good songs to start proper fingerpicking?

[Glennwillow]

Originally Posted by JCook1

Freight Train.

Jack

My thought, too. "Freight Train" is a good song to start learning the Travis pick on.

- Glenn

[Neil K Walk]

Here are my suggestions:

Dust in the Wind
Landslide
Windy and Warm

They are among the easiest because of the alternating bass line. I hear that Freight Train helps develop the same muscle memory.

[punkybub]

+1 for Freight Train.

Alternating bass, melody on top, simple yet beautiful.

[rogthefrog]

I'm a big advocate of improper finger picking, but you have to start somewhere, so my suggestion is to look up Marcel Dadi on YouTube. He was always an educator, and thousands of players learned from his albums, which always included tabs.

[Hendra]

Originally Posted by joemcg

+1 on that. I thought EVERYBODY started with Freight Train

Nope, I started with John Denver's Leaving On A Jet Plane and Beatles Blackbird.

But Freight Train (Martin Tallstrom version) does help me get into what they called "Beginner Advance"

[ghisino]

Originally Posted by Toby Walker

It really all depends on the type of music you would enjoy playing. What are your interests?

various...

but restricting the focus to music that i associate to fingerpicking, for instance, hot tuna's debut album is something i've been listening to with pleasure for many years now.
I kind of manage bits of some songs to an acceptable level, but there's always a bit where i mess it up: normally i can't do anything too complicated on the high strings wothout losing the bass line.

i find most chet or chet-related stuff impressive and "funny" at the same time though that's mostly occasional youtube listening.

another reason why i'm interested in fingerpicking would be to chord-melody some jazz standards, not to a virtuoso level but at least the main theme of them.

and finally there is music i sometimes listen to, that is not usually guitar-intensive but that could make for funny fingerpicking arrangements if i knew how to
(an example here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yvk5qGPlXzw .Ok there's a manouche guitar doing "la pompe", but what really makes the tune is the ragtime piano stuff...)