#3 Open String Exercises | Beginner Fingerstyle on Guitar Course
In this video we are going to speed up that bridge hand for fingerpicking on guitar!
In this video, we are going to play some open string exercises to push our bridge hand to play faster and be more comfortable with fingerstyle on guitar! This is the third video in the Beginner Fingerstyle on Guitar Course!
Click here to go to the previous video in the course, #2 The Bridge Hand Position
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Transcription
Okay! In this course video, we're gonna get started with some actual fingerpicking. Now to keep things simple, we're just gonna keep all of the strings open. We're not gonna use any chords or anything because the whole goal of this video is to get our bridge hand comfortable with some actual fingerpicking patterns. If you have no experience in reading TAB before, I do recommend going back and checking out one of the beginner guitar courses. That way you can understand it a little bit better before you get into it here. However, if you have read a little bit, you understand the basics of it, that should suffice for this video. Because we're gonna keep it pretty simple, pretty basic. So we want to be able to read some TAB with our eyes and quickly be able to play it without thinking about it too much. The faster that we can get our bridge hand operating without thinking about it, the more that we can concentrate on our fretting hand, which is handling much more complicated things. Along with this video is a PDF with thirty picking exercises that you should be sure to download. Let's take a look at the first one so I can show you how it works. So taking a look at the first exercise on the sheet. We're keeping it to all open strings and we're sticking to that PIMA system for our bridge hand. The thumb, the index, the middle, and the ring finger. And we're gonna do them in that order. Thumb, index, middle, ring to start. So that's thumb, index, middle, ring. E string, G string, B string, E string. But you're gonna let those notes ring out. That's pretty simple, pretty straightforward. The big key here is we want to keep it in rhythm, 1 + 2 + And then repeat back to the 1 1 + 2 + And you want to keep it going in circles. Keep it repeating without any pauses in there. If you have pauses you don’t have it quite comfortable enough. We gotta get it without pauses and when that's comfortable we then move on. Remember that we want to keep the bottom of our palm at the top of the bridge and we want to pull in our fingers like a fist when we’re plucking those strings and we're not twisting our wrists or anything like that. We want to try to keep our hand as still as we can. And when you can run through that exercise 1 + 2 + And you can do it again and again without thinking too much about it and it sounds good, it flows… Then you're doing really well and you move on to the next one. Then we move on to #2. Then #2 gets a little more complicated for two reasons. One, we're gonna pluck the A string with our thumb instead of the E string and two, we're changing the order of IMA to MIA with our fingers. So first, we move our thumb down to the A string and instead of PIMA we're gonna go PMIA or thumb, middle, index, ring. PMIA And just like the last one you want to keep it in rhythm. 1 + 2 + You may have to start slower and that's fine You work your way up to a more comfortable speed like that. So again that's PMIA 1 + 2 + So let's jump ahead to #7 And #7’s gonna get a little more difficult because we're starting with the I A finger instead of the thumb. It's gonna feel more natural and more comfortable to start with the thumb. But we’re fingerpickers we want to be versatile. We also have to be careful of our rhythm here. When we're playing a pattern like this quickly it can be easy to get lost on where the pattern starts and where the pattern ends. So when you practice this one you want to be sure that you're starting at the 1 and ending at the end of 2 1 + 2 + And then recycling back to 1 You don't want to get lost in that mix, especially when you're going fast. So if I demonstrate this one it's going IPMP 1 + 2 + Index, thumb, middle, thumb We're now going to jump ahead to #10 where we're gonna add this new complication where we’re gonna switch strings with our thumb inside of the pattern. We're gonna do PMPA Let's take a closer look at it. As you can see in #10, we're gonna be going from the E string to the A string doing a pattern of PMPA thumb, middle, thumb, ring And just like all of the other ones, we want to keep to that 1 + 2 + And here's a closer look for it, PMPA 1 + 2 + If I was going faster… And now when we take a leap to #14 we still have the alternating bass with the thumb, but now we're skipping the A string altogether. PAPM Going from the E string to E string to D string to B string. So we're gonna skip over that A when we're doing this pattern. And like always, 1 + 2 + Keep it going in circles. So #14 up close would be, PAPM 1 + 2 + And we’re gonna take one more leap up to #22 which is a bit more tricky. And I'm gonna show you what I mean by taking a closer look. So looking at #22 the complication is actually the thumb. Because we only use it once and it's not the first thing we hit. So where this gets difficult is when you're going really fast APMI Especially beginners can get lost in the rhythm. And they actually think that as they get into it that this is actually the 1 because it feels natural as our starting point. And that changes our end point to that. So you would start APMI But you end up ending PMIA you might end the pattern on the A The important thing is to know where the pattern starts and where the pattern ends. And that's why I highly encourage saying APMI 1 + 2 + And making sure you end at the proper point and not randomly in the pattern. So demonstrating this one up close, it would be APMI 1 + 2 + As you work on these one by one, start slow, build your speed up, Make sure you're keeping the rhythm getting that hand really comfortable You don't have to finish all of them to move on to the next video, but I do recommend at least having a handful down really well. But still continue to work on them as you're going on to the next video. As a last note, not all TAB is going to have the PIMA system written down on it. But once you've had enough practice with a handful of patterns and you're really comfortable, you won't even notice if it's there or not. Your hand will be kind of running on autopilot. So you don't even worry about what fingers you’re using. Again, once you have a handful of these down and they're pretty comfortable, you can do them in circles, move on to the next video. But continue to work on these until you can get through all thirty of them and you can do them well and they're comfortable. I hope you enjoyed the preview to this course video! If you want to see the whole thing, get the downloads, you can simply with a membership by checking out the link in description! Now have fun playing and happy practicing!