Learn fingerstyle guitar

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Here’s two free guitar lessons featuring some nice chords and fingerstyle guitar techniques. When you follow the links you’ll be asked to register for the forum. It’s free.

Tiptoe Through The Blues
“Unless you picked up the guitar yesterday, you should be able to handle this one. It’s another example of how a bass lines and melody can weave together and become ‘the piece’. Even though there are no chords ringing out until the very end, the ear can take these two elements and sort of fill in the spaces between with imaginary chords.
So, if you’re just starting out, don’t be daunted by this. At any given moment, there are just two notes to worry about, so you’re not get all tangled up in chords. There’s one good stretch in amongst it (you’ll know it when you get there) but other than that it’s simply a matter of making your fingers obey. Playing an instrument, especially guitar, is always just that: mind over fingers. Even after all the years I’ve been doing it, I need to make my fingers obey. It does get a lot easier the more you do it, but it never goes away.
In this piece, like all fingerstyle pieces, one of two distinct things is going on at any given moment: either you’re plucking the melody note and bass note together … or you’re not. It’s as simple as that. No matter how complex it may all seem, it always comes back to that. This ditty is a mix of both, and it’s the pattern that is set up that becomes the ‘feel’ of the tune. Again, try and just hear it, but refer to the tab if you can’t. You’ll see this is a series of similar phrases that start with a bass/melody pluck then the melody line continues, ends and then there’s a lone bass note. The bass notes come steadily on the 1 and 3 beats of each bar, the melody fits over the top.”
http://www.guitarforbeginners.com/forum/finger-style-lessons/16929-tiptoe-through-blues/

Slinky
Here’s a fun one. Not for beginners, but as always, to those really really diligent twangers who really really want to learn any of these lessons: all the elements are there. If you have the dedication, time and patience to piece these together note by note, phrase by phrase, you can watch, listen, read to get these pieces down and happening. That’s the way I did it back in the early 60′s, but with one huge difference: all I had was my ear and the ability to slow the old vinyl records down to make it a tiny bit easier to hear what was going on. Sometimes it took me weeks to listen and decipher, but I persisted.
I couldn’t come up with a good title for this one, but it’s a neat slinky kind of rhythm thing in Am with a bit of everything thrown in: walking bass lines, hammer-on/pull-offs, rhythm plucks, single note runs, changes in timing, a strummed chord. Lots of fun and a challenge to assemble all the bits and pieces into a seamless, flowing piece… in other words: to make it music.
It’s pretty up there tempo-wise. I tried it slower and it just didn’t have the same oomph, but, you can start out slow and speed it up later. If you buy the downloadable version, there’s a half-speed movie included which makes it much easier to see what’s going on. You also get the virtual fretboard to watch.
http://www.guitarforbeginners.com/forum/finger-style-lessons/16606-slinky-minor/

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