FINGERPICKING SONGS FOR GUITAR

Fingerpicking patterns can be a great way to stretch and enhance your guitar playing skills. Some of the popular folk-style songs of the late sixties and early seventies lend themselves well to fingerstyle guitar playing.

Here's one you might like to try...

Don't Think Twice, It's Alright by Bob Dylan

Dylan is using a fingerpicking style with a flat pick in the video shown below. Watching it will let you hear what the song is supposed to sound like...



Here are two other songs that work well with a fingerpicking guitar style:

Needle and the Damage Done by Neil Young

Both Sides Now by Joni Mitchell

Of course, fingerpicking is not restricted to folk music. Rock groups often use a fingerpicking style in their songs too. One obvious example of this is...

Stairway to Heaven by Led Zepplin

Not to mention other guitar syles such as Ragtime, Fingerstyle Blues, Celtic, New Age and Classical.

The letters PIMA are commonly used to identify the fingers of the right hand when reading or writing tablature for fingerstyle guitar.

P - Thumb
I - Index
M - Middle
A - Ring

This is not always practiced, but it certainly helps to distinguish the right hand from the left and from the fretboard itself.

A typical 4/4 fingerpicking pattern in tab would look like this...

------------------------a-------------------------------a-----
--------m---------------------------m-----------------------
-----------------i------------------------------i--------------
-------------------------------p------------------------------
--p-----------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------

The fingerpicking pattern shown above is counted using eighth notes:

1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &

Give it a try while holding a C major chord. It works well with any chord, but you may want to alternate the bass note for chords like G and F where the root is in the sixth string.

Watch this free guitar lesson video to learn more:

INTRODUCTION TO FINGERPICKING

Until next time...

Keep practicing!

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