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 rhythmic picking, fabulous harmonic accompaniment or as a fully fledged self-contained solo performance piece; we’ll be covering all three and everything in between.
We’ll be focusing on a number of aspects that we’ve covered over the previous months in our online series Blitzing Your Fingerstyle as well as other general techniques. This day course will focus on the lower level playing from that series and will therefore suit those who have some playing experience but may be relatively new to the world of finger style guitar. If you’d like to get a head start you can have a look at levels 1 -2 from our Blitzing Your Fingerstyle series.
We’ll start with the basics: set-up, dos and don’ts, posture, plucking strings, finger nails, picking hand placement and plucking options. The day will run through a selection of materials that give you the perfect practice routine for the coming months. Exercises at the start of the day will all lead into song practice later in the day. We delve into playing a variety of styles including classic songs we all love, travis picking, folk, blues and grooves. We will also bring in partial chords and look at adding simple melodies on top of basic chord voicing to allow even beginners the chance to play solo arrangements of songs they loved.
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 a whole host of other things.
You’ll receive plenty of materials to take home, and even if some of these have been covered on our online series, there’s nothing like being there with the tutor to fix those niggling issues.
The day will be spread across 5 sessions.
We encourage players of an high beginner level to mid intermediate, both acoustic and electric; it’s definitely not for a raw Beginner but that’s not to say that those at the start of their journey or even further on won’t gain lots from the day. If you can play some of the examples in the course overview PDF then you’ll be fine to attend.
The price of this course is kept to £150 for the full day which is £85 cheaper than our hotel courses. This is due to lower running costs and students bringing their own lunch. However, the benefits of the course are that the student numbers are kept small, allowing for more student 1-1 attention. The idea is a more unique experience, something similar to a small masterclass or standard 1 – 1 lesson. We have found the sessions to be super successful with clients and highlight amongst our course.
The fee is all-inclusive:
Please bring your own packed lunch
As this course caters to a small number of players it means we can be more focused and players can get more attention than on our larger hotel based courses.
“Thank you so much for yesterday’s session. I thoroughly enjoyed the whole day and really appreciated your inclusive approach to teaching and as I result I gained much more than I expected from the time spent with you. Also, I found the location and pace that you went through the material perfect.” – Les J
“Thanks for a great day everyone! Thoroughly enjoyed it and keen to do more; as we discussed the session with the quartet worked very well. I will try to sign up for the fingerstyle bootcamp once I’ve checked dates. Cheers” – Adrian C
“Just wanted to thank you for the guitar course which I thoroughly enjoyed. You are truly an exceptional teacher with incredible energy and it was amazing how you managed to inspire us all, despite the differences in our abilities. Ive been learning for 2 years and was beginning to feel a bit stale and unsure how to progress so it’s especially nice to feel enthusiastic again. So thank you.” – Sarah G
We always advise bringing as little as possible. It’s all about playing and learning so an acoustic guitar is perfect. You don’t want to be spending lots of time setting up pedals and large amps. You may wish to bring a music stand and device you can read PDF’s from but all materials will be projected onto a larger screen.
If you would prefer an electric then please let us know when making the booking and we can discuss the option with you.
We advise driving as that is the easiest way. However if you decide to come by public transport, the closest mainline station is Purley.
If coming by car then there are two junctions off the M25 you could use, junction 6 which is the A22 and junction 7 which is the A23.
Parking is free on all surrounding roads. We will send parking details and the exact location to the group the week of the lesson.
Unlike our online sessions these are small group Day-Only courses at the tutors home so can only accommodate limited numbers – book early to avoid disappointment.
If you wish to stay locally then suggestions for hotels, B&B etc can be supplied.