Two Simple Finger Picking Patterns You Can Use With Thousands of Songs

hey everybody in this lesson i want to teach you two finger picking patterns that you can use to play literally thousands of songs and i know the question is how in the world can you narrow it down to just two finger picking patterns well that's what this lesson is for so let's go ahead and get started [Music] so the reason you only need two finger picking patterns is because there are two time signatures in music that are the most popular more so than any of the others and those two time signatures are four four time or four beats per measure and three four time or three beats per measure most of the popular songs you're going to listen to on the radio are going to be in one of those two time signatures and the most common of those two is going to be 4 4 time so i'm going to show you a finger picking pattern in these two time signatures that you can use to replace any pattern in any song that's in those two time signatures now it's important to realize that there isn't just one strum pattern for one song if a song is in four four time or four beats per measure i can use many different patterns to play that song the important thing is that i stay in 4 4 time [Music] if you can't clap your hands along to the song then you're doing something wrong that rhymed if you can't clap your hands along to the song then you're doing something wrong so first let's talk about 4 4 time which is going to be again the most popular time signature in the songs out there so in terms of strumming the guitar a very easy and simple strum pattern to use for songs in 4 4 time is going to be the driving pattern now any song that uses the driving pattern i can replace it with a finger picking pattern in the same time signature so we're going to need to create a pattern of four or you know four beats we're going to pluck the strings four times and then that pattern is going to repeat and it's important with any finger picking pattern that we always start on the root note of the chord so if i'm on a g chord i need to start on that low e string which is my g note okay so my thumb is always going to pluck that root note on beat one of every measure so for this pattern what we're gonna do is for beat one i'm gonna pluck that root note okay and then for beat two i'm also gonna use my thumb and i'm gonna hit in this case i'm gonna hit the d string okay and i'm gonna talk about why in just a second and then i'm going to come back up in the other direction with either my first or second finger on the b and then g string so those are my four notes okay one two three four now an important thing to know is whatever chord you're playing where is the root note so if we're in the key of g our g chord the root note is going to be that low e string okay if i go to c or c add nine my root note moves to the a string this is my root note now okay this is my c note so now with my finger picking pattern i need to start on that a string so i'm going to play a d with my thumb and then i'm going to come back with b and g [Music] so just remember that your thumb needs to follow the root note of whatever chord you're playing if the root note does start on the low e string like with my g chord or my e minor chord you're going to want to skip the a string so for instance with my e minor chord i'm going to play the e string i'm going to skip the a string and go to the d string with my thumb [Music] the fact is it's not wrong if you play the a string but the reason i like to do this is because it lets that root note that really low pitch root note ring out very clear and if you were to play the a string with it [Music] it could get just a little bit muddy and make it hard to hear that root note very clear all right so now i'm going to play a couple of songs that i've played before and that i have song tutorials with in the song library that use the driving pattern but now i'm going to take those same songs and i'm going to play it with this finger picking pattern [Music] no instead else's [Music] me all right so if you go into my song library you can narrow down the categories to the driving pattern or the folk pattern is another four beat strum pattern you can look at songs that use those and replace that strum pattern with this finger picking pattern for those songs and it will work fine now let's look at a finger picking pattern in three four time all right so for songs in three four time we're gonna have three beats per measure instead of four but with the finger picking pattern we're still gonna start off on the root note of the chord again i'm gonna stay in the key of g here and for the g chord my root note again is that low e string so my first beat is always going to be that root note and for this pattern what i'm going to be doing is my thumb is going to be playing on every beat so that's going to be three times one two three and then i'm going to come back to that root note and play it again and start that pattern over but in between those beats i'm going to use my first and second finger alternatively to play the in betweens or the ups you know one and two and three and okay so on those ands i'm going to be using my first and second finger to play some higher pitch notes so i have one with my thumb and with my index finger on the g string two with my thumb on d and with my second finger on b [Music] three with my thumb again on d and again with my index finger on g and then i'm going to repeat so again a little bit faster we have one and two and three and one and two and three and one and two and three and one and two and three and one and two and three and one so you can see there's kind of a back and forth pattern with this we're going from low pitch with our thumb to a higher pitch with our index our middle finger and we're doing that back and forth one and two and three and and then we repeat the same rules apply if our root note changes to a different string so if i go to a c add nine chord or c chord my root note changes to the a string so i just need to move my thumb for that first beat down to the a string one and two and three and one and two and three and now let's say i play a d chord i'm just going to play a d major chord to give you an example because in this case our root note is going to start on the d string we're going to be skipping the e and the a string and our thumb needs to start on the d string so in that case what we need to do is shift everything down a string so my thumb is going to start on d so my first finger instead of starting on the g string would start on the b string this time so we have one and two and three and okay so we're going from the d string to the b string then my thumb to the g string to the e string high e string with my middle finger back to the g string with my thumb okay b string with first finger and that's the whole pattern then we're back to d again one and two and three and one and two and three and all right so now i'm going to play a song that i've played before that i already have a song tutorial for in 3 4 time using the swing pattern and i'm going to play it now instead with this new finger picking pattern [Music] me so the best way to practice these finger picking patterns is just to pick a chord that you feel very comfortable with that you already know very well so again maybe it's the g chord so i'm just going to hold that g chord with this hand i'm not worried about chord transitions or playing chords you know perfectly my focus is going to be on this hand and on the finger picking pattern so make things easy for your left hand if you're right handed so while i'm playing that g chord i'm going to be focused completely on this hand on my picking hand i'm going to be watching it with my eyes so i can be completely focused on it and i'm going to go super slow i'm not going to set a metronome i'm not going to be trying to keep to any tempo right now i just want to get my fingers used to that pattern and then as you get more and more comfortable with it you can begin to speed it up and then it's going to become like riding a bicycle your hand is just going to know that pattern and it's going to play it intuitively and when you get to that part you can begin to try to incorporate it in songs and you know with core transitions on top of it but your mind really needs to have the pattern memorized before you can try to then use it in a song so focus on learning these two patterns and finding some songs that you really like in 4 4 time and 3 4 time that you can use these patterns for you can find songs in my song library and even play along with me even though i'm playing a strumming pattern you can play along with me with these finger picking patterns in fact this is a great way to add some variety when you're playing with other people so that you know if there's two guitarists so that both guitarists are not playing the exact same identical pattern one can be strumming and one can be doing a finger picking pattern and that creates some variety in the playing and it sounds very nice all right i hope you enjoyed this lesson if you did please give it a thumbs up don't forget to subscribe to the channel and i hope to see you in the next lesson take care [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Simplified Guitar

Views: 619,543

Keywords: easy, guitar, chords, songs, how to play, guitar lesson, lessons, guitar tutorials, guitar for beginners, acoustic, learn, free, beginner guitar lessons, beginner guitar songs, guitar lessons for beginners, guitar chords, jonathan reaux, simplified guitar, finger picking patterns, finger picking for guitar, finger picking for acoustic guitar, picking the guitar, finger picking for beginners

Id: i_t5D8kyRHk

Length: 11min 44sec (704 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 16 2021