Beginning Fingerstyle

A 10 lesson course introducing you to the art of fingerstyle. This is a more general course and gives you a mixed bag of styles, including Classical, Blues, Ragtime and Country. 

LESSON 1: PLAYING ARPEGGIOS
Getting to grips with right hand thumb and finger independence by practising arpeggio exercises and drills. Plus a fingerstyle arrangement of "House of the rising sun". This lesson is FREE. 

LESSON 2: CLASSICAL STYLE
More important arpeggio exercises and drills, and a taste of playing in a classical guitar style with a very famous tune: "Romance" by Tarrega.

LESSON 3: BLUEGRASS STRUMS
Learn how to play those classic Country and Western type strums. Master the basic bluegrass strum presented here and you''ll be able to play countless Country and Western songs. As an amusement we've done "Coming round the mountain".

LESSON 4: THE PINCH
One of the most important techniques to master when learning the art of fingerstyle guitar. Whatever style you end up playing, you'll need this little trick for sure. Here presented with exercises and a simple arrangement of a famous Christmas carol.

LESSON 5:"LEFT" HAND STRETCH
A killer technique for achieving those enormous five fret stretches. This exercise will develop an extremely strong left hand, a vital ingredient for playing fingerstyle well.

LESSON 6: ALTERNATING THE BASS
A crucial technique for playing in all kinds of styles, including Ragtime, Blues, C&W and Folk. This lesson includes a number of exercises to help you develop a bouncy thumb.

LESSON 7: HARMONICS & BOB DYLAN!
Learn how to play clean, convincing harmonics. Plus you'll develop your alternating bass technique further with a haunting acoustic blues guitar arrangement of a Bob Dylan song.

LESSON 8: IT'S RAGTIME!
An introduction to Ragtime guitar with a working of "Camptown Races". In this lesson you'll get to grips with an indispensible technique - using your thumb for bass notes.

LESSON 9: INSTANT ACCOMPANIMENT
A great alternating bass style that you can apply to playing any number of songs in a professional way.

LESSON 10: PUT IT ALL TOGETHER
In this final lesson we put all the tricks and techniques we have learned - arpeggiating, pinching, thumbing the bass and alternating bass - in one specially written piece for this course. It's an English Fingerstyle type of tune.

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