The Most Simple Plucking Pattern with Beautiful Chords

Hey guys, I hope you are having a fantastic Monday.

Today I want to talk to you about the most simple plucking pattern that you can play on guitar. We will play this pattern with beautiful chords, so I am pretty sure you are going to like this lesson.

The reason why I am showing you this lesson is that I want to answer one of the questions that you guys ask a lot, which is “When can we practice more advanced plucking patterns?”.

I understand that many of you feel like it’s time to try something more difficult, but the question I have is “Do we need to learn advanced fingerpicking patterns?” and also “Can we write a beautiful chord progression with the most simple plucking pattern?

In this fingerstyle guitar lesson, I am going to show you a beautiful chord progression played with one of the most simple fingerpicking patterns on guitar.

My goal is to show that you don’t need to learn advanced plucking patterns to play something beautiful.

I am not saying you should never try challenging picking patterns! I am just saying that before you move on to something difficult, you should experiment with simple fingerpicking patterns and get the most out of them.

This is a fingerstyle lesson for beginners who want to learn how to play beautiful chords on acoustic guitar using a simple plucking pattern.

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How to Build Fingerpicking Technique

1.Learn the Right-Hand Position

Let me show you the three fingerpicking rules I teach to all of my students. These three rules help you understand how to position the right hand correctly for perfect plucking, beautiful tone and flawless technique.

Rule #1: How to position the thumb for smooth plucking.
Rule #2: The 45-degree angle for the index, middle and ring finger.
Rule #3: How to pluck the strings of your guitar.

Fingerpicking Rule #1 | Thumb Position

Position the thumb in front of the fingers and pluck the strings downwards. Use the side of the fingertip to pluck the strings smoothly. If play with fingernails, use a combination of flesh and nail. I don’t like the sound of the fingernail alone, which is way too bright for my ears. Instead, I prefer the thumb position that the majority of classical and acoustic guitar players use. There is always room for trying your approach, however, if you are a beginner I recommend that you start with this simple rule.

Fingerpicking Rule #2 | Index, Middle and Ring Finger Position

Pluck the strings upwards with index, middle and ring finger. I never use the little finger to pluck the strings even though some guitar players do. Position them at a 45-degree angle for smooth plucking and rounded beautiful tone. If you play with fingernails, you should always use a combination of flesh and nail. Plucking without nails gives you a dull and quiet timbre. Playing just with fingernails will do the opposite, giving you a bright tone way, which sometimes could be too loud.

Fingerpicking Rule #3 | Fingerpicking Articulation and Knuckles Movement

When plucking the strings, the fingers perform two movements: Preparation and plucking.

With the preparation, we bring the finger away from the string to build momentum and power before the plucking, just like a soccer player raises his leg before hitting the ball.

Without the preparation, we can’t generate the power necessary for the finger to pluck the string, just like a soccer player can’t hit the ball without raising his leg.

The preparation ends the moment the finger touches the string and becomes “Plucking.”

The preparation and plucking movement is possible thanks to our knuckles. The knuckles are joints formed by the bones of the fingers, and they are responsible for the fingers movements.

The thumb has two knuckles, the major or 1st knuckle, which is the one that connects the finger to the hand and the minor knuckle or 2nd, which is the one between the major knuckle and the fingertip.

The index, middle, ring and little finger have three knuckles, the major (1st) and two minor (2nd and 3rd).

With the thumb, we perform the preparation and plucking with the major knuckle only. Next time you pluck with the thumb notice how the 2nd knuckle doesn’t move at all.

For the index, middle and ring finger the movement is different.

The movement begins just like the thumb with the finger moving away from the string (preparation with the major knuckle). The plucking though is performed by the 2nd knuckle, which plucks the strings upwards.

2.Practice Simple Fingerpicking Patterns

What is a fingerpicking pattern?

A fingerpicking pattern is a sequence of finger movements that we use to play chords and melodies. This sequence can be smooth or very complex depending on the number of notes the pattern contains.

There are hundreds of different fingerpicking patterns even though guitar players always end up playing the most common ones.

How to name the right-hand fingers.

If you have been checking other fingerpicking lessons chances are that you stumbled upon the word P i m a.

P i m a stands for thumb, index, middle and ring finger. The letters come from the Italian (or Spanish) language Pollice = P, indice = i, medio = m and anulare = a.

The simple fingerpicking pattern we are learning today is the P i m a pattern. Assign the thumb to 6th, 5th and 4th string, the index to the 3rd string, the middle to the 2nd string and ring to the 1st string.

3.Add a Beautiful Chord Progression to the Fingerpicking Patterns.

You learned how to position the right-hand and how to pluck the strings correctly. We also learned how to name the right-hand fingers and how to play the simple fingerpicking pattern in this lesson.

Now you can finally add a beautiful chord progression to the pattern.

The chord progression we are learning today is in E minor key and goes as follows:

Section 1: Em | Dadd9 | Cadd9 | D |

Section 2: Em | Dadd9 | Am |

Section 3: Em | Dadd9 | Cadd9 | D |

Some of the chords, like the Em and Dadd9 will take two P i m a pattern each while the Cadd9 will take three patterns and the Am four. The D major is played with a melody. The

It is fascinating to see how busy this chord progression is despite the simple right-hand pattern.