Jack here, jbf music and guitar lessons, back with some more guitar goodness for you! These
handy fingerstyle picking patterns;
In this quick guitar tricks we’re looking at 10 useful picking patterns; some of the
most common ones you’re likely to use. Great for; building dynamics in a song, part writing,
getting to grips with learning new songs and following chord progression on the fly. If
you appreciate the content I put out here please don’t forget to leave a like and
a comment; both really are huge helps to the channel; if you want the tabs they’re at
patreon.com/jbfmusic. So, by the end of this you should have some practical finger style
patterns. This is about patterns and not so much on technique, tone or posture- just to
make that clear. All of these examples progress a bit in difficulty and as always timestamps
and chapters for each one are below.
Ok, thumb the A string, then 1st finger on the D string. 2nd on the G, 3rd on the B-
and we’re playing those 3 strings at the same time. So A by itself with the thumb.
Then the fingers come in all together. Feel free to pause the video and get a feel for
the patterns it at any point. So now let’s apply that to a chord progression. C, G, E,
F- we’ll use this chord sequence for every example, just so you can hear it a slightly
more musical context.
Thumb the A, 1st finger on the G, 2nd on the B plucking together. Thumb the D and same
1st 2nd finger G and B string thing. And applying it to the chord progression. If you finding
this useful you might want to check out my quick tricks playlist- you can find it with
the I up there, and if you haven’t already, consider subscribing and enabling notifications;
to make sure you never miss out on new content.
Thumb the A, 1st finger for G, thumb the D, 2nd finger for b. Here’s the chords.
Thumb the A, then you want to sort of push through; and rest on the D string; rather
aptly named a ‘rest stroke’ then push through the D with your thumb as well. 2nd
finger for the high e string, 1st for the b string. And the chords.
Ok, country or folk finger style tends to favour the thumb for the lowest 3 strings,
classical will often employ finger rolls- that’s what we’ve got here. Really handy
if you want to try stuff like Post Malone’s take what you want- tab for that finger style
intro riff, with the little I up there.
Thumb the A, 1st finger D, 2nd finger G and 3rd for the B string. As a side note, if you
have enough nail to play the string with, it will give a stronger, clearer sound. I
can just about get my nails under the strings but I tent to keep them short and generally
don’t play with them, but seemed worth mentioning. So let put that along with the C,G,E,F chords.
This is the first sort of level up here- playing with the thumb on the A string and 2nd finger
on the B at the same time. Then it’s just thumb D, 1st finger G, thumb D. And those
chords.
Thumb the A. Thumb the D and 2nd finger on the B together. Thumb the A string, then thumb
the D while using 1st finger for the G string. With the chords. As a side note, you can also
use a combination of plectrum and fingers, commonly called hybrid picking- a quick 5
minute look at that with the little I up there
Ok, in triplet, or 6/8 timing here, so a 6 note group. You’ll notice we’re also thumbing
different strings; playing the lowest note in each chord. Just to highlight that you
could apply this idea to the previous examples; thumbing the low E string for the G, E and
F chords. But I’ll leave that up to you to experiment with! So, thumb the A, and a
roll or sorts; 1st finger, 2nd, 3rd, taking care of the G, b and e strings respectively.
2nd for the B and 1st for the G coming back down. The other pattern here it the same,
except we thumb the low E string. So applied to the chord progression.
Really similar to the 7th pattern, but with the final D and G strings play separately.
Thumb the A string. Thumb the D and simultaneously use your 2nd finger on the B string. Thumb
the A again, then 1st finger for the G, thumb for the D. Applied to those chords. If you
like this sort of country sound, you might want to check out some chicken pickin’licks-
a quick video on 6 of some of the best and most common guitar licks with the little I
up there.
Ok, last pattern! Well done for making it this far and a shout out to the lick squad
elite- you guys rock. Alright, alight, so thumb the A string whilst using you 2nd finger
to pluck the B string. Thumb the D, 1st finger for the G. Thumb the A agin, 2nd finger for
the B string and a final thumb on the D. You know the drill by now… chords!
Final bonus idea here. So first up I‘m using pattern 9, followed by pattern 10, also keeping
on the same chord for 2 bars this time, Switching to the low E string for the G, E and F chords,
like in example 8 and playing it with a more swung, country feel. So this rhythm. Might
be easier to hear with the chords, so one last time, let have at it.
The reason for doing all this stuff is you show you that when you become confident with
these ideas, you can mix and match them, play different strings with you thumb; or even
finger; and really just go rouge!
If you’ve enjoyed this, you might also like these hand licks. This has been quick guitar
tricks, that’s the playlist there. But yeah, hit subscribe to keep up to date with the
channel, leave me a comment, check out the tabs on my Patreon and enable notifications
by ringing that little bell on the side, if you feel so inclined, cheers guys!