Acoustic Fingerstyle Guitar Course: Beginner to Advanced

No matter how good or coordinated of a guitar player your are, if you aren't in tune your playing will sound bad. This is so important for fingerstyle guitar especially if you're going to record a video for upload to YouTube or to show your friends. Even a person who does not know anything about music can recognize when a player is in tune or not although the likely will not know what the issue is but commonly explain it as "just not sounding right". Follow through with this section to learn how to get in tune!

The thinnest string is referred to as the first string, and the lowest pitch string is sixth string. You can memorize the tuning be memorizing the phrase: Eddy Ate Dynamite, Good Bye Eddy. The first letter of each word represent the note you should tune your string to from bottom to top. E, A, D, G, B, and E.

In this lecture I will show you how to tune your guitar with an electric (chromatic) tuner. In this video I am using an InteliTouch tuner. Remember, always begin by tuning down the bringing the string back up slowly. If you tighten it too much you will snap a string :(.

In this lecture I will be showing you how to tune your guitar without any electronic equipment. The fifth fret of 5 of the 6 strings play the same note as the next string up. The only exception to this is the 2nd string (B string).

This is another step you can take to help ensure your guitar is in tune before you begin playing. Harmonics are challenging for beginner players, so if you're finding this difficult don't worry too much if you struggle with this as it is not a requirement to get in tune.

This lecture covers all of the different varations we need to know for the C Chord.

Here are the different Am (A Minor) chord varations that you must know.

Here we examine different ways to make playing the F chord easier than the traditional bar chord.

The last chord you must know before you get into your first song! The G Major and G7th chords.

This is Amazing Grace in C Major played fingerstyle

I chose amazing grace because it was a simple song yet helps guitarist learn essential guitar chords. Tab is available for download under resources.

Here is the tablature for Amazing Grace.

First, we are going to start by just alternating the bass for the C chord. Next, we will start playing some arpeggios while we keep the bass groove going.

Here are more drills and exercises for you to work on to help you gain thumb-finger independence for the F Major chord.

Now it's time to learn how to alternate the bass on the G chord and get even more thumb-finger independence.

This will be our first boom-chick fingerstyle song. I chose this song because for one, everyone knows it. You won't have to worry about remember how the song is suppose to go because you already have that knowledge. Secondly It only has two chords, so this will keep you from having to worry about additional unnecessary chords and techniques. The great thing about this style, is that with each song you learn, the next song becomes easier to learn. Now let's get to work!

This section has 4 phases for this song. That is because it is our first song so phases 3 and 4 are dedicated to melody.

In this lecture we will work on freeing up your fingers and thumb. It is very important that they can operate separately and that is the goal of this lesson.

In phase 2, we are going to begin playing the chords along with the bass lines.

Now it's time to add a simple melody over the top! I have the next phase will over a more complex melody.

Time to free the melody from the bass! No more straight 1/4 melody notes. Tab included!

These are the E chord positions you must know for fingerstyle

Here is this A chord variations you must know.

The 5th chord in E major is B or B7. Here are the variations you need to know.

This is a demonstration of the advanced version of the song.

Now we will play the alternating bass, chords, and the melody. We still want to keep it simple right now.

Time to add the melody! We we play a combination of the bass, chords and melody.

Time to get the blues! This song will challenge you with playing in multiple chord positions, runs, and turn arounds. Enjoy this one!

In phase one I am going to show you the bass pattern for a 12 bar blues in E major.

Now we will cover the first 12 bars of the blues in E.

Next up is the second play through of the 12 bar blues. This section is a bit more challenging and includes slides and unconventional chords.

This lecture will introduce you to the music theory section and highlight some of the key concepts we will cover in this section.

You need to be able to understand and explain what a note is. That is what you will learn in this lecture.

Sharps & Flats! Sometimes called accidentals. Let's learn!

Remember you can have two identical notes (two A notes for example) but one has a higher pitch. This is because it could be in the next octave above the first note.

In this lecture we cover the common names for intervals between notes.

In this lecture I define a scale.

Let's understand how a major scale works and what it's formula is.

Now let's learn about the Minor scale!

This lecture covers the notes (AKA intervals) that make up the chords in the C Major scale