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EntertainmentHow to Play Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Practice Finger Independence for Fingerstyle Guitar

Transcript

A great way to learn finger independence for your right hand is to practice different patterns, so I’m going to show you some different patterns.

Let’s start off with the Travis picking pattern with your thumb again. I’m just going to do it on a C chord, just your standard open C chord. And I’m going to start with the fifth string with my thumb and move up to the fourth string. You’ll notice that my left hand finger’s coming down on the sixth string. I have to hit that G note down here on the sixth string, and then back to the fourth string with my right hand. In a nutshell that’s what the sort of Chet Atkins, Merle Travis picking is all about. That’s a really great exercise for your thumb to keep that happening, to get that sound.

Another good thing to practice is patterns as I mentioned before. So, what we’re going to do is you can pick any chord you want, let’s just stick with that same C chord, and I’m going to do a finger roll of thumb, index, middle, ring finger. I don’t advocate practicing in front the TV, but maybe this is something that you actually could practice where you’re not having to think about it so much and it just becomes automatic.

You can do the reverse of that. Start with your thumb, ring, middle, index. You can practice moving your thumb around. Try to come up with different combinations


Lessons in this Guide

How to Play Jazz Chords in Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Play Fingerstyle Guitar with Adam Smale

How to Play Intros & Outros in Blues in Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Play Trills & Finger Tap in Rock in Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Play Flamenco in Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Play Walking Bass Lines in Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Play Bluegrass in Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Play Folk Patterns in Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Play in Drop D Tuning in Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Read Slash Chord Notation in Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Slap in Funk in Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Play Major Scales in Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Strum in Bluegrass in Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Play Reggae in Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Play Modes in Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Play Runs in Bluegrass in Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Match Modes with Chords in Fingerstyle Guitar

Using Fingers Independently in Jazz in Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Use Tone, Expression & Dynamics in Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Understand Major Scales in Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Play Runs Using Open Strings in Bluegrass

How to Play Vibrato in Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Play Golpe in Flamenco in Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Invert Triads in Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Play Tremolo in Flamenco in Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Bend Strings & Play Vibrato in Rock on Guitar

How to Play Tremolo in Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Play Blues in Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Play Diatonic Triads in Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Play Easy Bass Lines in Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Play Inversions on 4th, 3rd & 2nd Strings on Guitar

How to Plant Your Fingers in Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Play Funk in Fingerstyle Guitar

How to Fingerpick Guitar Chords

How to Play Root 6 & Root 5 Barre Chords on Guitar

How to Do the Spider Exercise Version 1 on Guitar

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