Here is a slowed down view of my left hand playing Good King Wenceslas. You’ll see and hear the four key fingerstyle concepts at work: the Right Hand Roll, separation between melody notes and harmony or rhythm notes, sustain, and making the whole chord whenever possible. Here is a link to my lesson on the Right Hand Roll: Fingerstyle Technique: Right Hand Roll

In this arrangement of Good King Wenceslas, notice the four key fingerstyle concepts at work (explained in the intro to this tutorial). The Right Hand Roll gives the chords a more harp-like presentation, a little more flair. The use of sustain allows the notes to sing out and blend in the air, rather than being cut short and choppy. The melody notes are highlighted by being played with more vol...

On this video I show you the basic technical tricks and a first introduction how you play a good flamenco style guitar with your pick. Here you can download one of my flamenco recordings played with this technique at iTunes : >

This song is a easy song which will help you to get more into finger picking. All further information in the video and the image tabs.

This fingerpicking pattern in 4/4 time consists of the following four steps: thumb on the bass note of the chord, thumb on the third string, index and middle fingers together play the second and first strings simultaneously, thumb on the third string once again. The "Bass Note" of a chord is the LOWEST SOUNDING NOTE that is included in that chord. It is usually the same letter name as the chord...

This fingerpicking pattern in 4/4 time consists of the following four steps: thumb on the bass note of the chord, thumb on the third string, index and middle fingers together play the second and first strings simultaneously, thumb on the third string once again. The "Bass Note" of a chord is the LOWEST SOUNDING NOTE that is included in that chord. It is usually the same letter name as the chor...

Here is the next installment in the song series for acoustic guitar. Right Hand: like many of the other songs in this series, the chord melody method for the right hand generally works as follows: Thumb on either string 5 or string 6. First finger on string 4. Second finger on string 3. Third finger on string 2. There will be exceptions to these rules but they apply a g...

This first pattern uses both up and down strokes and uses only one chord (C). Please us the metronome for this exercise. (there's a button top left side of the lesson) This exercise introduces a new technique. When playing the two first note, you will strum AND palm mute them at the same time. This give a very rhythmic feel to it. So when you strum the note, place the side of your palm right...

Here's some basic stretching exercises that I do before starting a guitar session. Nothing really fancy but some basic stretching.Please always take it slow when doing stretching exercise as they do put a lot of strain on tendons. Hand injuries are very serious and trust me, they hurt :) .Please look at the video to see how to do them. If you can't reach all frets, just do the patterns with less f...

This is a two part video lesson on how to play the jam track "While I Daydream" available shortly in the Guitartricks Jam section.In this first part we'll see the picking part (arpeggio style) of the jam track.As you can see the pattern starts with a Em9/D. Same finger positioning as a C chord but two frets higher. To really get the feeling of the track you need to let the string ring, this give a...

Here we are to the second part of the song.This part is strummed meaning it's not played note by note as the first part. Strumming requires you to have a relaxed wrist. The secret to a good strumming is to be able to get your hand as relaxed as possible without loosing your pick :) . If you're too tight, you won't get the same attack on the strings and it won't sound the same. The strings are stru...

I put together this little jam while I was trying to forget a bad day at work, lol. Always try to make the best of a bad situation. This jam is in two parts, one mellow and the other a little more upbeat. This one is good for working on those lead changes.

Some strings over a fingerpicked guitar track to make it a little 'emotional'.

A nice little acoustic soft jam loop to practice scales or leads over. You can find this one in the Guitar Tricks Jam Station. The basic chords are shown in the above image and it's played using fingerpicking. Behind the above chords is an acoustic guitar playing basic open chords. The mp3 below is an isolated guitar track showing how to play the chords above. Here is a little more detaile...

Knowing sixes on the acoustic can open up a whole world of acoustic playing. Sixes (6ths) refers to the seperation of these notes. Counting from one note to the next, in order if you like. For example, if D is 1 then B is 6 (D-1, E-2, F#-3, G-4, A-5, B-6). If we use E as 1 then C becomes 6, if F# as 1 then D is 6. If this doesn't make sense then don't worry because what's really important i...

This is a nice little run mixing hammer-ons and legato slides. Look at the first pattern. It consist for two hammer-ons followed by a slide. Practice this pattern until the sequence is flowing. Start by doing the hammer-ons on the two strings so that you can play them without any pause. After that include the slide.The next pattern is basically the same but instead of going down the scale you're c...

This is a graphical representation of the guitar fretboard showing what notes are on what fret. This assumes you are tuned in standard tuning and using a 6 string guitar. This will become a very useful tool when working on lessons on Guitartricks.

A friend tried to teach me the Shawn Colvin song called, "I don't know why." I couldn't really remember the song, but the chords stuck with me. So I play it like this now. You can do all sorts of variations either with or without a pick. This one is without a pick.

I was having so much fun with Al Gendron's January 25th Trick of the Week that I wrote one of my own using the same tuning but no slide. It reminds me of a Led Zeppelin tune, but I can't remember which one. In order to play it you have to retune your guitar. If you are a beginner you may not want to do this. You might break a string by tuning too far. If you do decide to retune,...