The Foundations of "Fingerstyle" Guitar

Must Know Picking Patterns

Learn all the, “must know” right hand picking patterns for fingerstyle guitar. These patterns are foundational to becoming a well versed player and will give you a jump start in developing your skills by learning this style. In this lesson, we’ll work together to practice our new skills by learning a miniature song with these techniques!

10th's in Fingerstyle Guitar

Learn how to play 10th’s on guitar. 10th’s are a common interval used in all genres of music. From theory to practical application, we’ll learn the best methods to play them. We’ll learn how to create multiple musical sounding ideas as well as a miniature song – including this lovely interval. We'll also cover "thumb slapping". This creates a backbeat or "snare drum" effect in your arrangements.

Arranging and Song Lesson: "Hallelujah"

Learn the basics of arranging for acoustic guitar. In this lesson, we’ll learn to play the song, “Hallelujah.” From breaking down the melody, bass lines, harmony, inner voice movement to everything else that goes into an arrangement; we’ll reverse engineer this song and put it together! You’ll learn an arrangement of this popular song and have a framework to play on your own.

Tremolo Picking

Learn the intermediate technique Tremolo picking, how to perfect it, and how to use it in your own arrangements and songs. Tremolo is a fast, flashy, dynamic technique to add to your bag of tricks. We’ll also learn a mini fingerstyle piece in the key of D major and incorporate this new skill!

Thumb Style (Thumbpicking)

Learn the foundations of thumb picking, made popular by artists like Merle Travis, Chet Atkins, Tommy Emmanuel, and many others. It's another great tool to have, especially if you're interested in folk, indie, or country music. We’ll learn bass patterns with our thumb and then incorporate melodies on top using our other fingers. I'll show you the way to thumb independence step by step!

Fingerstyle Song Lesson: "Just Grow"

Learn an original song of mine called, “Just Grow.” In this lesson, students will learn how to perform the piece through skills such as how to play a melody line and chord progression simultaneously. Add bass movement, how to connect chords together, counterpoint (two lines of harmony moving in opposing directions), how to incorporate diminished chords, and much more.

Song Writing

We’re going to learn how to write a spontaneous song together! We’ll learn the concepts of songwriting, discuss melody writing, how harmony can affect the feel of a melody, and how chords can drastically change the emotion of a melody. Moreover, we’ll discuss song structure, and which chords and harmony to choose based on the emotions we want to express. I’m very excited for this class!