Play Fingerstyle Guitar Now!

Introduction to Fingerstyle Guitar

This is an introduction to fingerstyle guitar including what type of guitar to use. Includes content on how to use a strap to properly hold the instrument and how to use fingernails.

Lesson 1. Basic Fretting Hand Position

In this lesson I will show how to place the fingers of the left hand effectively for fingerstyle guitar. We will cover all the basic chords you should know and I will demonstrate how to perform an effective chord change.

Lesson 2. Basic Plucking Hand Position

A complete introduction to finger picking technique for fingerstyle guitar.

Lesson 3. Beats and Time Signatures

In this lesson we will learn how beats are organized and what the time signature tells us.

Lesson 4. How To Read Tablature

Guitar tablature is written on a six-line staff. Here are tips on how to master it.

Lesson 5. Playing Individual Notes

In this lesson we will understand why walking fingers is the best way to play repeated notes in fingerstyle guitar.

Lesson 6. Left Hand Shifting and Position Changes

We are going to learn how to move the hand laterally along the neck of the guitar. This is called shifting or changing positions.

Lesson 7. Fingerstyle Chord Melody Arrangements

Learn how to play a melody on the guitar such that we can easily add chords to create a harmonious and complete fingerstyle arrangement.

Lesson 8. Barre Chords

An effective barre is crucial to play fingerstyle guitar. In this lesson you will learn my trick to play an effective barre chord, why you don't need all the letters in CAGED and a super useful way to use the barre shape to mute the strings.

Lesson 9. Hammer-on, Pull-off and Slides

In this lesson we will build two blues licks using legato techniques (hammer on, pull off and slides). We will also learn what makes for a successful legato technique.

Lesson 10. Basic Guitar Percussion

This lesson will show you how to add basic percussion to beats 1 through 4, such as thumb slaps.

Lesson 11. Creating a Fingerstyle Arrangement With Percussion

In this lesson we will create a Fingerstyle Guitar arrangement from a traditional melody - "The Maids of Mourne Shore" and add a percussive back beat.

Lesson 12. More Elaborate Guitar Percussion

In this lesson you will learn how to incorporate percussion based on drum rudiments into your fingerstyle guitar song. We will also create a slap bass style lick.

Lesson 13. Getting Funky with Blues

Put together what you've learned in this module to create an awesome funky slap bass style lick!

Lesson 14. Rasgueado and Strumming

Rasgueado or strumming with the fingers is an essential fingerstyle technique borrowed from Spanish Flamenco guitar.

Lesson 15. Tapping

This is an essential lesson to mastering tapping notes, with both the fretting and the plucking hand.

Lesson 16. Harmonics

In this lesson we will cover all types of guitar harmonics, from natural and slap to cascading harmonics

Lesson 17. Palm Muting

This lesson will show how to effectively perform palm muting when playing fingerstyle guitar.