Beginner Fingerpicking Song - 2 GREAT Skills To Play Beatles Songs!

Hey, guitar enthusiasts. I have an amazing finger picking song that's gonna teach you techniques to play songs like Blackbird or Yesterday by the Beatles. We're gonna go through it step by step. So let's get started.

So this song is in the classical domain, and I picked this song because that means it's not under copyright law, which means I can give you the tab and the PDF to print out. So if you haven't grabbed the course workbook that goes with this finger picking series, scroll down to the description below and click on the link where you can pop in your email and I'll give you a nice PDF with the tab to print out for this song and all of the other exercises that go in this series. Now, before we get into the actual tablature, let's talk about the chord structures we're going to be using. Now, if you have gone through this entire series, you. You heard me mention earlier that sometimes we don't play an entire chord. Like say we were playing a G chord, we might only need the top string. Or if we're playing a C chord, we might only need this bottom string. So a lot of times in finger picking, what happens is you may not always play a full chord. So I want to go over some of the chord structures we're going to be using for this song. Now, we will be using a modification of a G chord, so you're going to be using your second finger on the top string here. So it's just like playing a G chord. We're just picking out that bass note. Next, we're going to be kind of playing somewhat of like an A minor 7 chord. But the only finger we're really going to be using is the first finger on the first fret of that second string. So it kind of looks like a C chord without any of the other fingers. Another chord iteration we'll be using kind of like that F major 7 chord that we learned earlier in the series. Except we're not going to be using the third finger. Okay. So it's just the first and second fingers on the first fret of the B string and then the second fret of the G string. And one of the last chord iterations we're going to be using is this G B chord. It's a very common chord that shows up in finger picking. It's going to be sometimes I will use my third finger or my fourth finger, depending on where I'm coming from. I will let you know when we play through, but it'll be the third Finger on the third fret of the B string and the first finger on the second fret of the A string. So this song has two, two really amazing finger picking techniques that I want you guys to learn. But before we go through it step by step, I just want to play through it really quickly for you so you can see what we're going to be doing.

So why did I choose this song? Those first three chords, this is what we're doing.

And what is that reminiscent of?

It's reminiscent of Blackbird. That's why I chose this song. I mean there's lots of songs that you can play with these skills, but that's one that everyone asked me about. Lauren, did you do Blackbird? So this will help you with playing a song like Blackbird. So let's start off with what we're doing. There's a very. This is a very popular picking technique as you can hear from Blackbird, where you do a pluck and then you pick a note right after it. So what we're doing is we're taking that G chord, but just that top string, that top bass note and we're playing the open B string. Okay. And we're alternating between the open B string and the open G string. So we're going to do that twice. It's going to be.

Okay. So we're doing that for half a measure. And then the next half of the measure we're just moving our first finger down to the first fret of the B string. We've now moved the thumb down to the fifth string and we're doing the same thing on those treble notes. Okay?

Okay. So if we play those together, we've got.

Very, very beautiful sound. One more time. Let's do that again.

Okay, now we're moving to our third, third chord which was kind of like G B chord here. And we are doing the same thing we just did. We're fifth string for the bass note and then alternating between those treble notes. And we're going to do that pluck, note, pluck, note pluck. Okay. That's how this measure is going to start. So it's going to be.

And then at the very end we have two single notes we're going to play. We're going to play the open E string and then I would recommend playing the second fret with your second finger on that high E string. Alright, so that measure is going to be.

Okay, so if we just put what we have together, just those two so far, this is what we've got.

Okay, now the reason I told you to put the second finger here is because now you're just going to put the third finger down. Boop. It's right in place for this next chord. Alright, so we're almost doing an inversion of what we did before this G B chord except remove it. Everything's down one string. And I don't even know what you would call this chord. But we'll just call it this chord here. Alright, so it's the third finger and the second finger again. Okay, so same shape. And then we're doing something similar but different. We're doing pluck one. Okay, so we're using the I finger. So it's going to be pluck I, pluck I. And then. And then we're going to move back to the second fret on that bottom E string. To our second finger, open D string. Now pluck one, Pluck one. Okay, so that measure is.

Very beautiful sound. That's another reason why I chose this. Just a very, very beautiful song. So let's try that one more time. Okay, from the first chord, pluck I. Pluck I. Pluck I. Pluck I. Okay, then we have another pluck. One more measure of plucking. Before we move to a different technique. Let's go on to that next measure. We're just using the top note of a C chord right here. The C note on this fifth string. And the other strings are going to be open. So it'd be like playing a C chord. But we're only playing the open strings of that C chord. And this is going to be the thumb on the fifth string. And we're going to be using the A finger on the high E string. And then we're going to be alternating between A and I on the bottom string. So it's going to be.

And then end on G B. Alright, so that last measure is.

Okay, so you can see in the finger picking series, remember when we did the pluck, I had you pluck all different kinds of strings. Remember that? This is why. So that when you get to a song like this, you can use the pluck and change around to different thumb and finger patterns without worrying too much. So let's do the first four measures. Because the first four measures have this pluck, pluck pattern. And then we're going to move into a slightly different technique with a walk down. Another reason I chose this has a great walk down. All right, here we go. So we're starting from the top. All right, we've got 1, 2, 3 and 4. And.

That is the first section, the first four measures. Now the last four measures, we're going to be doing something different. And this is something that shows up very commonly, let's say, like a song like yesterday, you know, you'd play a chord take. Let's take a C chord. And you're basically playing the thumb as a bass note and. And then the I and the M finger as the treble notes.

It's a very, very common pattern you hear in finger picking. So it's basically bass pluck, bass pluck, bass pluck. And the pluck is the two treble notes at the same time. It's a pretty cool technique, shows up in lots of songs. Here we're doing it in the opposite direction. We're going treble in bass first, but still the same concept. So we're going to take the bottom half of that F major 7 chord, and we're going to go treble. So we're playing the first and second fingers at the same time. And then the open D string. So it's.

So do that three times. One and two and three and. And then open E string. And then third finger on the B string at the third fret. Okay? So that whole.

Okay. And then we do a very similar thing, except we don't have to play any chords. It's all open strings. And we're going to do same strings, pluck the treble notes and then the bass. So we got.

Okay, and then the last two notes on this one is three, two. All right, so let me do that one again. So it's just open strings.

Three, two. So let's put those two measures together. And then we're going to play through our walk down. All right, so here we go. First chord, first and second fingers in place. Ready to go? 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and.

All right, now this is the last couple measures where we get our walk down. This is a very cool, movable walk down. And it's great because you're going to practice moving to a lot of finger positions here. So what I recommend is starting on that C chord position, just the third finger down. And this bass line is going to go three, two, open and then three on the top string. So it's A, C, B, A, G. That's our walk down. One more time. C, B, A, G. Think of a song like Heart of Gold.

That's the walk down.

Very, very common walk down. Now we're going to be adding notes in between each of those bass notes. So the bass notes are 1, 2, 3, 4, and then we're going to be putting treble notes on the. And so it's going to be. I'll show you exactly what we're going to do, but listen to it first. So it's going to be 1 and 2 and 3 and 4. And I'm going to do it again. We're going to go to the close up. I really want you to watch my fretting hands, watch my finger movements and then we're going to talk about it. So we got 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and okay, so did you see how my fingers were moving as I was playing the notes? So we're starting with the third finger on that fifth string. And then we have an open E string that we're hitting with the A finger. So it's going to be pa and then we're going to go to pm. This finger is going to move down. Okay, so now we're on the second fret of that A string. And then when I go to play that third fret on the B string, I'm going to use my pinky. So I've gone three, open two, third fret. Okay, watch that again.

Okay, so I didn't have to have this whole chord in place as I was playing that walk down. By playing this bass note, it gave me extra time to put that pinky down. Okay. Very, very important. Alright, so so far we've done.

And now we're going to have an open A string and then first finger comes down to the C note on this B string, first fret and then third finger up to the G note and then open B string. So on the bottom strings you're going open E. Then you're going three, one, open and on the top strings you're going three, two, open three. So if you put them together, it's be.

Do it again. Ready and.

One more time. Ready and.

And then the very last measure of this song, we're putting plucking the G or sorry the D string and the B string together open and then we have this little walk up, 1, 2, 3. And then.

D and G strings together with your second finger on the second fret. So let's do that again. So we have the pluck and then 1, 2, 3.

And there I use the first finger, first finger or second finger, whichever comes into play. I'm not, you know, I'm going to get into the really strict classical technique here because usually in classical technique on these strings whenever you play different notes you would do, you know, you would use a different finger if you find yourself using the same finger, it's okay for now. I just want you to get in the habit of getting some good finger picking technique under your belt. Now, if you enjoyed this finger picking series and are looking for more different types of finger picking patterns and and exercises to work on, then I highly recommend you go check out my finger picking 101 course where I'll be showing you over 20 different finger picking patterns and exercises that you can use for the songs you know and love. So scroll down to the link in the description below and make sure to grab my finger picking 101 course.