Fingerstyle from Zero?

[PeasantDaughter]

Originally Posted by rick-slo

To get an idea of what you are aiming for fingerstyle wise post a link or two or three to (probably ones on youtube) straight forward (nothing too fancy) solo fingerstyle pieces you like and would like to be able to play say sometime later this year.

I was originally asking about beginner guitar lessons that combine fingerstyle from the get-go, vs. making a song or a style a goal.

[PeasantDaughter]

Originally Posted by Bjbny

If you are interested in Blues, I would highly recommend David Hamburger's Fretboard Confidential YouTube channel. He has a series of videos called six steps to playing fingerstyle blues that is an excellent on ramp. If you like his style and this kind of blues, then his Fingerstyle Five membership is a great way to develop and improve. https://www.fretboardconfidential.com/fingerstyle-five

Thanks, I'll check it out!

[PeasantDaughter]

Originally Posted by zmf

There are many, many good videos out there to help you.

Just to pick one at random, this is a lesson on "Landslide" (Fleetwood Mac). Basically Travis picking that helps with thumb independence.

https://guitarlessons365.com/fleetwo...guitar-lesson/

Simple, yet challenging when you're starting out. Lindsey Buckingham (who wrote it) also has a video, but you need to skip to the second half unless you like to hear him talk.

Pretty. I like the way he explains things.

[PeasantDaughter]

Originally Posted by fpuhan

Does it have to be online? I have a number of books that include CDs to go along with the instructional material.

Personally, since you're just starting out, I might suggest you start at the proper beginning:

William Leavitt's "A Modern Method For Guitar Vol. 1". (Berklee Press). My very advanced Jazz Guitar teacher/player recommends it to every student regardless of how long they've been playing. It covers everything: scales, theory, rhythm, fingering, etc.

Afterwards, find yourself a nice instructional fingerstyle book. I kind of like "Beginning Fingerstyle Blues (with CD)" by Arnie Berle and Mark Galbo. But then, I like the blues!

That Leavitt book sounds great - I'm not convinced I should limit myself to tabs. The cover of that CD book has me intrigued as well. Are the songs vintage bluesmen?

[PeasantDaughter]

Originally Posted by erhino41

https://www.amazon.com/Fingerpicking.../dp/0785826793

This book covers a lot of ground and is well worth a try.

It's arranged in bite sized lessons that cover new patterns and works up to keystones pieces using the learned patterns. Like I said it covers a lot of patterns that cover a wide range of styles. Excellent book.

Added to shopping cart - so many things I'm looking at don't seem to give you much, so the sheer volume of this has a lot of promise for me.

[PeasantDaughter]

Originally Posted by tbeltrans

Adam Rafferty is a really good teacher, step by step and very clear explanations. Here is his udemy.com course:

https://www.udemy.com/course/fingers...otal-beginner/

Udemy often has sales where you can get these courses for around $10 or so.

Tony

WAHOO!!! A beginning course starting with fingerstyle!!!! THANK YOU!!!!

[rick-slo]

Originally Posted by PeasantDaughter

I was originally asking about beginner guitar lessons that combine fingerstyle from the get-go, vs. making a song or a style a goal.

No specific pieces you would like to learn? Ultimately it's about playing guitar pieces and the enjoyment of doing so. For me doing that has 98% consisted of learning classical pieces by music scores and by ear various "fingerstyle" pieces. If you really know zero regarding playing guitar then do learn the basics of chords and their shapes and learn right hand picking patterns and apply that to actual pieces as soon as possible which helps doing the former as well as training ones ears to hear and muscle memory.

As far as guitar method books go ones that do little by little of the basics of "theory" and the physical mechanics of playing and right along put in the book what you just read about into some little guitar pieces
you can play are effective. Ditto for online internet websites doing that (plus you have visuals and audio).

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by PeasantDaughter

Thank you - I've put Pumping Nylon in my shopping cart, even though I have steel strings. Also I love Frederick Noad's ancient website. I think there's a wealth of knowledge buried in those old formats, and that's an impressive list of songs learned by each lesson!

It just makes sense to me to introduce finger independence, as you say, earlier rather than later...

Finger independence is one of those things which seems widely misunderstood. There is the myth of the "independent thumb", for example, as if one needs to practice with the thumb alone for a while - or indeed each finger separately.

As an absolute beginner, that's certainly a good idea, maybe for a few minutes, or one session to get the feeling of the thumb-down, finger-up, and so on, and maybe the classical orthodoxy of finger-string allocation.
But even that depends on starting with a hand position where the thumb and all the fingers are all in their right places! I.e., even when you only use thumb or one finger, you do it from the right hand position, otherwise it makes no sense.

Similar thinking applies when it comes to folk and blues fingerstyle - not the hand position (taking that for granted) - but learning whole patterns from the start, not separating out the role of each finger.
The idea is that the thumb and fingers need to interlock, to perform their little dances together, and the best way to develop that is to start with them working together.

This is why I like Mark Hanson's books - such as this https://www.amazon.co.uk/Contemporar...dp/0936799323/ - because he starts with complete patterns. Obviously you begin slow, but it's about getting the thumb and fingers in order, used to their places and positions in time.

That was how I taught myself, listening to records way back in the 1960s, before there were any books on it. I'd forgotten that when I started trying to teach students, and they couldn't get past the thumbstrokes - every time they added a finger, the thumb rhythm was disturbed. Then I remembered how I'd taught myself: whole patterns, starting real slow (from half-speed tape recordings). It worked for me, I mastered it fairly quickly.

[erhino41]

It is an excellent resource. It does come with lesson examples on CD. It is pattern based, but covers a lot of patterns. The keystones pieces are challenging enough but also serve as attainable goals if you've done the practice.

Once you learn the most common patterns you'll be able to readily adapt them and use them for any song you learn and build from there.

I think learning a good foundational base of patterns and then learning how to adapt them to play the harmonies you want is the way to go.

[EZYPIKINS]

In the beginning, concentrate on the bass notes.

Learn to play the 1st and 5th with a smooth, constant timing.

Provided you are fingering the chord correctly. Any other string you pluck within the chord will sound correct.

So let your fingers move how it feels right to you.

At this point, the focus should be to just getting the coordination of moving all your fingers at different times. And IN time.

The specific order of which string to pluck at which time, will come in time.

So if you play say a G chord. Alternate your thumb on the 6 & 5 strings, in half time.

Let the rest of your fingers. Like tapping on a table, in tempo to the song. Dance on the 4,3,2,&1 strings at random. In double time.

For a C chord, bass notes on the 5 & 4 strings. You can also add your little finger to finish out the chord with the G note on 6 string 3rd fret.

Let your fingers play. If you have any musical ability at all. You will begin to hear patterns that make sense to you.

Key is, learn to play like you. You may surprise yourself.

Once you kinda get the hang of it. You will begin to follow more specific instruction, with a bit more understanding.

Does a mama bird give extreme tutorials to their baby bird on how to fly?

No, she shows them, this is how your wings flap. And kicks them out of the nest.

They either learn really quick, or crash and burn.

Fingerstyle is not for everybody. But the sooner you get used to moving a certain way. The sooner you will be comfortable with it.

[source3]

Originally Posted by PeasantDaughter

Does anybody know of any online lessons that introduce this right away while learning the chords?

You may want to check out David’s course at ArtistWorks. Later in the lessons he introduces fingerstyle. The video exchange is great. David’s feedback is in depth.

https://artistworks.com/beginner-guitar-lessons

[Malcolm Kindnes]

Check out the Stefan Grossman acoustic guitar workshop. He has lots of lessons from various teachers and divides them into beginners, advanced etc. There are many sample lessons online and he also does some very good deals if you buy multiple lessons.
Good luck in your search.

[Brent Hutto]

I know a lot of people strongly prefer recorded lesson content over working with a teacher but as a almost brand-new beginner you would (in my opinion) get some valuable feedback from at least a small number of private lessons. There are plenty of excellent teachers around who do Zoom/Facetime/Skype based remote lessons.

The cost isn't trivial but having someone who knows what your goals are and who can actually watch and listen to you play then offer specific feedback, that's irreplaceable. Especially the closer to a total beginner the more that's true. Again, just in my opinion.

And I'm talking about an hour lesson once a week for a year or anything like that. I'm talking about a series of maybe half a dozen sessions over a period of a couple months or so to get you started on the right track.

[Bluenose]

Obviously there is no shortage of material on the internet for learning fingerstyle. I consider myself more of a fingerpicker than a finger stylist and one of the basics of fingerpicking is learning to play a steady alternating bass on the quarter notes. Tune you E bass down to D (1 whole tone down) so you have now 2 D bass notes on the 6th and 4th strings. If you don't know already this tuning is called Dropped D. I like to capo up a couple of frets doing this but you don't have to. Anyway just practice alternating with your thumb between these 2 strings on the beat ie. count 1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4, ect. The goal now is to to put in some notes using your other fingers on the off beat ie. on the ands while continuing with the steady bass notes on the beat. 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 . Sounds simple enough but some things are simple but not easy, golf for example. The key is a steady alternating bass which will take some practice. Good luck and no charge for this lesson.

[tbeltrans]

When learning fingerstyle, there are all manner of scattered youtube videos, all manner of books and DVDs to choose from.

My general recommendation is to look for a comprehensive course of whatever format that provides not just the mechanics, but an understanding of what you are doing and why, as well as h0ow to directly apply it to playing music on the guitar.

My recommendation of Adam Rafferty's course is a good example of such a course. Obviously it isn't the only game in town, but is simply a good example of what I am talking about. These days, there is little need for the scatter approach as opposed to building a complete, solid foundation that doesn't waste time having to backtrack because later on, you realize that you hit a wall due to something you missed early on.

Mark Hanson was recommended here and, across his books and DVDs you can get excellent coverage. Toby Walker is another, as is Steve Krenz.

Mark Hanson: https://markhansonguitar.com/shop/

His youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/MarkHansonGuitar


Toby Walker: https://www.tobywalkerslessons.com/
His youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/tobywalker123

Steve Krenz:
His courses: https://gx169.infusionsoft.app/app/s...?categoryId=26

His youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/GuitarGathering

A number of folks here have recommended JustinGuitar:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WB8...l=JustinGuitar

or his channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBN...iEVLxO8w0p2sfQ

Here is one more: Six String Fingerpicking:

His channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/SixStringFingerpicking

His site: https://sixstringfingerpicking.com/

He goes from absolute beginner to a very high level of playing via his courses and he teaches a bunch of tunes you can choose from as well. All is very reasonably priced and the teaching is very clear and step by step.

There are many others, but if you look at all of these, you will see that they all build a solid foundation that includes, but is not limited to, just the mechanics of fingerstyle. Whatever materials you decide to work with, my recommendation is to look for building a comprehensive foundation rather than a scattered approach with a book here, a DVD there, and maybe a youtube video or two.

Watch the various samples of these teachers provided on youtube or on their respective sites and choose whichever teaching style fits your particular learning style and go to that site for the course.

Tony