In this fingerstyle lesson, I want to show you one of the most simple fingerpicking patterns you can practice on the guitar. This is also, one of the most common and essential fingerpicking patterns every beginner should learn.

It’s important to start with basic patterns if you want to build a solid technique and dexterity.

You will also learn a beautiful chord progression in E minor to practice this patter. Practicing guitar with musical ideas will keep your motivation high, and you will achieve your goals easily.

These are the things we will be learning in this lesson:

A simple fingerpicking pattern played with thumb and ring together followed by middle and index.
A beautiful and simple chord progression in E minor.
An Italian music command called “Ritenuto”, which is sudden and temporarily decrease of the tempo.

Good luck with this lesson guys.

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About the Fingerpicking Guitar

The Fingerpicking technique (also called fingerstyle technique or fingerpicking guitar) is the technique of playing the strings of your guitar by plucking them with the right-hand fingertips or nails. Some of the most common genres where we see the fingerpicking technique a lot are folk, jazz, blues, country and modern percussive fingerstyle.

One of the awesome things about fingerpicking technique is the fact that we can arrange a song including chords, arpeggios, melodies, walking bass, rhythm and percussion, as well as other less used technique such as harmonics, hammer on, pull-offs and horizontal playing.

Some fingerpicking guitarists are able to combine all the aspects of the fingerstyle technique which enables them to write a song using all these important elements within a song.

Fingerstyle guitar is indeed one of the most creative and complete forms and art you can have on classical and acoustic guitar.

What is a Fingerpicking Pattern?

Guitar players refer to fingerpicking patterns as a specific finger combination that can be used to play chords or melodies. The are hundreds of different patterns that a guitar player can use depending on the rhythmic and melodic connotation of a song.

Patterns such as alternate fingering are mainly used to play single note melodies or solos as they don’t need other elements such as accompaniment or rhythm.

When performing chords or rhythmic accompaniments patterns like the famous P i m a (thumb, index, middle and ring finger) are way more used than alternate fingering.

The famous Fingerstyle Guitar Association came up with one of the most accurate definitions of the fingerpicking technique:

Physically, “Fingerstyle” refers to using each of the right hand fingers independently to play the multiple parts of a musical arrangement that would normally be played by several band members. Deep bass notes, harmonic accompaniment (the chord progression), melody, and percussion can all be played simultaneously when playing Fingerstyle.

What’s the Most Simple Fingerpicking Pattern?

On guitar, there are five most simple fingerpicking patterns that every guitar player should learn. If you are a beginner, you should definitely start with those.

Check the patterns below. The examples are all in C major but you can transpose it to other chords.

Fingerpicking pattern 1: P i m a
Fingerpicking pattern 2: P a m i
Fingerpicking pattern 3: P i m a m i
Fingerpicking pattern 4: P-a m i a m i
Fingerpicking pattern 5: P-i-m-a

Fingers to Use for Fingerpicking Technique

Classical guitar music notation is well known to provide the most detailed fingering for both hands.

Memorize the difference between the right hand and left-hand symbol and numbers.

Left Hand	Notation	Right Hand	Notation
Thumb	T	Thumb	p
Index	1	Index	i
Middle	2	Middle	m
Ring	3	Ring	a
Little	4	Little	not used

In guitar scores, the four fingers of the right-hand (which pluck the strings) are designated by the first letter of their Italian names namely p = thumb (pollice), i = index finger (índice), m = major finger (medio), a = ring finger (anulare). For the left-hand we use numbers, index = 1, middle = 2, ring = 3 and, little finger = 4.

The Best Way to Pluck the Stings

Learning how to correctly fingertip the strings can be challenging for beginners.

For this reason, I laid down two fingerpicking rules that every beginner should follow.

Rule #1: Thumb in front of the fingers.
Rule #2: Index, middle and ring at a 45-degree angle.
Rule #3: Picking hand position for best timbre.

#Fingerpicking Rule 1: Thumb in Front of the fingers

Position the thumb in front of the fingers and pluck the strings downwards.

I prefer to pluck the strings with the side of the fingertip and use a combination of fingernails and flesh. I don’t like the sound of the fingernails alone, which is way too bright.

Pluck the strings downwards using the big knuckle.

Fingerpicking Rule #2: Index, Middle, and Ring finger at a 45-degree Angle

Position the index, middle and ring finger at a 45-degree angle for better fingers dexterity and smooth tone.

Plucking the strings with the fingertips give to the guitar player the ability to create its own tone and timbre.

Use the big knuckle to begin the plucking movement then the small knuckle for plucking the string.

Fingerpicking Rule #3: Where Along the Strings Should you Pluck?

There are a lot of different factors that influence the technique, tone, and timbre. Factors include:

The right-hand position and where you pluck the strings affect the tone. Pluck the strings near the bridge (ponticello) if you need a hard, bright sound. Energetic strumming usually prefers this position. For a smooth, dull tone, play the strings closer to the frets. This position is perfect for the fingerpicking technique.
Use of nails also affects the tone a lot. Usually, classical guitar players use a combination of nail and flesh which is a technique also used by modern acoustic guitar players. Overall nails give you better control and fluidity in your playing. One of the downsides of using nails is that guitarists have to keep their fingernails smoothly filed.

The Fingerpicking Pattern #4 Used in This Lesson

Let’s have a look at the fingerpicking pattern number #4 and how we can use it to play a beautiful chord progression in E minor.

The fingerpicking pattern is called P/a – m – i.

We are going to assign a finger to each string.

The thumb plays either the 4th, 5th or 6th string.
The index plays the 3rd string G
The middle plays the 2nd string B
The ring plays the 1st string E

These three steps should help you get started with this exercise.

1. Learn the Chords

The chord progression goes as follows: Em, Am, D, G, C, B7, Em.

In order to make the chord progression more interesting, I decided to play some of the chords in a different position of the neck.

Practice each chord individually.

Check the diagrams below to learn the chord shapes.

2. Practice the Fingerpicking Pattern

Once you learned the chord progression, it should be easy to start practicing the fingerpicking pattern.

One of the things I recommend to all of my students is to practice the pattern on each chord individually and repeat it several times before moving on to the next chord.

Follow the three fingerpicking rules we talked about in this article and keep the plucking hand as steady as possible.

The triplets should be played as evenly as possible with an emphasis on the first note of each triplet.

3. Put it Together

The last step should be playing the exercises fluently.

You will also focus on playing the chords with musicality.

Watch the beginning of the video several times and try to reproduce the same tone and musicality. As your technique becomes better, you should be able to add more and more color into the chord progression.

Pluck the strings in a different position to find the timbre you like.