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Becoming the ‘handiest’ fingerstyle guitarist in the land requires you to have a strong grasp of the basic mechanics and most common practice methods.
In this article I’ll take you through each of the most important fingerstyle fundamentals to work on and lay out a training guide to maximize your practice time.
You’ll discover:
- A beginner, intermediate, and advanced fingerstyle guitar learning plan.
- Detailed method for how and what to practice effectively.
- The pros and cons of having a teacher vs online lessons.
- Professional insights and answers to the most common fingerstyle guitar questions.
Let's get into it.
My 4 top tips before you sign up for a training course
I am certainly no stranger to learning fingerstyle guitar for the first time.
When I first started out, I remember feeling frustrated that I didn’t know any shortcuts to help me improve faster.
To help you avoid some of the pitfalls that I fell into, I’ve set out 4 top tips to lessen that learning curve.
Tip 1: Buy a capo
Capos are useful for helping you play pieces in a different key and also lowers the action of your guitar, making it easier to play.
Tip 2: Make sure to know the open chord shapes
Open chord shapes are found in every online fingerstyle guitar course. They’re crucial
Tip 3: Train your ears by listening to fingerstyle guitarists
Listen to players like Tommy Emmanuel, Chet Atkins, or Julian Lage as a perfect introduction to how fingerstyle guitar should sound.
Tip 4: Keep track of your progress
No matter your skill level, every player should keep track of their learning progress using a journal or video diary.
It’s always a joy to see yourself improving and banking new sounds.
The ultimate online fingerstyle guitar training course: The Fingerstyle Learning Pathway
Course Name: Fingerstyle Learning Pathway
Course Creator: Collin Hill
Course Copyright: Pickup Music
Language: English
Who’s It For? Everyone from ages 15 and up
Course Level: Advanced-Beginner to Intermediate
Course Duration: 3 Months
Course Delivery: Online
Media:
- Video: Instructional lessons and performance piece demonstration
Course Support:
- Online Community 24/7/365
- Live Q&A
- Live Band Practice
Course topics & modules
Grade 1: Introduction to acoustic fingerstyle
Get set up for success and start building your acoustic foundation with the best fingerstyle guitar course.
Day 1. Get set up
On your first day in fingerstyle town, you’ll learn how to establish proper technique to avoid injuries and make your first steps feel nice and easy on the hands.
When learning fingerstyle guitar for beginners, the most crucial place to start is by finding a good default position for both picking and fretting hands.
This will help you feel comfortable each time you pick up the guitar.
Day 2. How to feel rhythm
Training yourself to feel rhythm correctly will help you in every aspect of the fingerstyle guitar curriculum.
Alongside your new teacher, you’ll study instructional videos that help you strum chords in time, and with rhythm.
Day 3. Motor skills 101
Fingerstyle players rely on fine motor skills to bring out the secret melodies hidden in chord progressions.
This lesson takes on a different kind of note tutorial by showing you how to build your motor skills using various exercises that help to train finger independence.
Day 4. Developing motor skills
Now that you’ve got the basics of motor skill learning down, this lesson aims to take it to the next level with much more focus on the fretting hand.
Day 5. G major scale
The G major scale is great for any guitarist learning fingerstyle guitar licks and how to build melodies across the fretboard.
Study TABS or play along with the instructional video to enhance your major scale learning and become the melody maker.
Day 6. Stepping stones
With some solid technical material locked in, we'll start playing songs. Fun! This lesson is all about putting your skills to the test in a musical context.
Day 7. Coffee break
The beauty of a self-paced curriculum is that you can study fingerstyle guitar lessons at your own speed.
Your final lesson of this grade will review everything you’ve learned up to this point with a final challenge to put a cherry on top.
Grade 2: Fingerpicking decoded
This picking-hand skill will be by your side for every step of your fingerstyle journey.
Days 1-3. T123, T321, and T213
Most fingerstyle guitar courses will give you some of the basics on how to fingerpick, but the first three days of Grade 2 will be a complete workout class.
You’ll develop fingerpicking patterns of your own along with some brand-new chords to study.
Day 4. 6/8 Fingerpicking
Now that you’ve got some independence in those picking fingers, you’re ready to learn about one of the most common fingerpicking patterns based around the 6/8 rhythm.
Day 5. The pinch
Feeling crabby? 🦀 Today, you’ll expand your bag of tricks with a new move, the pinch!
This is a beautiful compositional tool that will add a strong sense of melody to your fingerpicking progressions.
Day 6. Folky thumbpicking
In this lesson, you’ll get familiar with a folky thumbpicking technique.
For many students, this can feel like a turning point in their fingerstyle guitar training and they start to notice this technique being used by popular artists from John Mayer, to Jason Mraz.
Day 7. Recap, check-ins, star gazing
Here, you'll review what you worked on in Grade 2, take a series of assessments to make sure you're ready to move on and wrap up with a new song.
Grade 3: How to add melody to chords
Grade 3 graduates from fingerstyle guitar lessons for beginners and starts to get deeper into how to create melody and chord arrangements.
Day 1. Key of C
Now that you’ve got the technique down, you can begin to incorporate open-string chords and melodies from the C major scale.
Think of these next lessons as the melody and chord syllabus.
This grade kicks off by exploring colorful extended chords, then tackles expressive hammer-on and pull-off techniques.
Day 2. Expanding the key of C
Our guitarist-in-chief Collin will teach you how to get more out of any major key by accessing its relative minor scale.
There’s a good amount of C major scale note studying here to keep you occupied and challenge your visualization skills across the fretboard.
Day 3. The Keaggy stretching exercise
The Keaggy stretch is a fantastic technique to help you learn fingerstyle guitar chords across the fretboard.
This is a great technique to work your way up to and will feel like you’ve grown an extra finger when working on some seriously stretchy chord shapes.
Day 4. Key of G
After that, we'll switch gears to G major as you identify different ways to incorporate a walking bassline into your playing with leading tones and triad inversions.
With plenty of chord diagrams and TAB studies alongside.
Day 5. Expanding the key of G
Today is all about expanding your chordal fingerstyle vocabulary.
Collin will guide you through lush extended chords that'll bring your compositions to life.
Day 6. Capo unlocked
The following sections are designed to give you much more fretboard freedom.
You'll unlock the ability to play colorful open-string chords in any key with the help of your handy-dandy capo.
We'll put today's lesson through the lens of CAGED system chord shapes to help you better visualize the concepts.
Day 7. How to break free from patterns
Now that you’ve got all of the main fingerstyle guitar music theory down, it’s time to address rhythm.
By learning some brand new exercises and rhythms you’ll gain even more options to work with.
Day 8. How to add melodies to chords
Adding melody on top of your chords is the cherry on the cake.
Today you’ll learn how to multitask on the guitar – but don’t worry, it’s much easier than it sounds.
Day 9. Setting sun
Today, we'll focus solely on taking what you learned and making it musical.
You'll learn an original composition by your course teacher Collin that'll cover everything you've learned in Grade 3.
Day 10. Composition challenge
To cap off the grade, we'll review what you learned and challenge you to arrange your own fingerstyle tune within a set of creative parameters.
After you’ve spent the past 10 days learning fingerstyle guitar scales, it’s time to put your hard work to the test with a challenge.
Grade 4: Intermediate fingerstyle
Time to take your acoustic fingerstyle skills to the next level!
Grade 4 is a big step up. In this grade, there's a lot for both your head and your hands to take in.
Collin will introduce you to new picking patterns, colorful chords, and harmonizing intervals.
You'll learn challenging songs and even work on composing your own.
The beauty of this custom fingerstyle learning plan is that you can always go back a few grades until you feel comfortable moving on to the more advanced grades.
Day 1. Palm muting in A
Kicking it off with a crucial technique to know, palm muting is an essential skill that you’ll want to train as it’ll be a near-regular skill that you’ll use in your guitar playing journey.
Day 2. Thumb slapping in C
Who needs a drummer when you can be the drummer instead? This thumb slapping technique is a must-know for any John Mayer fans.
Get to know this spicy technique with another teacher tutorial video.
Day 3. 3rds in E
Today, you’ll explore 3rd in the key of E. This iconic interval will enrich your chords and add a lush harmonic element to your playing.
Day 4. Harmonics and 6ths in G
We'll continue on our intervallic journey by exploring 6ths in the key of G major.
Another key interval to learn, 6ths are easily accessed once you have 3rds in your toolkit.
You'll also get an introduction to the crystalline sound of plucked harmonics – a perfect ornament for your playing.
Day 5. 10ths in D
If you’ve ever explored the internet for free fingerstyle guitar lessons, you’ve likely come across an arrangement that uses 10th intervals.
On the final stop of the interval bus you’ll explore 10th voicings in the key of D.
10ths are a very popular intervallic voicing throughout all music, especially on guitar.
Lots of artists like these intervals because they’re easy to play and lead to some gorgeous results.
Here are some examples of artists who wrote songs using 10ths: Beatles, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Tracy Chapman, and countless others.
Day 6. Tremolo
The tremolo technique is a sound that’s guaranteed to roll in the good vibes.
Although it’s a more advanced feature of the fingerstyle lead guitar course, it sounds incredibly impressive and can add some thrills to your playing.
Day 7. Music theory to get outside of a key
Chord progressions feeling stale? Today, you’ll learn a variety of ways to step outside of a home key.
Borrowing notes and adding passing chords can open up the doors to exciting new progressions.
Day 8. How to incorporate bar chords
Bar chords are the often discussed ‘enemy’ of guitar players.
Fortunately, we’ve got a professional who knows how to handle them and help guide you to playing closed-position bar chords the right way.
Spending time with the bar chord tutorials will help you unlock more of your fretboard in a fingerstyle context using bar chords.
Day 9. Rising up
You'll learn an original composition by Collin that'll cover everything you've learned in Grade 4.
The secret ingredients you’ll learn here are about making things musical through dynamics, touch, sound control.
Day 10. Composition challenge
Cap off the grade with another composition challenge.
We'll give you creative parameters to work within, then you're off to the races.
Use everything you've learned in Grade 4 to craft the next great fingerstyle tune.
Grade 5: How to arrange fingerstyle songs
Tackle five different fingerstyle songs as you develop the skills to arrange your own.
Days 1 & 2. Danny Boy
I found it much easier to understand the guitar fingerstyle theory of rhythm, melody, and chords when I started to learn fingerstyle songs.
This is where the theory becomes practical. In your first couple of days you’ll take on an old classic and learn a useful formula for writing your own fingerstyle arrangements.
Day 3. Happy Birthday
Why learn such a simple song?
Other than making you the star of your next birthday celebration, learning Happy Birthday will show you how simple melodies can be arranged into beautiful fingerstyle compositions using some easy-to-remember techniques.
Once you get the tune down, we'll work on spicing it up with expressive techniques and modern songwriting concepts to create an advanced arrangement.
Days 4 & 5. Auld Lang Syne
Back in 1700, they didn’t have online fingerstyle guitar schools, but this song had just been born into the world.
After tuning your guitar to drop D, we'll dive right into this tune, then spice it up with inner-voice movement and a turnaround progression.
Days 6 & 7. Silent Night
To get you feeling comfortable with the 3/4 time feel, this is an excellent song to learn.
You'll harmonize the melody with major 6ths, swap in some colorful chord substitutions, and build tension with a secondary dominant chord.
Grade 6: Advanced fingerstyle
Become a fingerstyle pro with the last grade of this Learning Pathway.
Full of new ideas and topics, the final grade is what makes this the best online fingerstyle guitar course.
Day 1. How to play in DADGAD
Never played in alternate tunings before? This exciting tuning will open up a whole world of song learning possibilities.
Many people remember their minds being blown by this DADGAD song by Andy McKee.
Day 2. Tapping
Talk about tapping into a fun technique that’ll make you life of the party.
Tapping is an advanced technique that sounds incredibly impressive and this module will help you seamlessly integrate it into your fingerstyle playing.
Day 3. Percussive techniques
One of the most popular concepts that modern fingerstyle players use are percussion techniques. It’s one of the best ways to create a vibe that gets the whole campfire clapping along with you.
With a couple of tricks to get you going, you’ll see the potential for improvisation and lots of fun.
Day 4. Natural harmonics
If you’ve ever tried to learn fingerstyle guitar online, it’s likely that you’ve come across these sounds in arrangements.
But this module will take you deep into the world of pretty harmonics and how to make them a magical feature of your playing.
Day 5. Artificial harmonics
Artifical harmonics are a little more complex than natural harmonics, but learning to break out of the 12th, 7th and 5th frets will help your ears absorb new sounds.
This lesson will give you plenty more decorative options to add to your arrangements.
Day 6. Tapped & raked harmonics
Now that you’ve studied each of the advanced skills in fingerstyle guitar class, there’s just one more to add.
This lesson will show you how to create a unique texture using the rake method.
Day 7. Recap
Recap the techniques from this grade and get ready to graduate this Learning Pathway.
By the end of the course, you’ll know how to…
Becoming a skilled fingerstyle guitarist that can take songs and breathe new life into them is a gift that keeps on giving.
After taking the course you can expect to have lots of new skills including:
- A deep understanding of chord shapes across the neck.
- Useful methodology for dividing popular songs into melody and chords.
- Lots of fingerpicking patterns to customize and explore.
- Knowledge of how to harmonize any melody with intervals and chords.
- Greater control over your technique using both hands.
- A richer command of music theory and how to use it in everyday guitar playing.
- Effective toolkit for building chord melodies and chord arrangements of popular songs.
- Wide collection of advanced guitar tricks and decorative skills to add magic into your arrangements.
Course Cost: $15 per month (with an annual subscription)
Local fingerstyle guitar teacher vs. online course
Knowing which teaching medium is right for you to learn under can feel difficult without the proper information to inform your decision.
Ultimately, you want to pick a teaching method that will help you to become the best possible fingerstyle guitarist you can be.
To do this, it’s important to weigh up the pros and cons of online lessons versus studying with a local tutor.
Even if you’ve already found the best fingerstyle guitar online course, it’s useful to have a list of strengths and weaknesses of each medium to find a system that works best for you.
The pros
The cons
What to look for in a fingerstyle guitar course
Here are the top 10 essential things to look for from a fingerstyle training program.
- A variety of graded materials to help you make progress from beginner to advanced levels.
- On-hand, professional feedback from real guitarists to help you get over any difficulties or provide extra instruction.
- Clear lesson plans that you can work on daily or weekly.
- Printable charts, TAB, and video instructional material to help you reference the learning material from classes.
The course content is updated regularly to keep learners coming back for more.
- Professional fingerstyle guitarists that know how to teach clearly and effectively.
- High-quality video content and valuable lessons that you can keep coming back to.
- A song library and collection of transcriptions to help you play your favorite songs.
- Methods for practicing to help you keep progressing.
- Members areas or forums to allow you to connect with more fingerstyle guitarists who are also on their learning journey.
FAQs
What is the best course to learn fingerstyle guitar?
The Pickup Music Fingerstyle Pathway is the most effective course for helping you become a fingerstyle guitarist and helps to build your skills from the ground up.
How often should I practice guitar?
When it comes to practicing guitar, self discipline is up to you and whether you practice daily, weekly, or monthly. All of these will be beneficial to your learning.
How can I master fingerstyle guitar chords faster?
You’ll need to have a good understanding of all open chord shapes and preferably some introductory knowledge of CAGED chord shapes across the fretboard for true mastery.
What songs should I learn for fingerstyle?
Most popular songs that you hear on the radio can be used as vehicles for fingerstyle arrangements.
Start with the Beatles, Ed Sheeran, and Taylor Swift’s songs if you’re looking for one to arrange.
How important is online community support when learning fingerstyle guitar?
Having access to professional support from top guitarists and other learners can help you take your playing to the next level, and is a priceless addition to your learning experience.
Do I need a thumb pick for playing fingerstyle?
Lots of players use a thumb pick to accent the low bass strings but it isn’t necessary to have one in order to play, you can use your fingers alone.
Are there any hacks for studying fingerstyle guitar licks?
There are no hacks to mastery, but knowing the major scale across the fretboard will give you a huge advantage when figuring out the theory behind licks.
What’s the best way to train hand independence for guitar?
The best way to train independence in the picking and fretting hands is by practicing scales for the left, and picking patterns for the right as they will focus on strengthening both skills separately.
Can I learn fingerstyle guitar by myself?
It’s entirely possible to learn by yourself, especially with a solid online training program that you can work through at your own pace.
Who are the best fingerstyle guitarists?
Tommy Emmanuel, Sungha Jung, John Fahey are just a handful of the best fingerstyle guitarists around.
What are 3 important things to know when practicing fingerstyle guitar scales?
Find the same scale in 2 or 3 different positions, be aware of the notes in the scale, and try to sing each of the notes to embed the sound into your ears.
What do I need to know before starting to learn fingerstyle?
Having some of the basic chord shapes down is an excellent starting point as well as some basic fingerpicking patterns.
What’s a good guitar for beginner fingerstyle guitarists?
There are lots of great acoustic guitars for beginners worth looking at.
Especially those of Fender, Tanglewood, and Yamaha instruments are great quality at an affordable price.
Is fingerstyle guitar harder than strumming?
Unlike strumming which only requires a pick and some basic rhythms, fingerstyle guitar playing is more challenging because it incorporates 2 or 3 different techniques at once. But, it’s ultimately more rewarding too.
I’m new to fingerstyle guitar. What are some easy songs to begin with?
Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen and Thinking Out Loud by Ed Sheeran are two great songs to get you started.
Should I grow my nails out?
Growing out your nails on your picking hand is an optional thing you can to do to get more definition from your picking, but you don’t have to do this.
Is it hard to learn fingerstyle guitar?
Technically speaking, fingerstyle guitar requires extra attention on training your left and right hands to be independent.
But with enough practice anyone can learn how to play in the style.
How do you become a fingerstyle guitarist?
Knowing how to take a song and arrange it into a piece of music that showcases both the chords and melody in one part usually qualifies you as a fingerstyle guitarist.
Wrapping Up
Hopefully by now you have a better understanding of how to train yourself to become a competent fingerstyle player using our curriculum as a training formula.
Pickup Music’s Fingerstyle Learning Pathway boasts the best online fingerstyle guitar lessons out there and encourages you to level up all aspects of your guitar playing.
All while giving you the skills to take any song that you hear and developing it into a beautiful medley of solo guitar art.
Author: Jack Handyside
Jack Handyside is a professional jazz guitarist, composer, and teacher from the UK with extensive experience in performance and education. A long-time member of the Pickup Music team, Jack serves as a course writer and feedback instructor, providing 1:1 video feedback to Pickup members.
He's also a seasoned private guitar instructor with an international student base and a strong social media presence. Jack's dedication to both performance and education has made him a respected voice in the jazz guitar community.
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