How to learn a folk-fingerstyle song step by step
Every so often I see comments from people working through Justin’s folk-fingerstyle lessons in Grade 5 and that they find them a challenge. Yes, it takes time to build the muscle memory, but I also think that it would be easier to conquer the technique successfully if patterns are built up by baby-step increments from a simple base line. And rather than writing it all out in English I thought it would be more helpful if I show you with an example what I mean with all this. It is the gist of what I have learned about how best to learn a folk-fingerstyle song.
I started my folk-fingerstyle journey 4 (?) years ago and it took me 4 months to learn a simple song. It took me another 3 months to be able to also sing it. Looking back I can say now that I approached it all wrong and I only stuck with it because I really wanted to learn how to play that song. But it really doesn’t need to be such a wrestle!
Last year I transcribed Gillian Welsh’s version of “Make me down a pallet on your floor” which is a traditional song recorded by many artists at various virtuosity levels. Gillian’s version is fairly laid back and had been on my list of want-to-learn songs for a while. When played live there are two guitars but the studio version is just one guitar, so the version to go for 
Transcribing the recording was a mixed bag, some bars you can hear the guitar clearly, other bars not so much, either because Gillian’s voice was much louder or because the picking was muted as can easily happen (sometimes deliberatly so) when singing+picking at the same time. Then there is a lot of variation between what is played/audible on the various verses, and no clear instrumental run-through. So I ended up creating a consolidated tab that consists of the variations I hear most often and/or most clearly.
If you look at the tab you can see there is a lot going on, and while some things are simple (like the thumb is alternating stricly only between the 6th and the 4th string because the C chord is played with G in the base) there are lots of different patterns used. If you have never learned a folk-fingerstile song before, or just one or two simple ones, do not learn the tab as it is written, that will only twist your fingers and your brain.
Instead lets break it down into what is happening here. Most bars tie back to and are variations of one of three patterns. The most used pattern is this one where the thumb plays on every beat of the bar on 1, 2, 3, and 4, and where on 2a the second finger (the middle finger) plays a string and on 3a the first finger plays a string:
Basic Pattern 1
1 a 2 a 3 a 4 a
T T 2 T 1 T
I’ve deliberately not tied any finger to a string because that’s not really what matters most: first your brain needs to learn to coordinate which finger to move in the right order, which strings to pick comes second. I’ll come back to that.
If you change the order of the first and second finger you have:
Basic Pattern 2
1 a 2 a 3 a 4 a
T T 1 T 2 T
And then there are the bars where there is a “pinch” i.e. where two strings are picked at the same time with thumb and one other finger. So the thumb still picks a string on every beat, but the second finger picks a string on beat 2 at the same time as the thumb (and not on beat 2a as in Basic Pattern 1):
Basic Pattern 3
1 a 2 a 3 a 4 a
T T2 T 1 T
And this “Basic Pattern 3” is of course Pattern 2 and Pattern 4 of Justin’s folk-fingerstile patterns. But these pinches take some time to get working and sound clean, so it is much easier to start with patterns that don’t have pinches like Basic Patterns 1 and 2 above. I’ll come back to that when I go through the steps of how to practise this song.
So if you look at Bars 1,5 and 17 of the consolidated tab they are just a variation of Basic Pattern 3 where the second finger also picks a string on the beat 4a:
Bars 1,5,17: Basic Pattern 3 variation 1:
1 a 2 a 3 a 4 a
T T2 T 1 T 2
And Bar 9 is a variation of the variation where only the second finger is used:
Bar 9: Basic Pattern 3 variation 2:
1 a 2 a 3 a 4 a
T T2 T 2 T 2
Bars 2, 6 and 10 are padded-out variations of Basic Pattern 2 where there are also picks on the beats 1a and 4a:
Bars 2,6,10: Basic Pattern 2 padded out:
1 a 2 a 3 a 4 a
T 2 T 1 T 2 T 1
And analogously Bars 4, 8 and 14 are padded-out variations of Basic Pattern 1:
Baes 4,8,14: Basic Pattern 1 padded out:
1 a 2 a 3 a 4 a
T 1 T 2 T 1 T 2
I’m sure your head is spinning now - because even though every basic pattern is simple and every variation is just a small change, there are too many of them and they are too similar to learn them all at once and in one go. You will just muddle them up in your head.
Step 1: Instead start as simple as possible: First learn the base line and what the thumb does. Because lets face it, if you can’t play just the baseline with your thumb alone cleanly you will not be able to play the complete pattern cleanly. I have created a tab for just the base line so you can’t get distracted As baselines go this one is fairly simple - yes it alternates, but it alternates strictly just between the 6th and the 4th string as the C-chord is played over G.
Step 2: When you can play the base line confidently then add more notes and other fingers as tabbed here. I suggest as Step 2 to play the entire song using Basic Pattern 1 as that’s the basis for most bars of the song. Start simple with the first finger playing only string 3 and the second finger only playing string 2 in addition to the alternating thumb. If you find it a stretch to add both first and second finger in one go, then break this down further and only start adding the second finger pick on beat 2a until you can play that confidently, and only then add the first finger pick on beat 3a.
Step 3: When you can play the Step 2 version confidently it’s time to shake things up, because there are some notes played on the first string at important points in the song and where they add more sparkle to the song. I have created a new tab for Step 3 here to show how that changes the picking. You have basically two options (and both will be awkward at first!): you either bring in your third finger (the ring finger) or your first and second finger cover more than one string. I know that most introductions to fingerstyle playing align the ring finger to the first string, but really the notes that are played on the first string are often important melody notes and why would you play important notes with your weakest finger? So I tend to cover the first string with my second (middle) finger, the third string with my first finger and the second string with whichever is best suited and gets there most easily. There is no rigid allocation, whichever flows best, and it can take try-and-error to find out which is the best fingering for a particular passage. But overall I find that most often my middle finger covers both first and second string as it is my longest finger and my hand position moves least. Ergonomics. But everyone is different so you have to experiment and find out what works best for you. And that may well be using your ring finger. But just remember that it does not have to be the ring finger so feel free to not use it. You’ll be in good company
Step 4: When you can play the Step 3 version confidently it’s time to bring in the pinch. I would recommend to initially play the entire song using just Basic Pattern 3. I’ve tabbed out how this could look like here . If you find it too complicated at first to cover notes on both first and second string when pinching add another step so that you are back to using just four string (2,3,4 and 6). Pinching take time to feel and sound right, everyone goes through that.
And then you can extend Step 4 and try out playing other patterns and see how they feel and sound like. As long as you change the pattern for the entire song so that you are playing through the song with just one pattern. You can try out using Basic Pattern 2 from above, or any of the listed variations, or try out some of the other patterns Justin shows in his video. (Although personally I don’t like the sound and feel of using a pinch on beat 1 in this song. Fine in other songs, but not here, not to my ears.)
Step 5: Only now start combining the patterns. That is surprisingly hard at first. So as always, take the step in as easy a way as possible and that is just alternate between Basic Pattern 3 and Basic Pattern 1 as tabbed out here. And once you have that in your fingers you will be surprised of how close this will get you to the feel of the song as played on the record.
Next steps: Actually this is where I would stop if you have just started out your fingerstyle journey. The next steps are much harder to achieve, and your time, when starting out, is better spent on getting a few songs in your fingers using just one or two basic patterns and building up your stamina that way - you’ll be using different chords, different base lines, different patterns so you’re building up muscle memory that way and you’ll have a few songs that you can play beginning to end in fingerstyle. It will feel more of an achievement. And then you can come back and look at what is still missing between the tab for Step 5 and my consolidated tab.
First there are the variations to play where the bars are padded out with more picks. You will need to stay in control in your head of the order of patterns during the chord progression. E.g. in the first half of the song the patterns alternate between bars with pinches and padded out bars, and in the second half of the progression some pinched bars are replaced with simple Basic Pattern 1 bars. So extra mental attention required that you only have once the individual pattern are on autopilot one pattern at a time.
And then there is Bar 9. Of all the bars that took me the longest to practise to get it sound nice and get my left hand moving in and out of position, at the same time as the pattern for the right hand is different because the same finger picks the same string three times in a row which for some reason is always more awkward than alternating fingers. Something to do with when walking you alternate your feet so “alternating” is a way to achieve “equilibrium” and that is preferred.
Singing: If you want to sing the song start learning to sing it once you are playing Step 1 confidently. Honestly. You can sing over just the base line and it will be ok to any listener. Also because the base line is such a simple rhythm it will ground and anchor your phrasing. Your brain will remember where the vocal melody is once you start picking more strings. So once you can play Step 2 confidently try and sing over that, too. If you can sing over the base line it will not be too hard to manage to sing over a simple pattern (especially because in Step 2 you are not yet changing strings). And so on. And by the time you have reached Step 5 it will just be a bit more effort to get used to singing when you are changing patterns. But if you only start to sing when you can play at the Step 5 level you will find that very hard to get to work.
Demonstration: I’m going to take a video of all the steps so you can see and hear how it evolves. It’s just got a little too late to do it today but by next weekend it should be here.
Feedback: Let me know how you are getting on and if there are any questions. And let me know if this is helpful and you want me to break down more songs like this.
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