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Hey, how're you doing? Justin here. [br]In this video today we're

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going to be checking out some really basic [br]fingerstyle exercises

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for you guys that have never played any fingerstyle before,

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I wanna try and get your fingers moving

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If you are wondering about this funny sheet down here

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it is just to reflect a little bit of light back on my fingers

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so when we do a close up you can see clearly[br]what I'm doing.

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Before you think

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“what is he doing dragging weird sheets into the screen?”

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That is why it is there.

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So let's have a look at that close up now.

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What I want you to do is I want you to position your fingers

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on the strings so you have got your 3rd finger picking

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the thinnest string, your 2nd finger plucking the 2nd string,

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your 1st finger plucking the 3rd string

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and your thumb plucking the thickest string.

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On your left hand you are holding down a G chord.

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A regular old 1st generation G chord if you like.

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So what we are going to do first is this little exercise.

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We are going to pick now thumb . . . 1, 2, 3 . . . and again:

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thumb . . . 1, 2, 3 . . .

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you will probably have to look at it

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a little bit at this stage.

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Trying to “suss” (work) out where those notes are.

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Just try and do it nice and evenly if you can.

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Now it is really important that you realise

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that you don't have to have long fingernails to do this.

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There are lots of great guitar players that play with

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no fingernails.

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I think Neil Young doesn't play with fingernails.

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Dominic Miller, the fantastic guitar player that plays

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in Sting's band, chopped off all of his fingernails

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and just plays with the flesh on his fingers and he is a

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fantastic fingerstyle guitar player.

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So don't feel like you have to have nails.

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Now I do wear fake nails and I know it looks really gay

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or whatever girly or whatever you think.

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I don't really care because it makes a really good sound

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on the guitar and if I didn't have plastic fingernails on

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then my fingernails wouldn't last long

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enough to actually do any playing at all.

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So I am not recommending that you go and get fake nails

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unless you are really into fingerstyle and you play a lot.

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Right?

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But if you want to grow a little bit of your natural

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fingernail to pluck the string

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it does tend to have a slightly nicer, brighter sound

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to my ear than just playing

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with the fleshy parts of your fingers.

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But it doesn't really matter.

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Just thought I would point that out before

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we get all these haters on the videos going

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“oh my God, you look like a vampire.

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Your fingernails look really weird”.

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Yeah I know they look really weird.

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I can't help it. If I could change it so they

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look more normal I would.

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But anyway, back to our exercises.

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So exercise 1 that we are doing is with our G chord going

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thumb . . . 1, 2, 3 . . . thumb, 1, 2, 3 . . .

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Over and over again . . . nice and simple . . .

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When you get bored of doing that

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I want you to change it and now go thumb . . . 3, 2, 1

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. . . thumb, 3, 2, 1 . . . And do that for a little bit . . .

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When you get bored of that [br]the next one that I want you to do

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is thumb . . . 1, 2, 3, 2, 1

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. . . thumb, 1, 2, 3, 2, 1 . . .

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Just keep going through that trying to get your picking nice

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and even . . . Trying to keep it in time . . . and

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trying to be accurate about the strings that you pick . . .

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Now hopefully you will remember from

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when we were doing the rhythm guitar [br]where we hit the bass

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note of the chord and then we did a couple of strums

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that most of the chords have their

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bass note on a different string.

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So for both E and G the bass note is on the 6th string.

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So we were just playing a G chord but the finger picking

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would have been exactly the same for an E or an Emin.

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But if we went to say a C chord our thumb would move over

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onto the 5th string.

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So let's just have a close look at that now.

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The thumb is on the 5th string here.

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We are playing a C chord with the left hand

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and we are doing . . . thumb, 1, 2, 3 . . .

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We go through the same exercises again . . .

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And then reversing the top ones.

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So 3, 2, 1 . . . thumb, 3, 2, 1 . . .

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After you have done that for a little while we go up and back

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. . . thumb, 1, 2, 3, 2, 1, thumb . . .

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And then even over onto a D chord.

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So if we play D the thumb moves all the way

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onto the 4th string. So . . . thumb, 1, 2, 3, 2, 1 . . .

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And then maybe back to G . . .

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Thumb, 1, 2, 3, 2, 1 . . . D . . .

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You can see that the string change from the thumb is just

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following the names of the chords.

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If we went to C . . . D . . . G . . . D . . . and back.

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It is a really, really good technique

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and can be really simple.

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You can see already we have started to make music

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out of it just using this . . .

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Thumb, 1, 2, 3, 2, 1 . . . pattern and doing that pattern

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once on whatever chord we felt like. If you keep it consistent

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suddenly it sounds like a song.

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Fingerstyle is a very cool thing.

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When you first start it most people find it a little bit

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awkward and they are picking the wrong strings

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or they miss it or they start picking the wrong group of

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strings that kind of thing. It's dead normal.

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As usual pretty much everything on the guitar it just takes some

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practice. So have a good go at doing that and we are going to

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do a few more fancier exercises with the old fingerstyle next

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time but just as a really good exercise start working that in.

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Getting used to the bass moving around [br]onto different strings.

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That would be a really really cool start for you.

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So, have fun with that and I will see you

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for another lesson shortly. Bye, bye.