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Fingerpicking

Finger picking isn't really too hard of a concept to understand. All you are doing is using your fingers instead of a pick. A pick can also be combined with this if you were doing a song like "Stairway to Heaven" by Led Zepplin. I'll show you this in the examples.

Ok. There are to basic methods to finger picking that I am going to show: without a pick and with a pick. First I'll show you without a pick. The notes that are directly above each other are picked at the same time. I use my thumb and my ring finger on my right hand. So all the notes on the high E I use my ring finger for, all notes on the b string I use my secon finger for, the notes on the g string i use my first finger. And notes on the d, a, or low e(usually called bass notes) I use my thumb. I find that easier than anything else.

For this exercise I'm going to use parts from "Romanza" by an anonomous composer.

E-7-----7--------7------7----5-------3-------3--2-------0-------0
b---0------0-------0------------0------0-----------0------0------
g-----0-------0------0-------------0-----0-----------0------0----
d----------------------------------------------------------------
a----------------------------------------------------------------
e-0---------------------0--------------------0------------------0

That's only a part of it. For the whole song check out the Tabs section of my site. This part can be practiced over a lot and if you can get this down your one your way.

Now the next method is using a pick to do fingerpicking. It's basically the same as picking one note after another only you need to do those bass notes so what I do is I hold the pick between my thumb and first finger and use my pinkie to do the note on the string(in this case it's the high e) and use the pick to hit the bass note. Get it?

Use this tab of the intro to "Stairway the Heaven" by Led Zepplin to practice this method:
E-------5--7------7--8-----8--2-----2--0--------0-------------
b-----5------5---------5--------3---------1---2----1----0--1-1
g---5-----------5--------5--------2---------2--------2--0--2-2
d-7--------6---------5--------0--------3----------------------
a-------------------------------------------------------2--0-0
e-------------------------------------------------------------

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