Zero to Guitar Fingerpicker in 30 Days: From complete beginner to guitar fingerpicker in 30 days in just 15 minutes per day

By Patrick O'Malley

Time to learn guitar fingerpicking!

Are you a complete beginner who just loves the sound of fingerstyle guitar? Do you want to learn guitar in a matter of weeks? 

This course is ideal for complete beginners. You don’t need to know anything about music or guitar playing to start. If you own or can borrow a guitar for thirty days, then you’re all set. There are step-by-step exercises - each with fast/slow audio files, so you'll be able to follow along

It is also perfect for “failed beginners”. Maybe you toyed around with a guitar for a few months, maybe even learned a few chords but got bored because it wasn’t musical or rewarding enough. Just strumming those few chords never sounded that great. You're not alone. I have taught thousands of guitarist a fingerstyle-first approach to learning and you can be an adept fingerstyle guitarist in the next 30 days. 

The Approach

This book is designed to help you learn fingerpicking in 30 days. It has 5 sections: 

Getting Started - some basic information, identifying string names, a few chords, reading tablature, using a metronome

Fingerpicking Basics - the background to how fingerpicking works, the big rule, several fingerpicking patterns

The Thumb - the key to getting that 'two guitar effect' is for the thumb to do the work of the bass player; alternating bass, walking bass, more fingerpicking patterns

The Fingers - adding more advanced patterns to the right hand fingers, pinching, different sequence length and writing your own fingerpicking patterns

Advanced - clear breakdowns of advanced techniques like Travis Picking and Clawhammer

Note that each section has 5-7 individual lessons with a homework exercise after each lesson. At the beginning of the following lesson, I will give tips for anyone stuck with practical ways to get it mastered if you're finding it difficult.

The Results

By the end of this book, you will be able to:

play the most common guitar chords in a fingerpicking style

understand how to break down fingerpicking patterns into the bass/thumb and the melody/fingers and how to practice building up the component parts

Read tablature and play along to a metronome

Have a formula for composing their own fingerpicking patterns

Play in travis picking and clawhammer styles

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publishdrive
• Release date: Apr 14, 2022

Book preview

Course Syllabus

Section 1 – Getting Started

This section ensures you have everything you need to be effective in this course. By the end of this section, you will be able to play the six most common chords and change between these chords. You will be able to read guitar tablature and chord charts. I provide helpful links to help you string your guitar & tune it.

Feel free to skip any lessons  in this section that you don’t need. For example, if you can play common chords but can’t yet read guitar tablature, then you could skip the chords lesson and go straight to the guitar tab primer.

Section 2 – Fingerpicking Basics

We start fingerpicking in this section, beginning with the background on how fingerpicking works and which fingers play which strings. We learn two different fingerpicking notations and learn some fingerpicking patterns, initially over 1 chord and then over several chords.

Section 3 – The Thumb

The real magic of fingerpicking is playing multiple guitar parts on one guitar. We require the thumb does the work of the bass player and the fingers play some nice melodies at the same time.

By the end of this section, you’ll be able to play alternating bass and walking bass examples, and another set of fingerpicking patterns.

Section 4 – The Fingers

Building on our thumb technique from the previous section, we add a melodic component using the fingers. By the end of this section, you’ll be able to play more advanced patterns using the fingers of the right hand. You will learn pinching, play fingerpicking sequences of different length & learn a formula for writing your own fingerpicking patterns.

Section 5 – Advanced Techniques

The final section of the course builds on all these thumb and finger lessons we have taken and technique we have mastered. By the end of this section, you’ll be able to play advanced fingerpicking patterns like Travis Picking and Clawhammer.

Table of Contents

Section 1 – Getting Started

1.1 Beginner Resources

1.2 String Names

1.3 Three Chords

1.4 Another Three Chords

1.5 Reading Guitar Tablature

Section 2 – Fingerpicking Basics

2.1 The Big Rule

2.2 Fingerpicking Over Two Chords

2.3 More Patterns Over Two Chords

2.4 Backwards Pattern

2.5 The PIMA Notation

Section 3 – The Thumb

3.1 Alternate Bass

3.2 Alternate Bass with More Chords

3.3 Goes Both Ways

3.4 Walking Bass

Section 4 – The Fingers

4.1 Finger Pattern 1

4.2 Finger Pattern 2

4.3 Finger Pattern 3

4.4 Six-Note Sequences

4.5 Create Your Own Fingerpicking Sequences

4.6 Pinching

Section 5 – Advanced Techniques

5.1 Travis Picking

5.2 The Inside Outside Pattern

5.3 Building Up Travis Picking

5.4 Isolate & Build

5.5 Pinching & Travis Picking

5.6 The Clawhammer

Author

Patrick O’Malley is an acoustic fingerstyle guitarist and teacher who has been playing and teaching guitar for 20 years.

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Over 25,000 students have taken his Zero to Fingerpicker in 30 days course for beginner guitarists.

Patrick believes that fingerpicking is the best way to learn guitar and improve quickly as a guitarist.

Listen to his guitar playing in the band Resin or visit his site for learning guitar at http://learnfingerpicking.com

Bonuses

You can now download a set of bonuses that come with the purchase of this book.

You will find some PDFs with tab from the course that you can use to see full page transcriptions of the more complex pieces.

You will also find audio files for the exercises – each exercises has a fast (120 b.p.m.) and a slow (80 b.p.m.) version so that you can play along.

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Access your bonus file download by clicking here (or visit https://bit.ly/beginner-resources)

Online Course

You can also find an online course that covers the material