Fingerstyle training: Outside In

This pattern sounds great in its own right and prepares your hands for other patterns.

You’ll see that the pattern uses all eighth notes, and that the second half of the bar is an exact repeat of the first half of the bar. It’s called outside in because your right hand is using the thumb,…

Essential Grooves Part 2

You can never have too much rhythmic confidence and range! You don’t want to be stuck with the same three strumming patterns for all situations, whether you want arrange your own songs or join in jam sessions.

When you’ve explored this material, you will be equipped to play at different speeds confidently. You will…

Essential Grooves Part 1

When it comes to developing rhythm skills, working to broaden the number of strumming patterns, grooves and feels we are comfortable with helps us in a variety of ways:

It means there are more rhythms that are available to you in your own composition and accompaniment choices.It becomes easier to hear and transcribe rhythms present in…

Triads with a root on string 3

We can move around shapes with a root on string 1. We can also move around shapes with a root on string 2. And we have one more small moveable chord form – which has a root on string 3. With these three shapes, you can unlock a considerable portion of the fretboard. You can…

Triads with a root on string 2

A triad is a chord that includes three specific notes – 1 3 5 for major triads, and 1 b3 5 for minor triads.

The numbers refer to the relationship between each of the notes in the triad. 1 is the root note of the chord that designates which chord it is. If our root…

Sixteenth Note Rhythm

What do we mean by sixteenth note rhythm?

We have done quite a bit of down up strumming using 8th notes, or a 1+2+3+4+ count. Using this type of strumming, there is a maximum of 8 possible places in the bar where you can strum – there are eight arm movements, four downstrokes and four upstrokes. With…

Fingerstyle Training: Pinch pattern

This is a very frequently used variation where the thumb and middle finger pick at the same time on beat 1. It introduces a new rhythm. Instead of all the notes being the same length, the first is double length: quarter note followed by eighth notes.

We can also play a variation where the last…

G Major Blues

This blues uses only five notes – the five notes of G major pentatonic that go along with the G major triad. Playing it will help you with dexterity and finger independence and being able to use those notes effectively. Getting some phrases really into your fingers allows you to build confidence improvising in other…