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Congratulations on finding some of the best fingerstyle guitar lessons available anywhere on the web! If you’re sick of simply strumming chords and are ready to move into a more refined level of guitar playing then learning how to play fingerstyle, or finger picking as it is sometimes called, is the No.1 best way to lift your guitar playing to that whole new level.

You’re playing is going to sound much more refined and far more beautiful when you learn how to fingerpick your way around a guitar. It’s just that simple.

The aim of these fingerstyle guitar lessons is to make it easy for anyone to learn this great technique and to give you a real excitement for your new-found world of guitar playing! The way I teach is super clear and very easy to follow simply because I have a lot of experience teaching people just like you how to master fingerstyle guitar.

The site is packed with 100% video content and is fully supported with TAB so you’ll be able to hear, see and read everything I’m doing. I’ll build your technique from scratch and show you the absolute fastest and easiest route to produce great sounding and utterly authentic fingerstyle guitar.

I guarantee that once you’ve made the jump in these fingerstyle guitar lessons you’ll never look back. In fact, some guitar players after discovering this technique hardly ever use a plectrum again. Well, the choice will be yours!

Try it out completely risk free today with my ‘no questions asked’ money back guarantee.

Why Learn Fingerstyle Guitar?

Fingerstyle guitar basically means playing with your fingers instead of using a guitar pick. It gives you a wonderful ‘earthy’ tone and for many it’s purest and most beautiful form of guitar playing there is. If you really want to get authentic on guitar then this is it. It’s nothing but wood, strings and you.

It’s hard to fake your way through fingerstyle of finger picking and for many that’s the greatest appeal. You’re going to be producing a earth-like tone make up entirely of wood and strings plus a decent amount of practice and hard work. Every guitar player will tell you though that it’s all totally worth it. When you can pick up an acoustic guitar and really get it to sing with melodic lines and chords intertwined it’s one of the more rewarding experiences you can have on guitar. You’ll have make the transition from being just an average beginner strumming chords into a someone who is genuinely able to play guitar.

Many students don’t take the time to properly learn how to establish a correct and secure fingerstyle guitar technique. This results in poor playing and will severely limit the amount of enjoyment you’ll experience in the future with this great style of guitar playing. Trust me on this… take the necessary time to learn how to do it properly and you’ll be rewarded for years to come with the ability to produce ever more beautiful music. It’s really important to set up the foundations correctly right from the beginning.

Once we establish a set system to follow the next stage is to make that system automatic and second nature. Only then will you truly be able to feel confident on guitar. You’re playing will look and feel effortless to others and to you too! That’s the power of learning to do things correctly.

One the ways we achieve this is by learning how to practice fingerstyle guitar correctly. When you understand the process of how your brain really works when it comes to learning mechanical things on guitar you’ll be able to harness that power and make progress much faster than other students. You’re playing will become very secure and it will actually be hard for you to make a mistake!

At that stage you’ll be ready to add the ‘musicianship’ into your playing – the artistry. This is point where you are able to forget about the technical side of simply playing guitar and focus instead upon the expressiveness. This is not beyond any guitar player to achieve and in fact, should be your ultimate goal.

I encourage you to join up today and try out my fingerstyle guitar lessons for yourself. I’m pretty sure that once you do, you’ll leave behind your old ways of playing guitar forever and take your first steps into a brave new world of authentic guitar style and sound.

Playing Fingerstyle Guitar With Alternate Tunings

For many guitar players the mere mention of ‘alternate tunings’ is enough to evoke a facial expression as though you were about to try to explain the theory of relativity to them! The real truth however is that alternate tunings often make many aspects of playing guitar EASIER and there’s really nothing to be afraid of at all. If you are able to tune your guitar to standard tuning there’s no reason why you can’t learn to tune it to something else too.

The main advantage of open tunings is that you are able to use lots of open strings and moveable shapes all of which result in some highly beautiful chord voicings. There comes a point in the lives of most guitar players when they start to search for ways to break free of all the standard tuning chords and shapes everyone else knows and is using. Alternate tunings give you a way to break into some free ground and can give your playing or song writing a complete breath of fresh air.

Due to the fact that alternate tunings make so much use of open strings they are absolutely perfect when used in combination with finger picking styles of guitar playing. You can apply the same patterns you use in standard tuning but with a host of new chord shapes and voicing’s, many of which are very easy to form and move around the neck.

I would even say that it’s easier for beginners to produce music on alternate tunings than it is with standard so if you already have some playing experience you’re going to be surprised at just how instant it all can be. You will need to learn new chord shapes but considering that even 10 chords will give you the ability to play a massive amount of music – it won’t take you too long.

There are books and online videos which you can watch for lots more information regarding playing fingerstyle with alternate tunings and I would encourage you to research this field of guitar playing more. It will set you apart from most ‘average’ guitar players and if you are into song writing or composing music for your band, it’s going to open up an entirely new sonic world from which to draw inspiration.

Martin Acoustic Guitars For Fingerstyle

When you make the move into fingerstyle guitar you’re really making a move towards pure guitar playing – nothing but wood, strings and fingers. Things like the quality of the wood used in your guitar’s construction and the tone it then produces become all important and for many the dream fingerstyle guitars are made by Martin.

Martin acoustic guitars have a very long and distinguished history of making fine instruments with beautiful tone. They are certainly not cheap however they do have a wide selection of guitar models in different price ranges to choose from. There are many Martins around the $1000 or less mark which will give you a really authentic and beautiful tone for fingerstyle guitar and that’s what I would recommend you go for.

Guitars by Martin are known for their resonance and punchy bass as well as a bell like quality in the treble, this sets up a delicious combination and makes most finger picking guitarist water at the mouth. Aside for these sonic qualities the thing you really want in a fingerstyle acoustic guitar is projection. The sound should fill the room and project well in the mix.

My own Martin is not one of their more expensive models but I wouldn’t change it for the world. It’s a guitar I picked up in Tucson, Arizona for around $1000 and the model is Martin DSM Solid Top Dreadnought Mahogany/Spruce Acoustic Guitar. It has all the qualities I’ve been preaching about – deep bass, bell like treble and tons of projection!

Naturally, any guitarist is ultimately responsible for the quality of the sound they produce from their instrument and this is so true for finger picking acoustic guitars! Your talent and the amount of hours you dedicate to the art form are what really counts and it’s where you should always devote the majority of your focus and attention.

An well made guitar is like the icing on the cake. It’s only once you’ve reached a certain level in your playing that you’ll be able to extract all the tonal quality a good guitar can give you! In a sense it’s as though musicians must ‘earn’ the quality of their instruments. No matter how expensive a guitar is, a beginner will still sound like a beginner when playing it. They just wouldn’t have the necessary skill to make its true potential sing.

So practice, practice, practice and someday soon when you’ll feel like your playing is deserving of a higher more genuine acoustic guitar. Made from better woods and able to reward your hours of practice with some beautifully pure and earthy tones. Turn your attention to the Martin range and give them a go at your local music store. Your fingerstyle guitar playing will instantly be rewarded with a crisp and pure tone and you’ll feel like this is one tone, you really did earn.

How To Practice Fingerstyle Guitar Correctly

The key ingredient to being able to play fingerstyle guitar confidently is knowing how to practice it correctly. Students who understand the mechanics of how the brain learns will be able to employ this knowledge to great effect when it comes to learning new things on guitar. With responsible and correct practice you’ll more than double the speed at which you are able to advance your playing abilities and suddenly discover that you have more talent than you realised!

Ok so the first thing is to understand is that your brain is like a tape recorder. When you play something on guitar in a slow and perfect way without mistakes your brain is able to record it perfectly. Doing the opposite however by playing things too fast, making mistakes and many errors will result in your brain recording it that way.

You see simple practice is NOT enough. You have to PRACTICE PERFECTLY.

The way to really program fingerstyle guitar correctly is to slow everything down to a crawl. You’ll be practicing your finger picking patterns so slowly that it will be impossible for you to make a mistake. By repeating patterns over and over again in this way your practice time is being very well spent. It requires a lot of patience but all good musicians know that 20 minutes of this kind of practice is worth 5 hours of the sloppy stuff.

When you program fingerstyle patterns into your hands slowly and perfectly you brain will ‘deeply learn them’ and once this process is complete you’ll find that speeding up is easy to do but most importantly, you’ll be able to increase your speed while still remaining error free. This is all due to correct practicing and programming of the ‘musical mind’. Your fingers will develop something known to all musicians on all instruments as finger memory. It means that you really don’t have to think too much about the technicalities of your playing, your fingers simply behave and go where they should automatically.

This is how people are able to play so effortlessly. They are able to forget about the technique and simply concentrate on the emotional delivery of the music they are projecting to the audience. It’s really not about talent but simply mechanics and a solid practicing technique.

So… practice very slowly, practice perfectly, and do it day after day.

How To Finger Pick Guitar

While playing fingerstyle guitar on acoustic guitar is certainly the most popular and purest form of the art there’s no reason why guitarists shouldn’t also learn how to finger pick guitar on their electric instruments too. In fact, it’s often by mixing techniques from different genre’s of guitar playing that new styles and sounds are uncovered. When you incorporate and blend these different influences you are far more likely to find your own unique voice on guitar and that will certainly do wonderful things for how well you are able to express yourself on the instrument and stand out from the crowd.

How to finger picking guitar is best approached with some instructional DVD’s or online lessons, if you have a local teacher you can go to and attend weekly private lessons then that is certainly the best and fastest way to learn how to finger pick guitar – you could even combine them all together to really get some fast progress happening. You should be aware from the outset that not all guitar teachers will be able to teacher you guitar finger picking styles equally well. It can be a rather specialized kind of guitar technique with many variations depending on the type of music you wish to play. For reasons such as these you may well find that your only course of action is to find online lessons and basically teach yourself by watching and replaying the online video lessons.

With electric guitar you’ll find that you can incorporate lots of effects such as chorus settings and delays to arrive as some very unique sounds. It’s a entirely new sonic world when you mix finger picking guitar styles with electronics and electric guitar. The best way is to embrace these new possibilities and avoid having any kind of snobbery when it comes to experimentation. All great things were born out of people breaking away from ‘tradition’ in order to discover new and more modern approaches to harmony, sound and music in general. Don’t limit yourself by being a purest!

For most students discovering how to finger-pick guitar it’s a highly enjoyable process and one they arrive at after many years of boring themselves with just strumming the same old beginner chords and progressions. Finger picking comes with the promise of learning ‘how to really play guitar’ and the ability to combine melodic lines with bass lines and harmony is the final goal most students are searching for. This can be achieved but not without considerable practice over an extended period of time. Before entering into the art form you must make a solid commitment that you are in this for the long term and stick to it. Don’t rush or expect things to happen overnight. Start slowly and build carefully through quality practice.

One of the best ways to discover the world of finger picking guitar is to listen to artists who have already mastered it. While you won’t learn very much from simply listening it will none-the-less give you an idea of the different kinds of techniques and sounds available to learn. It may even help you to decide which genre of fingerstyle guitar you wish to play and learn. All the information for how to finger pick guitar is out there, you just need to put in the effort to find it!