Hey everyone, One of the biggest challenges with fingerstyle guitar is getting your fingers to work independently, especially your little finger. Unlike regular guitar playing, fingerstyle often requires us to do several things at once. We're holding down chords, keeping our picking patterns going and sometimes trying to use our little finger to reach for extra notes. And getting that little finger to cooperate can be surprisingly difficult. That's exactly what today's video lesson is designed to help with. I've put together a beautiful little fingerstyle arpeggio using just three simple chords. As we play through the progression, we'll use our little finger to add extra notes outside the basic chord shapes. It's a lovely-sounding exercise that will help improve your finger independence, coordination and overall control. 🎸 Want to Take Your Fingerstyle Playing Further? You can learn this exercise by watching the video, but if you want to practise it properly and really work on your technique, having the downloadable PDF tabs in front of you makes a big difference. Inside the Fingerstyle Guitar School, you'll get the PDFs for this exercise, along with: ✅ Over 1,000 fingerstyle exercises to improve your technique ✅ More than 400 fingerstyle guitar tabs ✅ Step-by-step video courses for beginners and improving players ✅ Three new guitar classes every week ✅ New tabs and lessons added regularly You can try the Fingerstyle Guitar School free for 7 days, giving you access to the full library of lessons, exercises and tabs. 👉 Start your 7-day free trial here:https://www.skool.com/fingerstyle-guitar-school Have a watch of the lesson and give the exercise a go. I'd be interested to hear how you get on with it. Thanks, Jack

Hey, I've been looking through the bios of people joining this group, and I've noticed something that comes up again and again... A lot of you used to play guitar, have fallen out of the habit, and now want to pick it up again and finally have a go at fingerstyle guitar. So I thought September would be the perfect time to do something about it! I'm starting a 3-Week Back to Guitar Challenge, with two completely FREE live guitar classes every week. The classes will take place on Zoom, so you'll be able to follow along with me from home. And don't worry — you don't need to turn your camera on, show your face or play guitar in front of anybody! You can simply grab your guitar, watch me and play along from the comfort of your own home. 🎸 What are we going to learn? We'll start right at the beginning and gradually work towards playing a proper fingerstyle arrangement. Lesson 1 — Get Your Fingers Moving - Simple exercises to get your fingers working again, followed by something musical to put them into practice. Lesson 1 Replay Link - https://youtu.be/N9pCeFCFNwg Lesson 2 — Open Chords & Arpeggios Refresh your essential open chords and learn how to turn them into beautiful-sounding fingerstyle arpeggios. Lesson 2 Replay Link - https://youtu.be/XfxtoWin0KQ Lesson 3 — Famous Chord Progressions as Arpeggios We'll take some familiar chord progressions and use them to practise different fingerpicking patterns. Lesson 3 Replay Link - https://www.youtube.com/live/PgntFa755aI?si=-CoGnSOzm2kLI2EL Lesson 4 — Introduction to Travis Picking Learn the basics of alternating bass and start building that classic Travis picking sound. Lesson 5 — Easy Fingerstyle Melodies We'll move onto playing simple melodies and develop the control you need to play them cleanly. Lesson 6 — Turn a Simple Melody Into a Fingerstyle Arrangement Finally, we'll take an easy melody and gradually add bass notes, chords and fingerpicking until we've turned it into a complete solo fingerstyle arrangement.

Hey everyone, I'm sure many of you will have seen the very sad news that Dolly Parton passed away yesterday at the age of 80. It's difficult to think of many artists who were quite as universally loved as Dolly. She had an extraordinary career spanning seven decades. Songs like Jolene, Coat of Many Colors and 9 to 5 have become part of the fabric of popular music. And her legacy went far beyond music. Her Imagination Library has given hundreds of millions of books to children, alongside decades of other charitable work. I've actually never arranged a Dolly Parton song for fingerstyle guitar, and that feels like something I should put right. So I'd like to arrange one of her songs as a small tribute. The obvious choice is Jolene. It already has that wonderful fingerpicked guitar part and I think it could translate really nicely into a complete solo fingerstyle arrangement. But before I start, I'd love to hear what you think. If you could choose one Dolly Parton song for me to arrange, what would it be? It doesn't have to be Jolene. Leave your suggestion in the comments and I'll have a look through them before I decide. It seems like a nice way for our little guitar community to remember one of the great songwriters. Jack 🎸

If you've listened to much blues music, you've heard the 12-bar blues — even if you didn't realise it. It's one of the most common chord patterns in blues, and the same basic structure has been used in thousands of songs. The idea is simple: the progression lasts for 12 bars (or measures) and then repeats. But here's the interesting part... The actual chords can change depending on what key you're playing in, while the underlying pattern stays exactly the same. A Little Bit of Theory The 12-bar blues is usually built using three chords from a key: The I (1) chord The IV (4) chord The V (5) chord Don't worry too much about the Roman numerals. They simply tell us where the chords come from in the scale. For example, if we're playing in A, we can count through the A major scale: A – B – C# – D – E – F# – G# So: I (1) = A IV (4) = D V (5) = E That means a 12-bar blues in A will usually be based around A, D and E. If we changed to the key of E, we'd use different chords — E, A and B — but we could still play exactly the same 12-bar structure. That's why two blues songs can use completely different chords and still both be a 12-bar blues. 🎸 Your Challenge I've attached a 12-bar blues chord progression in A to this post. Each chord shown represents one bar, and each bar lasts for four beats. So when you play each chord, count: 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 Then move on to the next chord. To begin with, you can simply strum the chord once and let it ring for all four beats. Or, if you prefer, strum once on each beat. Don't worry about playing anything fancy. The important thing is to keep counting and make each bar last the full four beats. Once you've got the chord changes, play through all 12 bars several times and listen to what happens. Can you hear that familiar blues sound? Even better, can you start to hear when the progression wants to move to the next chord — and when it wants to come back home to A? That's the 12-bar blues. Once you start recognising it, you'll hear it everywhere.

Hey, If you've downloaded any of my tabs, you'll have noticed that every arrangement comes with both a PDF and a Guitar Pro file. Guitar Pro is the software I use to write all of my tabs and, in my opinion, it's one of the most useful tools a guitarist can own. Most people know it as a way to play back tabs and hear what they're supposed to sound like, but that's only scratching the surface. You can also: 🎵 Slow songs down without changing the pitch 🎵 Loop difficult sections and practise them repeatedly 🎵 Mute tracks to create your own backing tracks 🎵 Increase the speed gradually as you improve 🎵 See exactly which notes are being played on the fretboard 🎵 Follow along with the notation and tab in real time I know quite a few members have told me that Guitar Pro has completely changed the way they practise, especially when learning fingerstyle arrangements. Which brings me nicely to today's video. This excellent overview was actually recommended by Full Member @Dave Blakemore , and it does a great job of showing some of the features and ways you can use Guitar Pro to get more out of your practice time. A quick disclaimer: Guitar Pro is paid software and you'll need to purchase a licence if you want to use it. I personally think it's well worth the money, but I have no affiliation with the company and don't receive anything if you buy it. If you already own Guitar Pro, I'd be interested to know which feature you use most. Thanks, Jack