If you’ve been working through the pentatonic scales and your runs still sound like exercises, hammer-ons and pull-offs might be the missing piece that makes them sound musical. You can play the shapes and move up and down the fretboard, but every note has the same weight, the same attack, the same flat character. This … Read more
Travis picking is a fingerpicking method named after guitarist “Merle Travis”, who has influenced guitarists over the last decades, including Chet Atkins and Tommy Emmanuel. This fingerpicking style is characterized by a repeated bass pattern, while playing chords and melody at the same time. In this lesson, we’ll cover how to play Travis picking patterns … Read more
Fingerpicking is a beautiful and versatile guitar technique, but mastering it can feel daunting at first. If you’ve ever tried learning a song with fingerpicking, you may have noticed repeating patterns in your picking hand as the chords change. These patterns add rhythm, texture, and musical interest to your playing. In this lesson, we’ll break … Read more
Learning to play with your fingers on guitar is a very useful skill that will help you go a long way on your instrument. Finger picking, also know as finger style playing, provides a warm and rich sound from the sound of the guitar when playing melodies, chords and other rhythms elements. Using your fingers … Read more
Have you ever seen someone playing a melody and chords at the same time on guitar and wondered how they make it look smooth and effortless? When first learning to play guitar, we usually focus on learning single note melodies or chords. But once you get familiar with these different skills, the next step is … Read more
Fingerpicking or finger-style playing is a method of playing guitar strings using your fingers as opposed to using a pick that you grip between your fingers. The fingerpicking technique is a beautiful style of playing which opens up many sound possibilities on the guitar. This style ranges from being able to play single note melodies … Read more
If you’re just starting your guitar journey, you might be wondering whether guitar tabs are a good way to learn. The short answer? Yes, tabs are an excellent starting point for beginners. They make it easy to start playing songs without having to read standard music notation. That being said, learning traditional notation later on … Read more
Perhaps you’re learning to play the guitar and are still trying to figure out what picking method is best to learn. In this post, I highlight some advantages and disadvantages between a fingerstyle picking method versus using a pick to help you choose the right method for you. In short, choosing between using a fingerstyle … Read more