10 Intermediate Fingerpicking Patterns

How to MASTER THESE FINGERPICKING PATTERNS

Fingerpicking Pattern 1

• This pattern has a 5-4 bassline
• Thus, your thumb will alternate between the 5th string (A) and 4th string (D).
• Add melody notes on the first and third beats of the bar in bar 3 and 4
• Effectively, you always play a melody note with the C bass note in bars 3 and 4

Fingerpicking Pattern 2

• This pattern has a 5-4-6-4 bassline
• Thus, your thumb will play the 5th string (A) and 4th string (D) then 6th string (E) then 4th string again (D).
• The first melody note is on the beat - which is beat 1
• The second melody note is off the beat - between beat 3 and 4

Fingerpicking Pattern 3

• This pattern has a 5-4-6-4 bassline
• Add chord flicks in-between bass notes 2&3 and after bass note 4
• Use the index finger to strum downwards to achieve this "chord flick"
• The notes in brackets are "tied notes" - which extend the duration of the chord flick notes over the bar.
• So don't play the notes in brackets. We only need to play the first notes when two notes are tied together. Think of these as just the chord ringing

Fingerpicking Pattern 4

• This pattern has a 6-4 bassline
• Thus, your thumb will alternate between the 6th string (E string) and 4th string (D string).
• In bar 3 & 4, add two melody notes, both are off the beat (in-between bass notes)

Fingerpicking Pattern 5

• This pattern has a 6-4 bassline (as above)
• In bar 3 & 4, add two melody notes, both are off the beat (as the example above)
• Add a couple of chord flicks in bar 5 & 6

Fingerpicking Pattern 6

• This pattern has a 5-4 bassline
• Thus, your thumb will alternate between the 5th string (A) and 4th string (D).
• Add a few chord flicks per bar - this will help that flicking motion become truly fluid and automatic
• This fingerpicking pattern is trickier than it looks - take your time with it.

Fingerpicking Pattern 7

• This pattern has a 5-4 bassline
• Add a few chord flicks per bar
• Note the arrows in the tab - the first chord flick has a down arrow so we use the downward motion of right-hand index finger to achieve this.
• The next chord flick has an up arrow - so we use an upward flick of the same index finger to achieve this

Fingerpicking Pattern 8

• The chords change from G to C to D to G (which repeats)
• The bassline is different the second time around we get to D
• Focus on getting this right at slow tempo. There's lots of thumb movement here which we want to make "automatic"

Fingerpicking Pattern 9

• Note that some of the chord flicks are at the same time as a bass note.
• When this happens, you don't need to play the bass note with your thumb.
• Rather, let the chord flick/strum ring out the bass note

Fingerpicking Pattern 10

• This is quite the complex piece to start slow
• Take your time and try to play without watching the neck (once you feel like you're starting to master it).

Summary