Fingerstyle is a fantastic technique for all guitarists as it’s relevant to most genres and styles. It can span basic picking patterns for song accompaniment to full, self-contained fingerstyle performance pieces. We’ll start by looking at core techniques and knowledge and gradually build up to some great songs and their cool sounds and feels.
Fingerstyle spans all genres. It can be used for basic rhythmic picking accommpaniment or for creating a fully fledged self-contained solo performance piece; we’ll be covering both and all in between.
We’ll start with the basics: set-up, dos and don’ts, plucking strings, finger nails, picking hand placement and orientation and plucking options, etc. We then delve into simultaneously playing a rhythmic/alternating bass line, bringing in partial chords and simple melody on top and maybe adding in some percussive elements.
For solo fingerstyle we have a number of aspects to cover: thumb independence to build an alternating and walking bass line, how to move between chords while staying in time (sometimes using modified fingerings), fretting hand techniques to avoid dead or buzzing notes, how to practise the techniques, making the whole thing seem serene and flowing, dynamics and whole host of other things.
More information to follow on example artists/songs.
We encourage most levels of acoustic and electric guitar players to come along; it’s definitely not for a raw Beginner and you should really have already tried some fingerpicking.
Any hand-outs will be provided during the course and we’ll make available all supplementary PDFs, copies of flip chart diagrams and any audio and video recordings.
Unlike our online sessions these day-only courses can only accommodate limited group numbers – book early to avoid disappointment.