Ultimate Fingerpicking Pattern Exercise

for Control, Strength, and Speed

Hey guys, welcome to this awesome fingerpicking guitar lesson. Today I am going to show you the ultimate fingerpicking pattern exercise for control, strength, and speed.

If you want to take your fingerstyle technique to the next level, make sure you try this awesome exercise. The speed is 70 bpm per minute (sextuplet each beat) or 210 bpm (two notes per beat). There are six notes for each pattern, so if you are a beginner, I recommend you start with 150 bpm playing two notes per beat. Then slowly increase to 210 bpm.

I have been using this ultimate fingerpicking pattern for a long time, and I still use it when I want to revamp my technique.

Make sure you practice slowly before increasing the speed.

Tab available on Patreon.

The Video

Fingerpicking Pattern Exercise Arpeggio

In this lesson, we are going to repeat the same fingerpicking pattern over and over again on each chord we are playing. By practicing this way, our fingers will become stronger and faster.

There are three things that you will improve with this fingerpicking exercise:

• Speed: The ability to pluck the strings faster.
• Control: Pluck the strings with the right intensity and dynamics.
• Strength: You fingers will get less tired.

The fingerpicking pattern exercise is straightforward and based on six notes, also called sextuplets.

I highly recommend that you spend a little bit of time practicing the pattern alone before adding the different chords and voicing.

About the Chord Progression

The chord progression is very simple and played entirely in the position I; however, each chord is played with a lot of different voicing. The voicing is the singing note of a chord (the highest note of the chord). By changing the voicing, we can create melodies within “within the chords” and beautiful sounding chord progressions.

The chord progression goes as follows: Am – Em – G – Dm the second section, Fmaj7 – C – Dm – G.

How to Pluck the Strings

There are three rules that you should follow to make sure your plucking technique is correct. These three fingerpicking rules can be applied for both acoustic and classical guitar, and they represent the groundwork for the perfect strings plucking.

Rule 1: Thumb in front of the finger.

The thumb is a very busy finger, and it will usually pluck more than one strings. Most of the time, the thumb will pluck the bottom three strings (4th, 5th, and 6th strings) in what we consider to be the bass note or root note of a chord or melody.

The right-hand thumb will also determine the balance and position for the plucking fingers. If you pluck the strings using the wrong thumb position your plucking fingers will suffer too.

• Assign a string fro each finger. The thumb will cover the bottom three strings.
• Keep the thumb in front of the fingers so that it is easy to pluck downward without clashing with the index.
• I suggest you also try to pluck the string with the side of your thumb for better tone.

Fingerpicking Pattern for Control

Fingerpicking guitar sounds excellent, but it can be challenging at first. So many beginner guitar players don’t know how to pluck the strings, which finger should be used and the correct right-hand position to adopt.

On top of all that there are so much information and many fingerpicking exercises to work on that scared even the most determined beginner players. This leads to frustration. I hear a lot of stories of guitar player who avoid fingerstyle guitar altogether for a long time before getting back into it.

In this lesson, I am going to show you what I think is the essential beginner fingerpicking pattern exercise that you should practice. As you will see, we are going to focus on a repetitive pattern that will help you improve control and speed.

As you are working on one exercise only, you focus on exactly what you need to learn how to get started with fingerpicking guitar.

Why I Love Fingerpicking Guitar

Fingerpicking guitar or fingerstyle guitar is a technique of playing guitar in which the right-hand fingers pluck the strings directly with the fingertip, fingernail or finger-picks.

I think that this guitar technique is one of the most creative approaches on guitar with endless possibilities and ways to create, rearrange, and compose beautiful music.

The fingerstyle technique is one of the most versatile technique on guitar, and it is present in several genres and style of music. Fingerstyle and fingerpicking mean the same thing even though fingerpicking refers to specific traditions such as country, blues, and folk. Many famous guitar players became extremely popular fingerpicking players.

The songs and melodies arranged with fingerstyle can include chords, rhythm, melodies, arpeggios, and other techniques combined. Often we can combine a bunch of chords with a very simple melody. Most of the time, the thumb will play the bass notes (bass line) while the fingers play the melody or chords.

With this approach, you can decide to have the melody within the guitar part. Fingerstyle guitar is excellent for singers to because of provides all of the essential music elements such as chords, rhythm, melodies, and in some cases percussive approach.

Fingerstyle Advantage and Disadvantage

Fingerpicking guitar is excellent, but not everything is cool. There are a few disadvantages when you play fingerstyle guitar.

Let’s start with the advantages:

• One of the things I love the most about fingerstyle guitar is the fact that you can play multiple non-adjacent strings at the same time. This means you will be able to play a bass note (lower note) with the thumb while playing a higher note with the fingers. You can play intervals such as octaves, sixth, thirds, etc. depending on the type of interval you want to achieve.
• Another awesome thing is that you don’t have to carry around a guitar pick. You pluck the strings with your fingernails.
• With fingerpicking patterns, you can decide to play chords, melodies, and bass parts simultaneously making the acoustic guitar a polyphonic instrument.
• Fingerstyle guitar can be easy to start with if you only play single notes melody along with one bass note.
• As you pluck simple melodies, you have the feeling of playing a song because the melody is within the guitar part.

Now some disadvantages:

• A lot of guitar players struggle to get started with fingerpicking guitar. The fact that you have to pluck one string at a time could be a real challenge. With a technique such as strumming, you can easily brush the strings up and down with a guitar pick.
• If you use fingerpicking technique, you will have to keep your fingernails in good condition and maintain them at the right length.
• Playing guitar with heavy gauge can be quite challenging with a fingerstyle technique. Your nails can easily break. With a guitar pick, you will be able to handle heavy strings easily.

Tab available on Patreon.