Fingerpicking Guitar Lesson for Beginners

Fingerpicking

Beginner Fingerpick Lesson

Easy fingerpicking pattern using 3 strings and 3 fingers
How to use a metronome with this exercise
A look at rhythms everyone should know
Using an E major scale on the low E string for fun

Open Strings

0:20 - 1:14 (Time this information is in video)

The fretboard diagram shows the 3 open strings we will use in this lesson.

6th string = Low E (play with thumb and pluck down)

2nd string = B (play with index and pluck up)

1st string = High E (play with middle finger and pluck up)

Quarter Notes

1:15 - 1:35

Don't read music? No worries, the video and fretboard diagrams will have you reading music in no time.

p = thumb
i = index
m = middle
a = ring (we won't use it for this pattern)

Eighth Notes

In this example we will play eighth notes. Notice these will go twice as fast as our quarter notes went.

Eighth Note Triplets

1:42 - 156

In this example we are now playing eighth note triplets. In this case we are placing 3 notes evenly in one beat. Note the thumb will play low E every time we hear the click. We will use this for the main part of the lesson below.

Sixteenth Notes

1:57 - 2:05

Sixteenth notes will go twice as fast as the eighth note example. There would be two beams instead of one connecting the notes. Notice that quarter notes had no beams and eighths notes had one. Sixteenth would have two.

Exercise

2:45 - until end

So now we will take the above finger picking exercise and make it a little more fun by adding different notes on the low E string. In this section we will look at using an E major scale to create different sounds.

Free 3 Part Series on Fingerpicking

How did you do?

If that was fun and you want more then click the button below for the next 3 parts of this series. It's free and each part expands on the last, reinforcing the material and ingraining the muscle memory to make these finger pick patterns become a part of your regular playing.

My name is Teague Purtell and I am a professional musician. I love music and I love sharing my knowledge so others can experience the joy that playing guitar can offer. I started Musiclearning.Com in 1999 with the goal to create fun online guitar lessons that provided direction and would help with focus and consistency. Over time it became a complete guitar method designed to help everyone from beginner to seasoned players. In 2007 I started a youtube channel and began adding videos to the lessons. Little did I know that my lesson videos would get to 26 million views and counting. All this to say I have figured out how to teach guitar online and what works for people so they feel they make the progress needed to want to keep playing and growing on the instrument.

So if you want to work on expanding your finger pick skills: This Free Series is for You 🙂

Click Button Below to Get Started: