So following on from realising how much progression can be made in a short time with focus after the BLIM course (can’t recommend it enough) I have become a little side tracked with learning fingerstyle and started this Jan after putting off for a long time.
This was my 4th attempt at recording but each time I hit record my fingers turned to proverbial jelly.
honest feedback welcome and encouraged.
I know I got the arrangement slightly wrong but as I said this is my 1st time and song playing fingerstyle
upon recording it I can hear the slide on the strings too, something I’d not noticed when playing
You’re doing well. You need to practice at a slower tempo, with a metronome, until the errors are eliminated. When you have it nailed down slowly then you can pick up the speed.
what you can do is record your practice session regularly , the goal is not to post and share your every sessions but to get used to play when you re recording
After a while it will just be a normal practice session for you and you can share when you feel like it
you won’t have the " I am so nervous , I must do my best cause Im recording " syndrome
Nice job Aaron. If you only started in Jan and it’s your first go at fingerstyle then you are making great progress. I had a go at Blackbird and it took me quite a lot longer than a month to start making any reasonable progress. Keep at it.
Hi Aaron, good start! But I can’t see your right hand where all the finger picking action is…so only a general comment from me: if you are serious about finger picking I would recommend spending some time on developing your right hand technique, that does not come over night and takes a while to get solid especially when your fingers start moving across the strings. There is a lot of action for the left hand in the song here that distracts the right hand - it’s a great and fun song for the occasional fingerpicker but not the best song for developing the technique.
Thank you so much, I’ve been putting some serious time in and neglecting my electric but at the moment I can’t get enough of it, I can hear and feel a little progress every few days and that Dopamine hit is insane!
Thats a great idea thank you, amazingly I’m fine with public speaking so was really surprised at the impact of playing on a camera. This years goal is to play at my first open Mic so I’d better get used to it I suppose
Blackbird is a classic fingerstyle piece, but it’s a bit tricky if you’re new to fingerstyle. Keep it as a dreamer and back up a little, would be my advice.
If you are just beginning fingerstyle, I would suggest learning some fingerstyle patterns (see Justin’s module https://www.justinguitar.com/modules/folk-fingerstyle). This will get your right hand used to the style, while not asking too much of your fretting hand (just playing chords you already know).
Justin teaches fingerstyle versions of some songs using this pattern approach: Hallelujah, House of the Rising Sun, Wonderful Tonight, Everybody Hurts come to mind. Sometimes the fingerstyle version is an alternate to the main version that Justin is teaching, so you have to watch the lesson videos all the way through.
Hi Aaron,
Nice attempt at the classic.
Your fretting hand is going to the grips really very well
You’ll get this for sure, and I’d offer two bits of feedback
Firstly, slow it down for now to a more comfortable speed.
Second, it’s your right hand that needs the work so concentrate on slowly but surely getting the pattern to automatic.
It will be fabulous when you nail it, so good luck and go for it👍
Cheers
Ruaridh
p.s
Don’t forget to learn the words too
Hi Aaron, In the end of the day you can take any song you like and play it fingerstyle so no need to search for a “fingerstyle” song you like - in my case it was the other way round - I really wanted to be able to play some of my favourite songs and a lot of them just happened to be played fingerstyle in the original recording.
If you want to build out your fingerpicking technique and repertoire here are some of my thoughts:
Fingerpicked songs fall, for me, into three groups (roughly): Group 1: pattern-based fingerpicking without alternating base, where often each finger is assigned to just one string. Group 2: pattern-based travis picking (where the thumb alternates between strings e.g. on a G chord you play string 6 on beat 1 and 3 and string 5 or 4 on beat 2 and 4; on a C chord you would alter between strings 5 and 4) and Group 3: travis picking where you combine a steady base in the thumb with pattern-free melodies played by the other fingers.
Group 1 is all folk-fingerstyle that is not travis picked. It has it’s place - and it comes down to what music appeals to you if you want to play this or not. Personally I prefer the sound of travis picking as it gives you clearer separation between base lines and what happens in the trebles even if there is no melody played as such.
Group 3 is really hard - only attempt this once you have a handful of songs of pattern-based travis picked songs under your belt.
So Group 2 is where you develop the technique. Start simple - learn a steady base (thumb only), on one string before you start altering the strings. Once you have the base steady then add other fingers - one at a time and create simple patters, e.g. Thumb plays on beats 1,2,3,4 and then add some index finger on the higher strings either on any of the “ands” or pinch at the same time as any of the thumbs. Then add more. You can do this without any song at all. Once you have a simple enough pattern on one chord under your fingers add changing chords and stay steady. Once you can do that choose a song you iike and that you have strummed in the past and play through the chord progression in fingerstyle. No need to learn a new song as that will just distract from working on the technique.
Finally some recommendations. A lot of the early Bob Dylan songs are actually fingerpicked and pattern based, e.g. girl from the north country or don’t think twice it’s alright. They are played at speed though which will take time to develop. Check out Blaze Foley - a lot of his songs are simple enough even though his most famous one “Claypigeons” has a bit of melody on top in the intro - so Group 3 but a simple enough one from that group and so much fun to play. A lot of Townes van Zandt’s songs are based on simple patterns and hence in Group 2. “Snowing on Raton” one of my favourites. John Prine’s songs on the other hand often have melodies which initially can distract from working on the technique. But you can always take a Group 3 song and learn it using just a simple pattern initially. Take a bar that has a pattern that you like and play that throughout the song. 20% of the effort 80% of the effect. And room to upgrade in the future
Just looked up travis picking as didn’t know what it was.
Thanks for the solid advise, I’ll definitely bake it into my approach
I feel like I’m side questing with fingerpicking but having so much fun that i don’t mind the (hopefully) temporary distraction.
I am much more comfortable playing an acoustic guitar to an electric despite preferring the electric guitar. Fingerstyle just seems like a natural progression on the accoustic, mostly due to specific artists and songs I would like to learn. Blackbird, Tears in Heaven and Fire and Rain to name a few.
Playing is one thing singing is another, playing and singing together is something else completely
