There are mainly three things that a beginner fingerpicking player can do to make whatever it is that he’s practicing more exciting and motivating.
Keep things practical, musical, and simple.
We need practical and musical exercises that keep us motivated. Also, we want the exercises to be simple so that we can learn it quickly and maintain momentum.
The exercise you will learn in this lesson combines these three elements beautifully.
In the first section, you will learn classical chords played in 6th.
In the second section, you will learn a simple fingerstyle melody.
We will be using the capo on fret III to make things slightly different, but you can also practice the piece without the capo.
Most of the open chords we learn are played across four, five, or six strings. Just think about it—the C major, the E major, the G major, etc.
When we start playing these types of chords, our ears get used to the beautiful lower-end sound that these chords give.
Now, these chords are great, especially if you play songs or if you are accompanying a singer, so it’s good that you know them. In this video, though, we will take a different approach and try to play smaller chords (I call them “tiny” chords).
Let me show you how to explore with triads and inversions to create a beautiful chord progression.
The strumming technique is one of the most common techniques used to play chords. It’s also the most simple and intuitive rhythmic technique on the guitar.
In this video, I am going to show you five strumming tricks that will help you not only develop your technique but also add more dynamics and color to the strumming.
Here are the five tips we will discuss in this lesson:
A couple of years ago, I posted a video of me playing a few Spanish guitar ideas.
The video is called Spanish Guitar Solo On Acoustic Guitar.
It was recorded in Feb 2018 while I was living in the Philippines, and I think it’s the number one video instrumental with the highest number of requests for a tutorial I’ve ever posted.
In this video, we will break down this solo section by section.
I think I already have two videos of me teaching a few snippets of this solo so that I will link them down below.
There is a big difference between playing and teaching.
When I compose something, like this Spanish Solo, I only focus on the music. If I know, I don’t have to teach it. I would sit down and play.
If I know that I am going to teach the music I am composing; then I will do my best to make whatever it is that I am playing, teachable.
One of the fascinating characteristics of a chord is that it can be played in many different ways.
In this video, we will play the same chord progression ten times each time in a slightly different way using a different harmonic and melodic approach.
The goal is not just to learn the chords that I am about to show you.
Instead, I want to try to give you a chord system that shows you how to transform simple open chords into a more interesting chord progression.
Learn the steps shown in this lesson and then use it with other chord progressions you already know.
The chord progression we are going to use for this video is this one:
The Canon in D is one of the most popular songs of all time. It’s indeed the most commonly requested song at weddings, and it’s now one of the most well-known pieces of Baroque Music that have been arranged by musicians on all kinds of instruments.
In this video, we will try to answer the question as “Why is the Canon in D so beautiful.” We will talk about the Canon in D chords, melody, structure, and interpretation.
The video is broken down into ten examples that should help you understand and learn this beautiful song. The Canon in D by Pachelbel has been rearranged in many different ways.
In this video, I decided to use a capo on the second fret to make the song more comfortable to play and to avoid tuning in drop D.
Also, there are already countless arrangements in drop D, so I thought it would be cool to try something different.
We all love the guitar capo. This little tool allows you to transpose chords in different keys easily.
It’s indeed the perfect tool for beginners because you can learn a bunch of open chords and then transpose them in different keys so that you don’t have to deal with bar chords.
But what if we can use the capo to create beautiful sounding chords without giving up on the simple chord shapes we already know.
Well, we can, but we have to use two guitar capos.
In this set up I have the black capo on the fret one pressing six strings and the silver capo on fret three pressing on the bottom four strings.
Using the guitar capos like this allows you to add a lot of color to the basic chords you already know.
Some chord shapes can be extremely simple to play. Think about the E minor chord or the A minor chord.
One chord that has always fascinated me is the Dmaj7 chord. I like it so much because it’s indeed a simple chord, but it also has a beautiful sound. I think it has a lovely romantic vibe which is really difficult to find is a such simple chord.
The awesome thing is that you can move this chord up to the fret nine to play the Amaj7 chord which is also amazingly beautiful.
These two chords sound very romantic and beautiful, so I thought I would show you a few ideas that this chord inspired me to play. You can then apply the same concept to other chord progressions.
One of the things that you can do to improve your playing is to practice guitar licks. A lick is a short phrase that contains different musical elements.
It’s pretty common to hear guitar players talk about Blues licks or Jazz licks. However, there are also fingerstyle licks.
In this lesson, I am going to show you how to play five melodic fingerpicking licks on the acoustic guitar. Each lick focuses on a different music aspect, so make sure you try all of them.
Here are the five fingerpicking licks:
Lick in E major with symmetrical chords and pedal tone.
LIck in A major with Pentatonic and Maj7 arpeggios.
Lick in E minor with Dorian scale.
Lick in E major with the hammer-on technique.
Lick in B minor with chords and natural harmonics.
Alternate tuning can be quite an exciting thing to try. There are so many different ways to tune your guitar, and each tuning can give you a different sound, and it can inspire you to play differently.
In today’s lesson, we will use one of the most accessible and straightforward alternate tunings on guitar. This particular tuning is called “Drop D.” We will tune the low e string down to a D. This tuning is D A D G B E.
I love this tuning so much because it allows you to have a lovely sound without changing too many strings. Songs in D major and D minor are pretty welcome in this tuning.
So! Grab a tuner and change the E string into a D and learn how to play this awesome acoustic rock fingerstyle song.
