Acoustic Fingerstyle Blues - Easy thumb technique! - Guitar Lesson - EP511

foreign [Music] thank you [Music] okay so in this week's guitar lesson we're going to be learning how to play a blues finger style that's perfect for those of you that maybe have never played finger style if you're trying to get into that and trying to understand how to do that this would be a good lesson for that because we're going to keep the thumb part which is your base your thumb is your bass player when you're playing finger style we're going to keep that incredibly simple and when I first started learning how to play finger style I tried to play like Chet Atkins and it was so difficult because your thumb is jumping around between strings changing timing and it was just really hard to do this is not that this is like this [Music] it's that simple now we're going to be able to take that and I'll show you how you can improvise on top of that and you can create your own like little songs by yourself it's like having your own bass player with you or or creating your own Jam track on the Fly that's what it feels like and so we're going to talk through all that as we break this lesson down and by the end of this you'll be able to do it so uh in this video we're going to talk through all the lesson material if you'd like to get the extra materials that come with this lesson the tab PDF file and also access the on-screen tab viewer which has the tab and the video on the screen at the same time it's interactive you can slow it down Loop it and all of that you can get those things by going to activemelody.com go to the weekly lessons page and do a search for ep511 okay so we are in standard tuning and you'll notice that a lot of Blue songs are in the key of E or the key of A and the reason for that is because the open base strings that you have so if you're playing in the key of E your one is on your sixth string you're four is on your fifth string so you've already got two notes that are open you don't have to fret them that means I can react to that on the top three strings and play whatever I want so hopefully a light bulb is going off for somebody out there and you're starting to see that already and then you come to your five chord which you would play on your second fret fifth string and we'll talk about that how your your pinky is free to do some other things there but basically that's why that's popular and if you're playing in the key of A it's even better in some ways because your one chord is your fifth string your four chord is the fourth string which is open and then your uh five chord is the open sixth string so they're all three opens so the first thing I want to talk about though is the sound the that you need to be able to create to play that bass line so it sounds like this it's not like this it's not ringing out it's just a little thump sound like this so what you do is you take this part of your hand sort of where your wrist meets your palm and you set it on the bottom three strings now I'm talking about the bottom in terms of notes not vicinity it's actually the the strings that are closest to you so the thickest strings that's probably the best way to say it but you're resting your the palm of your hand right there so that the top three strings are free to ring out but the bottom three strings [Music] are muted and that seemed really difficult to do when I first heard that I thought oh God how am I going to position my hand like that and get it right or be accurate with it every time but it's really not that hard at all within a minute or two you can just sort of move your hand around and sort of feel what that feels like once you get that feeling you'll be able to just do it quickly with your hand now the one thing to pay attention to is how your where your hand is placed you don't want to go too far forward or you'll totally mute the strings see listen if I'm up here can't hear anything but as I go closer to the bridge you can hear the note come come out so basically you're trying to touch the bridge there at least with this guitar that's how I would do it is just rest my hand on on the bridge like that um Okay so this is the first thing you want to do is just play on the beat so if we were counting something we'll set a Tempo about here one two three four just try and get a sound going just like this on the sixth string by the way it's just the six now you've got your top three strings open meaning they're they're not muted and what's cool about that is if you think about what's going on here you have a bass player now that's thumping an E note that sixth string is your e note so what can I play on top of that well I can play any sort of E chord shape so I can be thinking foreign [Music] I could be thinking about scales I could be thinking about the minor pentatonic scale and actually that's where we're going to start is minor pentatonic scale so think about your minor pentatonic scale in first position down here [Music] right that we played the entire scale but we're the top three strings because remember we're muting those bottom three strings those bottom three strings are reserved for Your Bass stuff and for the most part when it comes to this kind of finger style so it makes it a little easier in a way you have less variables to mess with so if you've only got the top three strings you've got that now what can you do with just that just the top these these three Frets using the top three strings and that e as your Bass [Music] [Music] I'm basically just playing the minor pentatonic scale with a the thumb going in the bass and hopefully a light bulb is going off for some of you out there where you start to see what's going on it's not like you have to have somebody hand you a composition every time you want to do a finger style you can just start making music oh now he's jumping around between minor and major pentatonic looking at some chord shapes but it was played very slowly and it's the stuff that you probably already know how to do a fair amount of all right so let's listen to the first phrase of this little Blues composition then we'll break it down one two three [Music] okay so that's what we're going to look at now notice the first thing is it started with the thumb and then it goes up to the first string so it they don't happen at the same time there's a little bit of a stagger now this will be the hardest part of this is trying to get the synchronization right so it starts with the I'll just call out the string number so we're going to say 6 for the sixth string one for the first string so it's like this six one and then back to six and then we're gonna go one two okay so it's six one six one two so we'll do it real slow at first just try and get that don't go any further than that [Music] look at my thumb it's one two three right on the beat now that is the hardest part of this whole thing once you can get that and just be able to Loop that the rest of this is going to kind of fall into place it's actually not that difficult from here on out so now watch this that's the next phrase so it starts on that third well this next phrase starts on the third fret second string so notice that when I'm doing that I am playing both the sixth string and the second string at the same time that's really the only place in this first phrase where that happens so it's and then back to one and then back to six so let's put those two pieces together we have remember it starts with the base [Music] let me try that again [Music] first string I'm bending it a little bit just a little bit pushing it sharp and that's just one of those things that um it just it has kind of a twang you can sort of hear that in the Blues quite a bit on that note and what's going on there is you're going between that minor third closer into the major third you're kind of pushing it you don't want to go too far but you're going that direction now the other thing that I find myself doing here is hitting this second fret second string so it goes like that now that's not a note that would be in your minor pentatonic scale for E but it would be in your major pentatonic scale so it gives you that kind of clash of sounds where you hear the two notes now you don't have to do that every time but I do I do hear myself doing that as I let's listen back now that's one of those things I didn't do consciously but but that was happening okay so we have [Music] now notice that I came down and hit open third string and then a hammer on with my index finger on the first fret third string and what I'm thinking about as I do that this will make this easier this little part is just make an E chord and then hammer on your index finger so watch this you'll see me make the E chord [Music] and that's what I'm thinking about I'm thinking about that chord I'm always thinking about chord shapes that's kind of where what I anchor everything to if I'm playing something up here [Music] I'm thinking about my e Triads up here right using the a shape okay so backing up from the beginning we have now we repeat it this time I just hung out on that third fret second string I didn't go back to the open one string I just went and then did the little hammer on again just out of your E chord so when you put those two pieces together [Music] back to that back to the intro and then [Music] kind of a Robert Johnson delta blues kind of thing and what I'm doing here is actually very easy to play let's break it down so I've got my index finger on the third fret second string middle fingers on the fourth fret third string so you have those two notes and then you have the open one string so all three fingers are on the first three strings so you have you have that going on while you've got the Baseline so it's like this so let me explain where these notes are coming from they're coming from minor pentaton E minor pentatonic scale but this would be pattern two right up here right that's where those two notes are coming from but then you throw in that open e and you get this sound which you hear in a lot of delta blues it's a lot of the Delta Blues Licks have that open E string droning out while something else is going on underneath it that's a probably the best way I can think to phrase that so you have this kind of thing [Music] you hear that the E's ringing out each time so now when we're playing this you have uh sync synchronized so the thumb and the three strings at the same time and then the three strings on their own and that's it so you go synchronize synchronize synchronized so every other one so just practice that [Music] thank you [Music] okay so now the song is going to go to the four chord and I went like this [Music] with my thumb so it's the sixth string we're going to slide with ring finger from the second fret to the fourth fret on the sixth string it's like a little bass line just like a bass player would be sliding up to the four chord and then we come up to the open fifth string so now we can play a lot of those same licks but all we're changing is the bass note so are you with me I'm here are you seeing the power of this I just changed one thing with my my thumb but I can play a lot of those same licks because I'm staying in the key of the song so what that means I can just kind of keep repeating licks and as long as they're sort of E minor pentatonic licks and we're staying in the key of of e it's going to work and that's what happens here so that's how I played it it's a little different I just changed it up a little bit so it's like this and then we go back to the third fret first string and then the open uh first string that's how I played that uh for over the a part the first uh Melody line so [Music] all right so this next line is like my favorite line in the whole thing check this out [Music] go back to the one the one so what I'm doing is I'm sliding I'm thinking about this thinking about my we're staying over the a chord right which is our IV chord I'm thinking about this shape so my a chord up here using the E shape and if we look at just the top three strings you've got this little Triad here your a Triad and I'm sliding into it so fifth fret to the sixth fret on the third string fifth fret second string and then I come up to the seventh fret second string slide up to the eighth fret and when I do that I'm thinking about my A7 chord right so I'm kind of hitting some of those chord tones that would be it's like an arpeggio it's like an A7 arpeggio so then I came up here and hit the fifth fret first string so if we put it together it's like this [Music] we go backwards and then open second string so do that with the bass line and it goes like this [Music] and that's the lick that is played over that a chord now I said I I was staying in the key of the song in that case was I playing in the key of the song sort of but I was also thinking about my my a arpeggio and the things I can do over the a chord you know there's other things I could have done up in here right and then go back to the E whatever I want to do over the a part of the song I can do there I could have just stayed in the E minor pentatonic though see I could keep the a bass line going [Music] the word as well well so let's back it up from the beginning of that a party goes like this [Music] the fretboard and come back down here into first position [Music] and play that same uh intro like that we started with [Music] and then I came up here and hit one of my favorite all-time licks this is like a I think this is a muddy waters look but it's just it's it works in everything it goes like this oh and what I'm doing is I'm thinking about pattern four of my minor pentatonic scale for E so I'm thinking about this shape right and then I come up so I hit two notes from that shape string one and two seventh fret first string eighth fret second string but then my pinky comes up and hits the ninth fret first string actually I started with the second string and then I went foreign first string take that pinky off and then Place uh string one and two behind that shape there so you have and then you take your hand off the fretboard and hit the open one string open second string down to the third fret second string so when you put it together it goes like this it's just such a fun little [Music] kind of easily squeeze into something and it and it sounds so good so just remember that as being minor pentatonic scale pattern four you can connect it to your E minor chord shape like this or you can think of your e you know E major chord using the a shape the top part of that whatever you can do chord wise to be able to attach that lick to it so however you can do that in your head to attach that lick to a chord shape that's how I should have said that that way you can use it in in other keys in other instances [Music] now the song goes to the V chord and I actually do have to fret this unfortunately so we're going to have to come up here to the second fret fifth string that's going to tie our hand down to one position so our licks are going to be limited to what we can reach in this area because we got to hit that fifth string right we could hit it up here if we wanted to play some other licks higher but we're going to be playing it down here and what I played goes like this now notice my hand is making the B7 chord I'm just making the full chord my thumb is hitting that second fret fifth string which is in the chord there my pinkies up here are hitting this the third fret second string [Music] so it's the same lick we're just playing it now on strings two and three as opposed to Strings one and two [Music] [Applause] played it on strings one and two my pinky will reach [Applause] and that but I just thought it was I didn't want to repeat that like too too much over every single chord so I thought it sounded better to come down and play that uh for the five chord [Music] and then the song goes back to the four chord and we go and then it goes back to the one now what I'm doing there is basically I'm hitting one note now I'm making the full A7 chord there but I don't need it I'm just hitting that third fret first string along with the open fifth string so it's like this [Music] I was making that A7 chord is I might want to hit some of those other notes that was probably what was going on subconsciously I always position my fingers into those chord shapes that way also if you bump a string accidentally which I do all the time it's going to be one of the right notes because you've got the chord down [Music] and then we go back to the one chord with our bass note [Music] [Applause] [Music] and then the closing leg goes like this [Music] so this is the same that's just strings one and two and then I came down here to the second fret third string back to my open second string and then open third string first fret third string so let's back it up and play that we have [Music] notice my hand is making the E chord so after that I hit the open one string let me do that again slowly watch this and then to conclude that I went [Music] the old and many more and so what I'm doing with that is I've got the E shape down my pinky comes down to the second fret second string and then up to the third fret second string which is just an E7 [Music] so that final lick goes [Music] just pay attention to your thumb and make sure it's always on the beat never drop the beat with that as long as you can keep that thumb going you're you're good I mean that's half the battle that's more than half the battle it's just keeping the thumb on on the beat now when it when you're first learning how to do this stuff you have to slow it way down and you have to find a little phrase and loop that phrase over and over again that's totally normal that's what everybody does to learn this you don't ever just go into the whole song it's like almost impossible at first but you'll find that a lot of the stuff repeats itself and like so once you learn how to do this you'll hear another blue song that'll have and you're like oh I already knew that I already learned that from another thing and your fingers will kind of know what to do but when you're first training them to you know to do this it is frustrating it's patting your head and rubbing your stomach it's that kind of uh coordination thing but if you slow it down in Loop sections you'll be able to do this all right so be sure to go to activemelody.com and check out those extras if you want the tab that you can print off or also access that on-screen tab viewer that doesn't have any of the talking it's just me playing it with the tab on the screen if you need that way of learning and as a refresher you can get that by going to activemelody.com and then do a search for this lesson which was ep511 all right we'll see you next week for something new

Channel: Active Melody

Views: 75,207

Keywords: acoustic fingerstyle guitar, fingerstyle guitar lesson, acoustic blues guitar, blues guitar lesson, acoustic blues, acoustic blues lesson, easy fingerstyle guitar, easy fingerstyle guitar tutorial, guitar lesson, blues guitar instruction, music education, guitar education, delta blues guitar, robert johnson guitar, brian sherrill, activemelody, active melody

Id: jxVeFg3GgBM

Length: 24min 19sec (1459 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 31 2023