Folk Fingerstyle Module Intro

Intermediate Grade 5 Folk Fingerstyle
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In this first introduction lesson we look at things you should know before starting and run you through an outline of the course!


View the full lesson at Folk Fingerstyle Module Intro | JustinGuitar

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The video mentions some sheet music to read while practicing, but I don’t see any links to that. ???

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Welcome to the forum Brian
All the tabs are under the lessons except the first introduction video. Go to part 1 and Click the learn more button and scroll down. You’ll find the first set of tabs there.

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I really like 07:25 how Justin smiles when he shows middle finger. Yeah. :smiley: Nice introduction to folky fingerstyle, thanks a lot.

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Great video once again! I just started the fingerpicking course and realise I have always been using the wrong picking fingers:

E - pinky
B - ring finger
G - middle finger
D - index finger
A - thumb
E - thumb

I now see that I should instead use my thumb for the lowest 3 strings and shouldn’t use my pinky. Are there significant disadvantages of my current method? It would take me quite some time and effort to ‘unlearn’ this.

Thanks!

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Hoi Michiel, @Mwes
Welcome here and I wish you a lot of fun :sunglasses:

And if you can use your little finger, that could be quite an advantage in some cases, as I have heard here on this forum and also from several teachers using the little one… but I now in some (maybe in many cases ? ) it is a good to practice to use the E-A-D to play bass by use the thumb…

But I’m currently working on something where I even have to play the G string with my thumb… who knows, maybe someone will come up with a super useful (better) explanation… but your pinky also using can be an advantage …

Groeten ,Rogier

Edit: We prefer not to use the lesson videos for chatting, but it would be useful for some people to know how long you have been playing and what your level is approximately… and then it could be useful if you want to share that, post it in an Introduction topic and ultimately a video in which you show some skills… is of course not necessary, but it can provide you with a ton of information from very well-meaning/helping people (and even some teachers)here in this community…It`s all for the fun here :sunglasses:

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Hi @Mwes, two things come to mind.

  1. Some people rest their pinky on the soundboard to help orient themselves, but since you are already playing without doing that, it’s probably not an issue for you.

  2. For Travis-picking style songs, the thumb is hitting the bass strings (including the D string) steadily on the beat and to me that rhythmic thumping of the thumb just seems to be a nice “rhythm section” for the song. It feels distinct from the melody played on the higher strings with the fingers. To play that bass part partially with the thumb and partially with the index finger would seem to me very unnatural. Having said that, if it seems ok to you, I don’t see any real disadvantage to it.

I have come across some acoustic blues songs where the index has to play a lower melody note on the D string, although most arrangements try to avoid that (by shifting to a different key, for example).

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Many thanks

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In prerequisites, Justin mentions the “intermediate foundation thingie fingerstyle exercises”. Where would I find that? Searching on the website, I found an Intermediate Foundation course that says it’s been replaced with Intermediate Grades 4, 5, and 6, but it includes https://www.justinguitar.com/guitar-lessons/picked-fingerstyle-im-156 … is there a more recent lesson that would be better? Searching for fingerstyle exercise on the website isn’t finding much.

(I’m just beginner grade 3, but I love fingerstyle so I’m investigating this module early, knowing that I probably won’t be able to do all of it yet.)

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The lesson you linked to is unrelated to fingerstyle, although at first glance it looks like a good flatpicking exercise. The intermediate lessons are very old, Justin said in a recent stream that he is intending to redo that section of the website as a priority in the next year.

You should definitely have a go at fingerstyle if that is your passion, and this module is a good starting point.

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Just wanted to bump this to maybe @Richard_close2u as I couldn’t find the other fingerpicking stuff Justin was talking about, so just gonna head on into folk module 1 lol

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@akkana @chris_m @bkennedy74

The whole ‘intermediate’ is on the long-term redo and improve list.
There are more fingerstyle lessons here:
https://www.justinguitar.com/modules/technique-fingerstyle