place. We're just looking for that continuity, that nice clean flow, and obviously that beautiful tone that comes from when you get the finger-picking just right. I quickly mention the class project again that we discussed earlier on. This is a great time to start thinking about that. You've just seen how we've played our open pattern. We've alternated those numbers slightly, and then we've started to put them in some chord shapes. Maybe get thinking about how you could start to put that into your own order with your picking hand and the chords that you could possibly play with your other hand. Let's have a quick chat in the next lesson about timing. 6. Timing: We're going to have a brief chat about timing. This should be a big focus of your playing. It's really important for any musician to develop a good understanding, awareness, and ability with their timing. A huge help for this is using a metronome. You might have experienced this, you might not. Don't worry if not, it's something that you can easily access on your phone. I recommend one that I use for free called Metro Timer. It's coming up on the screen now. I'll also put a link in the description. That's a really cool, simple, free metronome that you can access that's really going to help push your ability with timing. Referencing the exercise we just did, I recommend that you set a slow tempo, a slow BPM, which stands for beats per minute. Something around 70 might be good, but if you want to go even slower than that, that's fine. I'm just going to quickly demonstrate how that open picking exercise would sound along to the metronome set at 70 BPM, 70 beats per minute. You see how that gives you a nice steady pace. By having a reference for each beat, each of those counts gives you a syncopated point of where you need to be. You know that you're not lagging in any way. You know that you're just bang on the money. Every hit that comes in, you're boom, boom, boom, boom. Fam 1, 2, 3, get back to the fam, 1, 2, 3. Like I said, you can go even slower than that. I'm just demonstrating 70 BPM there. But you could go down to 60, 50 even if you wanted to. It's a great way of building your understanding of timing. Why then recommend? Is that each day that you practice these exercises, add two BPM, go up to 72, 74, 76. As each day goes by, just going up that small amount will push you to play that little bit faster. You won't notice it too much, especially if you're doing it once a day. Before you know it, your speed would have increased massively, which is a huge asset to have in your locker when you're playing guitar. But again, very, very important that you start slow and just gradually build that. It's a good little tip there to develop your ability with timing. Give it a go, see how you get on. Start slow, gradually build. 7. Moving Between Chords: Let's get back to those picking patterns that we were working on earlier. But this time, work ourselves a bit harder, make our brain do a bit more work, focus on that separation between our left and right-hand, get them working more independently by combining those picking patterns with some chord changes. For those who are not too familiar with the chords or maybe you just need a bit of a reminder or something to reference as we're going through, the chord boxes will always appear on the screen to help you out. We're going to start by playing out A minor chord. We are then going to incorporate that firm 1, 2, 3 picking pattern that we worked on earlier. Because the A note is our bass note, our thumb is going to play A and then 1, 2, 3, are going to play our G, B, and e. So we'll go. Thumb, 1, 2, 3, or A, B, G, e. Once we've played that, we're going to come across to our C major chord, not too much of a tricky change. Our third finger just moves across to the third fret of the A string, and we then do the same thing here. Thumb, 1, 2, 3. A, G, B, e. Let's combine those together so we play that pattern once on each chord. If we're feeling confident with that, let's now throw in two more chords. We're going to go up to our G major, which means we've got to move our bass note. Our thumb now plays the lower E, the bass is now in that chord. Our fingers, our 1, 2, 3 stay the same G, B, and e. Once you've played that G, we're going to challenge ourselves even more by going down to the D major chord. The bass note changes again. Our thumb now plays the open D. If we think of just our thumb for a second. A string on the A minor, A string on the C major, A string on the G, D string on the D major, and with our 1, 2, 3 picking pattern, that would be, brilliant. You're making really good progress by following along with this. We're now going to push things by making it a little bit trickier, making our brain do that extra get work by bringing back that variation in our 1, 2, 3, and we're going to make this even harder by choosing a different pattern for our first, second, third finger on each chord that we play. I'll place the order and the things you need to use on the screen. So you've got a good reference point and something to follow. But just so you know we're going to do our standard thumb 1, 2, 3 on the A minor, and then we're going to reverse that 3, 2, 1 on the C major, and then when we get to the G, we're going to do 2, 1, 3, and then on the D we're going to do 3, 2, 1, and now let's try and put all that together. I love how just the slightest little change can add a real bit of interest to the chords that we're choosing to put together. Now it'd be another great time to mention the class project. We've got our thumb moving through the bass notes, we've got variation in our first, second, and third fingers, and we've started to move through quite a few different chords to start to think about how you could form your own chord progression and your own picking pattern. Like I mentioned earlier, recording and sharing what you create would be amazing. You can quite simply just record this on your phone. Most phones have an audio recorder on them or you can access free versions of some really good software. I'm using Logic at the moment, and currently, they've got a free trial going on. If you check that out, that's where I've gained a lot off. Pro Tools do a similar thing, a light version of their software, you can download for free. If you're using a Mac, then GarageBand, a really good audio recording piece of software actually comes free with that. I definitely recommend checking it out. There's a guy on Skillshare who has created the perfect beginner's guide to GarageBand to get you up and running on that piece of software. It's honestly brilliant. He's done it for your desktop, laptop, and he's also done an iOS version. So check that out and get involved if you're interested in doing a bit of recording. Let's take all we've covered so far and move on to learning a couple of songs. 8. Fingerpicking Song: R.E.M.: Welcome to the next lesson. Now it's time to start looking at a couple of songs. Both of these tracks are really well known in the alternative, indie circles, but they're generally just great songs to learn when you're developing your fingerpicking technique. I'm back on the electric guitar now, that's because these tracks do actually both use electric guitars. There's a balance of acoustic as well in there somewhere, especially on string spirit for the dominant guitar in there is electric. If you're still on an acoustic or you're going to go on acoustic, that's absolutely fine. It's the same principles, it's the same mechanics, it's the same technique that's going to be used. There'll just be a slightly different sound, and a slight bit more pressure required on the strings if you're using acoustic itself. Let's get them running first with REM's-Everybody Hurts. This is perfect to tie into the picking patterns that we was working on earlier on. The first code we're going to shape is a D Major. Once you have this in position, we'll focus on that picking hand. I'm going to quickly play for the riffle for you just so you get an idea of where we're going. Great. You can see how once we've played our thumb, we are just going from one, two, three, and then back up two, one, and start again with our thumb. That's all we do on the D Major. It's very much like the pattern we was working on earlier on. When we move to our G, we're going thumb one, two of the D and G and then three, two, one from the E, B and G. We put that together nice and slowly, let's do the D Major first, so we work up from one, two, three, and then we come back down. When it moves to the G, your first finger can come off of that G string. Play a last note, open with our first finger, and then go to the G Major code just in time for our thumb to land on that low E string, the pans appeared on the screen. Again, you can follow a reference, the numbers fingers form that you need to use. Let's try that again. Again, finger off up to the G. That G again was thumb, one, two, and the D the G and then E, B, G, three, two, one. Now I just want to note that I've seen some people when they're moving from that D to the G they keep their first finger down on the high note. Listening to the track, I feel Lucky does open up and play the open G just before he moves. It does also make the change a bit easier. But if you want to play it the way some other people do you can't keep that first finger down when you're finishing on the D Major, so you'd get exactly the same again. Then up to the G. That is your whole verse, just that D and G major code. I'm going to put the rest of the track in the PDF so that you can walk through it. But just to quickly give you an example, when it comes out of that verse, I'll play the last bit. It doesn't run down of E, D, G, first finger comes onto the second, second finger comes up we do the same again, E, D, G. Then we're into our E minor code and we play the strings, E, D, G, E, D, G. Then we go down to the A Major code and we play the strings I, D, G, E, B, G. So we're together, that would be. If you're feeling fancy, there's a level. But I'll put the rest of that in the PDFs, like I said, the numbers will be on there, the fingers that you need to use. I like to give people a taste of the track, work for that main element that D and G, which is going to get you for all the verses, but then give you that little challenge to work out the rest of the song yourself by looking at the PDFs. Obviously, I've gone through the track pretty quickly there with the chorus codes that run down to the E Minor and the A Major. You have got a reference point to look at, but I have a look at those PDFs and see how much of it you can take on board and play yourself. 9. Fingerpicking Song: Radiohead: Now let's have a look at Radiohead's, Street Spirit. It's a beautiful track, is a really lovely guitar part is played, fantastic picking pattern, and this is going to be great for your development with this particular style. We want to start by fretting out A minor chord. The only difference is we're going to put our little finger onto the third fret of the B string. We keep our first finger down as well because we're going to need that in a minute. We're also putting our little finger on that string tucked nicely behind the third fret. This is when I have seen people rest their hand on the bridge when they're playing, I'm going to stick with this nice, loose, open, and non-restrictive feel here, but if that works best for your hand shape size, you feel like you need that rest in the moment, it's not a problem if you want to put your wrist down onto the bridge, and play the track that way. You will hear also there's the acoustic in this song but the electric is the dominant guitar that is playing this main picking pattern, so that's what we're going to focus on. We start nice, and simple by playing the open A with our thumb. We then play the D string with our first finger. We just get thumb 1, A, D. Our third finger then comes to the highest e, the open A string. Our first finger then plays the G, and our second finger then plays the B, a bit like that pattern we worked on earlier 3, 1, 2. Let's put that together. Thumb 1, 3, 1, 2 or A, D, E, G, B. We then play that G again with our first finger, and our E again and back to the G. We are alternating the string with our third and second finger, but our first keeps coming back to that G. See we're up to that. Thumb 1, 3, 1, 2, 1, 3, 1. This is where it gets a little bit trickier. Our little finger comes off, and we play at B string again, but it's our first finger now that's making the sound, and we do the G again. Middle finger off and then we find that e, G again. Then our first finger comes off again, just play with that together. Ending on an open B and G, and then our last two nodes, thumb one on the D, G. Loves to take him with his pattern probably seems very complicated to begin with, but once you get that idea of how you're just bouncing from the third, and second finger back up to the G for a lot of that pattern, and then our little finger comes off to the first and then our first finger comes off to the open, and then we end on that the D, G. Let's try to give a really slow again, and the pattern will come up on the string, the strings that we need to use, and the numbers that are on those strings, take a minute, pause this video, digest that information, memorize it. Once it becomes familiar, you'll be able to apply it a lot easier. A little bit quicker. Then in our verse he moves up to an E minor chord. Now to keep some continuity with the shape, I've to move the second, third finger up. Sometimes you'll see people play the E minor with the first, and second, which is definitely useful other times. But for us in this particular track, we just move our second, third finger up one string each. The only difference here is, the first two notes, instead of the E, and D we go E and A. Then we keep that e, G, B, and working down pattern that we used in the E minor, we do exactly the same again. It's the same pattern and the same movement of our little finger to the first coming off. I'll just quickly demonstrate that. Ending on that D and G again. This move from the E minor up to that e minor. The E is played eight times the beginning of the track, and then it goes up to the e minor to play that pattern twice. Lovely. The next part of the track, moves from the verse into the chorus, and it goes from the A minor over to the C major. Very handy for us who uses the same picking pattern. I've probably find you in a little bit of deep end by putting this picking pan into the beginner's guitar class. But I do feel like it's a beautiful, brilliant pattern to learn. This can put you in really good state for your musical ability going forward. Once we've moved from that A minor across to the C, it's the same thing where we play thumb one on the E and D, and then we do that three, one, two alternating back to the G on an A, B and G string. Our little finger is on the third fret of the B string again. We play that C pattern once, he then goes to the E minor, same patterns we did earlier, but the only place it once this time, and then we go back to the A minor. We're going to play the A minor twice, but at the end of the verse, then we're going to do one pattern on the C major, one pattern on the E minor, back to the e minor, will do that nice and slow. Then move, and again, that's in the beginning. Really lovely progression, bringing that C back to the minor, and then back to that a minor, it's beautiful. I'm going to play that I once more for you, just so you can see that transition, that movement happening again, so you don't have to keep rewinding. Move , and again. Start really slowly with that pattern. The original track is actually quite fast, so referencing back to what we did, we [inaudible] earlier, set yourself a really slow BPM, and practice that pattern, just stay on that 'e' minor for day while. Then when you're feeling confident, move up to that E'] minor. Remember that run down with the little fingers at first, then open is exactly the same, back to the 'e' minor, and then bringing that full chord progression when you're feeling ready but don't rush things. When you're ready, join me in the next video and we'll move on to another picking exercise. 10. Travis Picking: We're now going to look at a particular style called Travis picking. If you've done much research into finger picking, you probably would have seen this style appear somewhere. When you hear it played, you'll probably recognize it from music you've heard over the years. Generally, this is a style that focuses the thumb around the bass notes, bit like we worked on earlier. It tends to alternate between the two basses, the two lowest notes. They exist within a certain code. For example, if we were to take the G major code again, and then we play the lowest E and the A string alternating between the two, we'd get something like this. You could play the E and the D instead. But for this exercise, we're going to play the E and the A. Just try that with me when you're ready. We're then going to introduce the index finger onto the G string. We're then going to put the second finger onto the B string. Now it's had a bass notes are given this steady rhythm, keeping everything flowing. Then the first and the second finger just appear in between those basses. Once you play that G, we can move down to the Cadd9, which basically just brings our first second finger both down one string. Instead of the A and the E they're now in the D and the A. We're going to keep that same pattern moving along. Thump on the A this time. First on the G, and thumb on the D, and in second on the B. We get a thumb 1, thumb 2 or A, G, D, B. Now we're going to try and combine those two chords together. We play that pattern twice on each code. Quick demonstration, we'll get something like this. One, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4. Now he's had those bass notes are giving you a nice steady rhythm, a constant flow to the pattern that we can then build upon. Let's do that together. After count of four, we're going to play that pattern twice on each chord, 1, 2, 3, 4 and change, and back. What we've been doing there is playing the bass notes on the one and the three, so we get like a 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4. Then we can plant the first and the second finger on the two and the four 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4. We now going to put an and in there, so we'd get 1, 2, and 3, 4, and 1, 2, and 3, 4, and 1, 2, and 3, 4, and 1, 2, and 3, 4 and. Now and is the second finger on the base string, so we get thumb 1, 2 thumb G, B, thumb G, B. It's the same for the G Major and the Cadd9. One, 2, and 3, 4, and 1, 2, and 3, 4, and 1, 2 and 3, 4 and. I'm going to play that a little bit slower. Now we start through in a higher note there. I played the A on the last one instead of B. There's nothing to say. You have to stick to the B. Start to think how you could change this pattern up alternating between those bass notes, keeping that steady flow, but throwing in those little and. Those extra beats they exist in between. Don't feel like you have to stick with that order as well of playing thumb 1, 2. Why not change that so it's thumb 2, 1? When we were talking about the counting, we were saying it's like a 1, 2, and 3, 4 and. If you're playing a bit faster, you can also think of that as 1 and 2 and. So it'll be like. Which would be 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and. Sounds really nice as you get it faster and faster. You have to say, well, you can take that, have a good old experiment. A good thing to pick up on here as well is dynamics. We don't want every note we play to be exactly the same volume, exactly the same level of here. We want a bit more variety to apply. There's a light and shade, it goes up and down. It's sings a bit more. If we add everything just as. It doesn't sound as nice, we want to add a little bit more interest in what we're doing. Try and be aware of that when you're applying pieces of music. Again, I'll come back to the class project. We've learned a couple of different things that you can start thinking about how you would implement into your own piece of music. Let's look at how we could use Travis picking alongside a bigger chord progression. We've already got the G Major to the Cadd9. I'm going to do a little run down to the A minor. Then I'm going to end on an E minor, and then I'll be back to the G major. Let's just have a quick little look at that. I also changed that, the order of the firmness. It wasn't wise just playing E and A, it was also in the day sometimes when I was in the G Major. Now might be a good time to pause and now to think about that class project. We'll just keep doing what you're doing, working through each of these things step-by-step, starting nice and slow. Don't run before you can walk, take it easy really is the best thing you can do. Implement all these correct techniques and exercises by starting very slowly, gradually build and you really going to notice the benefit as you develop along your musical journey. 11. Pinching: We're now going to look at something called pinching technique. This is where you're using your thumb and then your first, second, or third finger, so you are playing two strings or more at the same time. To demonstrate this, we're going to use something called intervals, and we're doing G major in thirds. That might sound a little bit confusing to some of you, you don't need to worry too much about that. It's something that ties quite nicely into the classical side of things that would be in the training if you was working through the books to do your grades. But for our purposes now, affirm that little tile in there so you can get used to some of the terminologies and references that are made. The most important thing is going to be that we know what strings we're using, and where our fingers need to be. We're going to start by putting our third finger behind the third fret of the A string. We're going to play that with our thumb, but at the same time, we're going to play the open B. A quick reference to where the third's come in, if we used our musical alphabet, G, A, B, B is the third note of the G major scale, G is what our thumb's playing, B is what our first finger is playing. We pinch them together at the same time, that we spoke about earlier. Don't be too harsh with them. Try not to snatch and get very nice tune, just try to gently glide across and get that nice, clean even tune. Once you've played that, we're going to put our first finger on the first fret of the B string, and we're going to take our third finger off with the A, and we're going to play the open A and that first fret of the B. Let's try that together. Excellent. This time, when you go to that A and B string, try using your thumb and middle finger instead of your thumb and index. First one is with index and thumb, second time it's from the middle. We started to alternate the use of our first and second finger. We then add a second finger to the second fret of the A string, and our little finger to the third fret of the B. We'll play the B string with our index this time. So together we'd get, 1, 2, 3, really nice creating that harmony between those two different notes which sounds beautiful. We're going to add one more. We're going to put our third finger on the third fret of the A string, and then we're just playing the open E with our middle finger again. Pinch them both together nicely even tune. Once we have you with that, we can reverse it. We get back from the third fret of the A, and the open E, to the second fret of the A and the third fret of the B, open A first fret of the B and third fret of the A open B. Alternate in those fingers. Figured out that class project again, something else you could add. These actual pattern does go on a little bit further, and I'll put this in the PDFs actually. If you wanted to go the full way, there's quite a stretch and it becomes quite intricate, but I think is a really good challenge to take them both so hopefully you'll give it a go. I'm just going to quickly demonstrate the full progression. We go up to it, and then reverse this with a slightly different finger position. Really nice. Like I said, I'll put the rest of that into PDFs, have you crack it in. We're now going to put the first and the second finger together and played in both alongside the thumb, so we get free notes carried at the same time. Whereas before your first finger was playing, the bass string is now going to jump to the G, and your second finger is going to apply the B. I don't alternate this time, because they both can have a responsibility of strings to play already. Let's put them altogether. Thumb play is the lowest E string still, and then your first place the G, second place the B. We then move to the open A, first stays on the G, seconds stays on the B. We then move to the second fret of the A, little finger comes down to the third fret of B, first and second, still apply G and B, and then our third finger plays the third fret A, and then this is where our index plays the open B middle place, the open e. If we reverse that, really lovely little progression. Experiment with the older adults as well. You can come up with some really lovely little movements. These technique's going to be great for the some that we're going to learn in a minute. It's got beautiful little rift, opens the track, and occurs throughout the piece of music. Hopefully, it'll be familiar to you. Let's have a go at that now. 12. Song: The Beatles - In My Life: We're now going to look at a track that utilizes that pinching technique we were working on before, is called In My Life by The Beatles. It's perfect for us because it starts in a very similar way to the method we've just been using. I want you to place your thumb onto the open A -string, and then your first finger onto the second fret of the B string. We are going to pinch those two strings together at the same time. Again, remember not to snatch, we just want a nice clear, smooth tone coming away from both those strings. We get that nice combined harmonized sound. That is a big stretch in this next bit, but it's great for developing our technique. A little finger is going to come all the way over to the fifth fret of the highest E string. But I want you to keep your first finger down on that B. Once we've played our pinch to begin with, with the A and B, we keep that A in play for the next beat, which is our A open and fifth fret of the E. This time, use your middle finger when you pinch. Remember how we was alternating before? In that interval technique, I want you to do the same thing here. First finger, second finger. Pinching the A open on both. For extra strength and to help you place this first finger down, you can put your second and third fingers behind the third and fourth fret. Just gives you a little bit more stability, something to anchor onto. Then we go back to where we started, the open A and the second fret of the B string. We pinch them together. So all together we've got, back to that starting point. Once we've played that first beat again, the second finger hammers down onto the third fret. Now don't worry if you haven't worked on hammer-on techniques before, you don't have to do that here, but it's a great little technique to have so I'd recommend having a go. All we need to do, once you've pinched the open A and second fret of the B, you just let your second finger fall down onto the third fret of the B, but with enough pressure, so that we actually hear the fret. If it's too soft, we won't get the note coming through. Just a nice smooth transition from the second to the third. Sounds lovely, is beautiful technique to have. If you can't do the hammer-on yet, don't worry, you can just pinch the open A and that third fret again. You could just do it like that. Lets go from the top. Great. Now we're going to catch the open E underneath. I did it with a hammer-on there, don't worry if you can't. If you're playing without the hammer-on, so you're pinching both that second and third, I'd recommend catching the open E with your third finger. If you're doing it with the hammer-on, I'd recommend using your second finger because that would still be alternate in-between one and two. We're always looking for that smoothness, that consistency with what we are playing. Once you've played that open note, our third finger comes across to the full fret of the highest E string, and this time the base note we pinch with it is the open low E. We have both of those sounding together. All together that will be. There's this little low chug that occurs on the open E that we can use our thumb for. We just gently catching it to give you that little bit of extra groove before it builds into the codes. It's the timing on that low E is playing with the thumb, it's slightly different. The first one is more like a. The second one is just more of a four count going into the first verse. Altogether. Cool. It's a really lovely rhythm, it happens at the beginning of the track and it occurs throughout, it's a recurring theme, a bit of a signpost that pops up quite a lot in the truck. There is one other way that I've seen some people do this if you want to try and expand on your hammer-on technique. Instead of the open E, the E note can be played on the fifth fret of the B string. You'd get this little change instead. It's a way to really expand that hammer-on technique because after the first fret, you hammer -on to the second, after the second, you hammer on around to the fifth. Takes more of a tow on the fingers. Harder to achieve. But if you want to just throw that in there as a little exercise, it's a really good way to improve the strength and independence in your fingers. Or you could pinch each one of those with the open E. Then the open E on that full fret of the high E. Or with pinch. Always remembering to alternate the first and the second fingers. The track goes into a really nice chord progression. I will put that in the PDF just so you've got a reference point because obviously that ref doesn't last very long. It's a really good thing to learn, to develop our playing ability, but it's nice to have those chords there as well so you can try and practice along to a lot more of the track. Let's jam into the next video. 13. Strum & Pick: We've only got a couple of lessons left in this class. Thank you so much for joining me this far. It's been great fun putting this together. I hope you feel like you're really developing as a musician and enjoying the content that we've worked for. I want to throw in another little technique that you might find appealing sometimes when you're working on fingerpicking is a combination of strumming and picking. It's not always a tone that people are going to want to go for, but it does get used from time to time. I feel like it's good for you to have it as an option, and just something that you're aware of. It's where we utilize our first and second finger combined with our thumb, a bit like the Travis picking style we worked on earlier to get some picking and strumming going on without the use of a plectrum, just using our fingers and thumbs. I'm going to use A minor chord to demonstrate this, but you can just play with the open strings if chord is still a little bit tricky for you. What I'm doing there, it's just catching that open A string. My first finger then strokes down from the D string, catches the D, G, B, and A, and then my second finger comes back up. Now when that second finger comes back up, I'm not being too definitive about how many strings I catch. Sometimes I might just catch the open E, sometimes I might catch the A, B and G, or somewhere in between. I personally really like the vibe that I create, it got a bit of a Western feel about it, especially if you pick the right chords. If you want to, you could just practice that with the open strings for a bit. Again, if the chords are a little bit hard at the moment, you can incorporate the lower E to that and then you could choose where you use your first finger to strum from. Maybe start from the open A, the open D, or even just the G bayonet. If we go back to the chords for a second, I'm going to play that A minor twice, and then I'm going to move up to the E minor. My thumb now are going to play the low E for the bass note, my first finger is going to strum from around the A string, and my second finger is going to catch that high A, maybe the B, and the G and it's going to sound a little bit something like this. Now we can bring back the Travis picking style we worked on earlier. Within the A minor, I'm going to play the open A with my thumb, and then the D string. Then on E minor, I'm going to play the open E and then the A string. It's a cool little style, I think, it adds a lot more diversity to your playing and the possibilities that you have. Let's just try and for our couple more chords in there and move between them a little bit quicker. I'm going to play on each chord once. There we go. Another technique for you to have a go at, adds lots more possibilities to your playing. If you're looking at composing your own music, or you just want to have a variety of playing methods available to you then there's another option. Let's move into the next video. 14. Classical Introduction: I mentioned the classical guitar style earlier on, and how I'm using a classically-strung guitar as well. I just wanted to go into a little bit more detail about that. Because if you're someone who's into finger-picking, it's a style you're looking to develop. Obviously, it's used a hell of a lot in contemporary music, all forms of rock, pop, country, folk, like we spoke about earlier. But like I say, traditionally, originally, it would have been a classical guitar format on these acoustic style guitars. You might be looking to venture into that, and I would recommend it. When I was really young, and I first got into guitar, one of my aunties asked me, "Oh, you're learning classical?" I said," No, I'm into Nirvana and the Pixies. That's what I want to do." When I got older, my late teens, and early twenties, I really got fascinated with that style of guitar because it's incredible. The musicianship is phenomenal, and it would do absolute wonders for your playing ability. If classical music isn't your thing, that's fair enough. It's not like you need to throw through tons of classical pieces of music and devour everything. There is some beautiful pieces out there. Maybe as your musical tastes change, you'll become more engrossed in it, but it is something I would recommend having a go at. There's an organization called ABRSM, Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, and that's where you would study for your grades. Now, you might have heard people talk before about working through their grades of music. It will be from 1-8. That is basically an assessment of your musical ability. You will learn scales, pieces of music, certain techniques, and exercises that really push your musicianship. The G major inferred in the fold that we spoke about earlier, that's something that's been taken from one of the ABRSM books. They look to develop your overall musicianship, and you'll spend quite a bit of time working on theory as well. You learn to sight-read, which again, when I was younger, I had no interest in. I was like, "No, I just want to work songs out by yards. I just want to play in bands and jam." As I got older, I realized that's actually a great thing to have in your locker as well. It's a great bit of knowledge to have. It allows you to tackle loads of different pieces of music, to work with different musicians, opens up the possibilities of what you could do as a musician. Maybe you would go, and accompany an orchestra. Maybe you do some of your own solo recital. Maybe you just want to be able to put on different styles of music, and be able to play them. You'll feel even more accomplished, and even more empowered, when you tackle a wider variety of music. Classical is also a style that can have a perception of being quite complicated and intricate, which it definitely does do at the higher end, but that's the beauty of something like working for your grades. They start really simple, and it just gradually build your ability as a musician and your awareness of all things musical, including a lot of focus on music theory. The music theory side of things tends to come in, and be more prevalent from Grade 5 onwards. Those first four grades are really laying the foundations of your technique, and building a really good understanding of sight-reading. Another reason I thought would be important to mention these is because that's where you say classical guitarist doing the technique that we've mainly worked on, where the little finger is away from the body of the guitar, and the hand is loose over the sound hole. Also with classical guitarist, you will know, is that they use a foot stool. This is to raise either their left or right leg. You get this archtop guitar, then it's up on an angle. This is really good for helping the stretch, and your fingers covering a wider range of frets. It also helps with this technique that we're developing here with our right or left-hand, depending what your picking hand is. I find this angle, this technique, is great for mobility. It really helps to remove some of that restriction of movement. I plan to do a complete beginner's guide to classical guitar, further down the line. You'll probably cover a lot of the elements that exist within the first four grades. Because like I say, once you get to Grade 5, that's pretty much a big leap up. I think it's good to get those first four covered. Now, I'll put you in really good stead for future playing. But this was just a little insight into the world of classical guitar. I felt like it was relevant because we're obviously working on fingerpicking. That's something that's very prominent within the classical world. It might just act as a little doorway for you to go and venture into that a bit further. Go learn a bit more, check out a few videos, really start to push and expand your playing ability. Hopefully, in the not-too-distant future, we can work through a classical guitar class together. That's just a little example of a piece that would appear in the first couple of grades you've worked through. Notice that I was incorporating the pinching technique that we learned earlier. It was actually three notes being played at the same time. Classical guitars, beautiful with that so many harmonies that are created through our pieces. It's fantastic. Obviously, a lot of focus on dynamics. You get this real beautiful voice that occurs throughout pieces of music, you really wanted to sing. You don't want everything to just be at this one constant level. There's a real lovely flow of dynamics for our classical pieces of music. 15. Conclusion: A huge thank you for working through this entire class. It's been a real pleasure putting it together. Fingerpicking is a beautiful style to develop, and I honestly think it's going to make you feel more accomplished as a musician. As we've mentioned, it opens up tons of possibilities, it unlocks loads of different styles of music, and it just makes you more aware of the possibilities in the guitar, the different things that you can form and create. Hopefully, inspire you to go, and create some of your own things. As a little recap, adjust the positioning of your picking hand to what suits you. I've advised throughout this class to hang your hand over the strings around the sound hole or around the center of the electric guitar body, if you're using the electric guitar. But if you feel like you do need to put your hand on the bridge, that's okay. It may be just as time goes by, develop towards moving it above the strings as well, and then you'll have both techniques in your locker. Same thing with the little finger. We worked with our little finger away from the body, but if that's happened throughout the class, it's felt like it's giving you more stability, and you can still move up and down the strings with your other fingers and thumb, then that's fine. But again, just see if you can start to work towards a time when you've got your hand completely free of the body of the guitar. Be patient, not everything is going to happen overnight. To start nice and slow, work through each technique, make sure you get in those nice, smooth, clean, clear tones early on. That's going to put you in really good stead as you increase the speed and the development of your techniques. On that note, we're starting slow. Remember to try practicing along to a metronomes, you're really solidifying your timing. You can start around 60 BPM, and then just add two BPM each day, small increments that will gradually push your playing. Before you know it, you would have increased your speed a hell of a lot. Remember to have a little look in the PDFs that are attached to this class because I've put some more songs in there for you to have a go at. Also, just go out and research some other songs. If you've got a few pieces of music that you really enjoy listening to, see if you can work out how to play it. A bit of ear training won't do you any harm. Put that song on, see if you can find the root notes, play around with what might be existing within that track, or you've got a ton of resources to go. Research online for how that particular track is played. Obviously, it's always good to be pushing yourself. It's quite a bit of content condensed into this class, but obviously, there's more out there if you feel like you need some additional challenges. If you do have any questions, please send them away. I'm always keeping an eye on Skillshare, I login every day. I'm more than happy to respond to students. I put my email address in my profile as well, so please give us a follow on Skillshare. Make a note of my email address, my Instagram is also there. You are more than welcome to add us on those platforms, send us a message. If you want, just post in the discussions of this class, and I will get back to any questions that you have. Reviews are also huge on this platform as well, and it helps other students discover these classes. Please, if you've enjoyed the content, leave us a little review, that helps other people discover it. Also, it's great for my understanding of how the classes are being received, and what I can improve on, or what I can implement in the future. Going forward, there's going to be a lot more classes. This is now my third that I've launched on Skillshare. Like I mentioned at the beginning, checkout the others, there are links in the description, and learn images will appear now as well. I've got tons of plans for loads more classes, so they will becoming your way. But as always, if there's anything in particular you want to learn, let me know. Get thinking about that class project, we've covered loads of different things that you could implement into your own creation now. If you'd like to record it, that'd be amazing. Share it in the project and resources section, and we can all celebrate what's been achieved. Upload with the hashtags #guitarwithmarc and #skillshare, if you want it to be picked up on Instagram by the Skillshare team and myself. We can all be inspired by each other, getting some feedback if we want, and generally, just celebrate what you've done. If you haven't already, please give us a follow on Skillshare, feel free to add us on Instagram, post any questions in the discussions, leave a little review, send us an email if you want to. There will be plenty more classes coming your way, nice and regular. Again, a big thank you for now. Hopefully, catch you again soon. Take care. 16. Bonus Song - Dean Lewis: I want to do one more lesson that covers a different track. There is a big shout out to a student who's taken one of my previous classes on Skillshare. They also left a lovely review, so a big thank you for that. When I was talking about planning a finger picking class, I put a shout out to everyone and said if there's anything you'd like me to cover then please let us know. This particular student sent over a couple of their favorite artists, suggested a few songs. I checked out a couple of bits and I felt like Dean Lewis' track Be Alright, would be a really good one to tie into the style that we're covering in this class. It's something I definitely encourage. I'll always interact and engage with my students. If you leave any questions, comments, I'll always get back to you and it's great to hear your suggestions. I really want to liaise with everyone when I'm planning these lessons, going forward and really make you feel like you're included and part of the planning process because I want this to represent you and more what you want to learn. The first thing to know about this song is you're going to need a capo. I don't know if you've used one of these before but they are basically this little device here, really easy to find online and you can pick them up for a few quid. It's basically something that shortens the length of the guitar. It replaces what our first finger might do if we was playing something like a power chord or barre code. We take this capo and we place it behind wherever fret is required for the song that we're learning. If I was to play an open chord in the first position, say E major and it sounds like that. If I was to move into a higher register and put the capo beyond the full fret which is the fret we need for this song, play that same chord and hear how we've moved up in pitch. The capo should be tucked nice and closely behind the full fret. Make sure you're not pushing up or down too far because it will start to bend the strings and you get this weird out tune sound, so just make sure that the strings are nice and straight and learn how they should be and you're tucked close to the fret, just like you would if you're just putting your finger. The track opens up but this nice soft chords and then some picking comes in shortly afterwards and that's what leads us to the chorus. I'm going to focus on that first bit picky in this intro early on, just to get us up and running. The nice thing with this track is that there's a pattern that occurs throughout. Once you've got familiar with the movement of your picking hand, it's just a case of focusing on these set of chord changes that occur throughout but you can keep this regularity and this continuity with your picking hand going which gives us this nice steady flow. To begin with, place your first finger behind the seventh fret of the A string and then your little finger behind the ninth fret of the B string. Now you will see some people play this with the third finger. That's fine as well. I'm going to go with the little finger because it means the stretch isn't as hard for us and also it's quite a nice happy to form I think because when you are playing other types of chords like power chords and barre chords, that second and third finger come into play quite a lot and it's quite nice to have the option of them there in case you wanted to do something else with the chords when you're jamming or playing along. In this instance, first finger on the seven fret of the A, little finger on the ninth fret of the B. We start by plucking the A string with A form. Then our second finger comes to the B and our first finger to this open G. Form 2, 1 and that repeats. Form 2, 1. Form 2, 1 and ends on form 2. ABG, ABG, AB. The pattern will come up on the screen as well as always you can reference that if that's easier. Let's try that again. Then a little bit more like the rhythm and tempo of the track. You know it's hard as an accent on that A string. That becomes like a reference point, a little push bom ba ba, bom ba ba, bom ba. Try and add that subtle dynamic push if you can. Just a little bit more of a punch on that A string. We then slide this shape, a bit becomes a little bit more bunched when we go to the eleventh and the twelfth fret of the same strings and we play exactly the same pattern of the A, B and G. Again, you might say the second or the third finger playing that bass string but just so we've got the continuity of that little fingers staying down makes it a little bit easier for us to do that slide. I'm going to stick with the little finger for now, the experiment if you want to use those other two. From that first shape, slide up same strings, same pattern and then we slide back, the little fingers this time is on the eleventh, first finger is on the ninth same pattern with the A, B and G. Let's try and put all that together. Now, we said that pattern happens twice on that last chord, really nice. The second time it plays. You can end with a little pinch of the A and the B string just to resolve that progression before we lift into the chorus. Let's have a look at that chorus then. We've used this shape already and we've used this area on the fret board already in that little pre-course. Slide up to the eleventh fret of the A string again for me and put your little finger on that B twelfth fret. Same pattern A, B, and G string. Lovely. We slide back to the seventh and ninth. Excellent, we're familiar with that chord as well and this time we got something slightly different. Our little fingers stand on that B but it slides back to the seventh and a second finger has gone up to the lowest A string. Just one more from that change. Little finger back, second finger up. Our bass note is now the lowest E string. But the pattern between our first and second finger on the B and G stays the same. Then we slide up to a chord we're familiar with, we've used already nine and 11 on the A and the B string. Let's play all that together. Now, this chorus bit repeats but there's a subtle change in the second half. We start the same and that 11 and 12, we slide down to seven and nine. Once you've played that second bass note, once we've gone form 2, 1 form. The pattern stays the same but the fingering changes ever so slightly. Our second finger now goes on to the seventh fret of the B and little finger comes off, so we get. Once more and off and now this time our first finger plays that low A and our B and G are open. Notice how we're still playing bass note and then B and G string, first and second finger. Let's do a little change again. Let's go back to the seventh and ninth, change, up, open then we end on a chord that's familiar with us, same ended as the first time round or a backup to the ninth and the eleventh. Nice and slowly, I'm going to play both of those bits together back-to-back. Change, open. Excellent, we're done for playing for both those bits. It's a really nice picking pattern because it's got that repetition in the strings that we're using. We can quite quickly build confidence with it. It can be a bit of a tricky slide. It can take quite a toil on that little finger, so feel free to change that up if it's a bit too much pressure for you. In general, is a really nice song for continuing to improve our playing and finger picking ability. Let's have a look at one more little section that occurs in the second verse. As we come out of the course, it drops down to those lovely chords again and then now a picking guitar is reintroduced. This is just a very subtle difference to what we've already learned. The progression when the finger picking comes back in, starts with our 11 and 12, slides back to our seven and nine, does that second finger on the A and little finger on the B on the seventh fret. But then this time it ends with our first finger coming on to the sixth fret of the E string, little finger stays where it is. Exactly the same patterns that we did before. Let's start on the eleventh and twelfth fret. Slide down to the seven and nine, second finger up to the seventh, little fingers slides back to the seventh. First finger comes on to the sixth of the A. Keeping that continuity of that same pattern that we've used too before, with the first and the second finger moving around the G and B string. Let's try that once more. Start with 11 and 12, seven and nine, second finger up to the seventh of the A, first finger goes down to the sixth for the A. Then it moves back into the first bit that we learned. Then the chorus comes again and those parts pop up throughout the track. But I'll put more of a definitive order in the PDF, so you can actually see how it all flows and challenge yourself to try and play along to the whole track. Yeah and I have a big shout out to the student that suggested that song, thank you very much. It's always great to hear from students, see their feedback and hear what suggestions you have for what you'd like to learn. I'm more than happy to take that on board. Please feel free to get in touch anytime.