Best Intermediate Fingerstyle Songs to Learn...AND GO.

[Lauren_WarEagle]

Hey, y'all. I'm sure this question has been asked many, many times in the forum, but I'd love some input on which songs really helped you hone your fingerstyle guitar skills. I'm more of a rhythm guitarist, but over the years I've managed to learn several fingerstyle tunes (Blackbird, Deep River Blues, You Can Close Your Eyes, to name a few).

What are your favorites? Any tips and tricks are welcome as well.

Lauren

[mercy]

Water is wide is as beautiful song as I have ever heard

[Bob from Brooklyn]

The Boxer is not difficult.

[Ceabeceabe]

I had artists I liked, or explored around and found them, and tried to learn their songs via listening to the music and finding their sheet music when possible.

Bruce Cockburn was an early and constant influence. He has quite a wide variety of songs, from strumming to fingerstyle in standard and also altered tunings. Many songs have lyrics but a number do not. He can turn quite a lyric, such as in his song “Mystery.”

[3notes]

John Prine doing Clay Pigeons. A Blaze Foley song.

[Wrighty]

Anything by Ed Gerhard will force you to really work on tone and timing - The water is wide (as Mercy said) and the handing down, Shi Bheag shi Mhor are just a few.

I would also consider some Celtic/O’Carolan pieces by Steve Baughman as a way to develop timing and rhythm.

[pullp]

I'm currently learning "Lewis & Clark" by Tommy Emmanuel. I don't have much experience with fingerstyle or fingerpicking and it's definitely not very hard. But I consider it to be more in the roots of folk fingerpicking.

[slaski]

Pallet on your floor - Mississippi John Hurt. Straight thumb and two finger alternating bass tune.

Candyman - Rev Gary Davis. He reverses the "normal" thumb pattern with the lower bass notes on beats 2 and 4, not 1 and 3. Fab tune to get under your fingers.

Early morning blues - Bling Blake. Easy intro to Blake, with some "stumble" thumb, and parts where bass drops out filled with great single string runs.

Wille Mae - Big Bill Broonzy. "Monotonic" bass on the low strings with chord positions up the neck

[EZYPIKINS]

Vincent by Don McLean

[UncleJesse]

Green Green Rocky Road is fun to play

[TBman]

Flower (Hana) by Masaaki Kishibi. Here's me playing it on my Martin a few years ago:




And this is a nice arrangement of Perfect played by Timo Brauwers:

[reeve21]

Anything by John Hurt!

Hesitation Blues, Deep River Blues, St. James Infirmary.

The Entertainer.

LA Freeway (nice fingerstyle part, but it helps if you can sing, too :-))

[airborne1]

Lauren,
I don’t have a suggestion, but once again I would like to tell you your tribute to John Prine, posted on this forum was fantastic!!

[VJP5]

Just about any Simon & Garfunkel or Jim Croce tune would fit the bill. Or continue down the James Taylor list. All three have various ranges of complexity/difficulty in their songs.

By the artists listed, you can probably guess my age

If you want to go more current and definitely up the challenge, try some John Mayer tunes.

[Aspiring]

I learned Spanish Romance over the last year and it really pushed and improved my skills as well as getting a lot of compliments when I play that one for people.