Mastering "Dust in the Wind" Fingerpicking Guitar Lesson with Lauren Bateman

Hey, guitar enthusiast Lauren Bateman here. We're going to be doing an amazing song by Kansas, Dust in the Wind, that uses one of the most useful finger picking patterns that I know of. Okay. I love this finger picking pattern. I'm going to show you how to do it step by step. And we're going to start off with the intro because that's like the coolest part of the song. Everyone recognizes that when you start playing it. So let's talk about the chords that we're going to focus on. On this intro section, we're mainly focusing around a C chord and an A minor chord. Okay. And we're going to be lifting and moving different finger to change the voicing of the chord. All right, so what a voicing is, you know, the difference between major chords and minor chords. You know, one sounds happy, one sounds sad. Those are two voicings of a chord. So in this song, we're going to be using a C chord. We're going to be using a C major 7 chord, which is a C chord with the first finger lifted up. Then we're going to be using a C add nine chord, okay? Which is a C chord. But we're gonna have a pinky on the B string at the third fret instead of the first string. First fring, first fret. Okay? So we have C chord, lift up the first finger. We have C major 7. Put your pinky on the third fret of the B string. And we have C add 9. So those are the three C chord variations we're gonna be using. So once again, C, C major 7, C 9. Now we have an A minor chord, okay? And if we lift the first finger up just like we did on the C chord, we're going to have ASUS 2 much open suspended chords have a very open, almost ethereal feel to them. And then we're going to do the same thing with the pinky. We're going to put it down on the third fret of the B string. And this is going to be ASUS4. Okay? So we have a minor ASUS2. And ASUS4 already sounds like dust in the wind. Right? Okay, so now what we're going to do, going to put this picking pattern over it.

Okay? That's what we're going to be doing. We're going to throw a picking pattern over that. And that picking pattern is called Travis picking. Now, both of these chords are five string chords, which makes my job a little bit easier. So let's talk about this pattern. All right? And I do Have a full lesson on Travis picking right over there. If you're finding this difficult, go watch that video and then come back here.

So what we're going to be doing is we're going to be alternating our thumb on the bass notes. So it's going to be strings five and four. Okay? One, two, three, four. Okay? So that's what we're going to be doing with our thumb. Whether it's an A minor or it's a C chord, it's going to be 5 and 4. That's why I said it makes my job easy. The chords they're using now, what's going to change is what comes in between those chords. So let's start off with our C chord. And. And it's going to be thumb. So we're going to use fingers thumb one and two. Okay? And my first finger is going to own the G string, and my second finger is going to own the B string. Okay? And my thumb is going to be alternating on strings five and four. So we have thumb, thumb, one played as strings five, four, and then three. Okay? So it's one, two, and that's the timing. One, two, and again. One, two, and.

One more time.

Okay, so that's the first power of the pattern. The second half is what we call outside, inside. So we're going to play thumb two, thumb one. So playing the outside strings, we're going five, two, and then the inside strings, four, three. So try that. Five, two, four, three. And it's thumb two, thumb one.

Okay? So if I put the whole pattern together now, it's going to be thumb, thumb 1, thumb 2, thumb 1, 1, 2, and 3, and 4. And.

Now the great thing about this is, once you learn that pattern, all you have to do is change the chord. You don't have to do anything really different with the right hand. With one little caveat I haven't showed you quite yet. It's going to help us get the sound of this intro. It's called the pluck. Okay? So right now we have thumb, thumb one, thumb, two, thumb, one. Right. But we want to add this into it.

So what am I doing? I keep hitting the B string. Okay? So it's called a pluck. I'm doing my thumb and my second finger at the same time, okay? And that's going to be on the one beat. So it's 1, 2, and 3 and 4 and pluck, 2 and 3 and 4 and pluck.

And that's what gives the unique sound to this intro. Because if we played the intro without the pluck. This is what it's going to sound like.

Oh, I did it with the pluck. I have such muscle memory. But you can hear it. It already doesn't sound like it.

Versus.

See, you need, you need the movement on that B string to really get the essence of this intro. So now we can play the intro. Okay, so we're starting with the C chord and. And we're going to use that finger picking pattern. So it's pluck thumb one, thumb two, thumb one. Now we go to C major seven.

And now we're going C, add nine.

Back to C.

Now from here we're switching into ASOS 2. We've already got our second finger in place. All you have to do is pivot into it. Okay? From C you just pivot right into that ASUS 2. So it's an A minor chord with the first finger up. And then you just play the pattern again.

Now ASUS 4.

Now A minor.

And ASUS 2.

Now we go to C. C add 9 here. I like to play it with my third finger. It's hard for me to jump into coming from C. And then adding a pinky is easy for me. I've always played it this way. So second finger, first finger, third finger. Just easier for me to jump out of that ASUS 2 from that. So then we have C on 9.

To C. C major 7.

To C, add 9. Now a minor.

To ASUS 2.

To a SUS 4.

And then we have this little ending. So this little ending, we're splitting a measure between A minor and what we call G slash B chord. So we're doing A minor and we're using this chord, which you can find in Landslide and other songs that use finger picking. Very, very common chord. So we're doing the first half of the pattern. Thumb, thumb, one. So that takes care of the first beats. One, two and. And then we're doing a pluck pluck. We're doing pluck pluck on three, four. So it's 1, 2 and 3, 4, 4. Okay, so G, B. I'm going from a minor and then I'm moving my second finger up one to the second fret on that A string. And then the pinky's coming back on that B string third fret. Okay, if I play this from the beginning just so you guys, if you want to practice this, you can have something to play through. Here it is from the top. So we got one, two, ready and.

All right. And once we do that, we're now into the verse section of the Song. Now, fortunately, we've done all the hard work. All the hard work is in the intro. All you have to do here is apply the Travis picking pattern to these chords. I don't think they use the pluck in the verses and choruses. You might hear it come in every once in a while, but it's not a constant like it was in the intro. So we're starting off the verses. We have that C.

To G, B.

To A minor.

And we're going to play that twice.

Now, a little caveat, just so you guys know you're learning two songs at the same time. If I throw capo on the third fret real quick.

Little surprise for you there. Same chords. Okay, just when you think that the songwriters and the artists that you love make really difficult songs, they don't. They're all the same in essence. So just, just a little note there. So we gotta C chord, G, B, A minor twice, and then we have a G chord and D minor chord.

And then we have A minor ones.

And that same little ending. Now let's talk about the G and the D minor chords. We haven't talked about six and four string chords yet. So a G chord, the Travis picking pattern is the same except instead of going between strings five and four, we're now alternating between six and four. Okay?

Okay, so that's a G chord. Now for a D chord, we have to shift our whole hand because the bass notes we have to alternate are between four and three. So even our first fingers have to shift down. So our first finger is on B. Our second finger is now on the high E string. And we're playing a D minor, which I know a lot of people hate, D minor.

Which I didn't even play it right. So.

Okay, so we're doing thumb, thumb one, thumb two, thumb one, same pattern, just on the bottom four strings. Alright, so to recap five string chords, thumb alternates between five and four, six string chords, thumb alternates between 5 or sorry, 6 and 4. And then four string chords, 4 and 3. Okay, so that's our bass notes. Now if you find it difficult going between the G chord and the D minor chord, most people do. It's a very awkward chord. And I would just sit here and practice doing that chord change for a little bit until it smooths itself out. All right, so our intro is going to be.

Okay, and then the next verse, it's the same thing except we don't do that special ending. It just stays on A minor twice because then we've got dust.

In the wind, Right.

Okay. So you can see there on the chorus, we added the chord D, F sharp. Now, for this chord, my classical guitar teacher hated that I did this, But I just found it easier for me with the shape of my hand and the physics of my hand. I like to make a D chord, and I like to play this F sharp bass note. That's why. So it's D, F sharp. So it's saying, play a D chord, but put an F sharp note in the bass. For me, I just always found it easier just to loop my thumb over. Okay. It's usually there anyway. Muting the top string for me. So for me, it's just easier. I'm already there. I just use it. The other option is to do this. Okay.

But I just like playing it this way better. For me, it's easier. So you do whatever works for you. But then the chorus. So it's just D slash, F sharp, G and A minor.

D slash F sharp to the G to the A minor.

But that's not all. We have a really cool solo. The solo itself is really, really cool to learn. But we have a few other chord variations. This is all based around A minor. And you may find some of this difficult, but I'm going to try and make it as easy as possible. Even with. For me, with small hands, I sometimes find this section hard to play. It's all around A minor. Okay. But what we're doing is we're going to be playing some different bass notes over the top of the. Of that A minor. For this violin solo, it's very repetitive. So that's the easy part. So it's two measures of regular A minor.

And then it's G. It's a minor slash G. Okay, so we need a G in the bass. Okay. So how we do that. The best way to do it is to get the pinky to reach up there and get that G note on the top string.

All right, so we have two measures of A minor.

You can hear sometimes. I'm getting some muting. Now, the thing with this, because it's a six string chord now, we don't have to worry about. If the pinky rests on that fifth string, it's totally fine. And it helps me to play it when I just don't try and worry about making that. That bend in my pinky. So that's how we handle a minor slash G. And then we have a minor slash F for five measures. And again, for me, I just like using my thumb. It's right there. Let me just grab it.

You're like, is that right? It. I know it's not, but if you play it over the solo, it sounds really good. So we've got two measures of A minor, two measures of G slash A minor, and then four measures of F slash A minor.

And then it repeats that three times over this solo. And then right after that, you jump into the intro. A verse, another chorus, and then an outro. So if you guys really enjoyed this lesson and want to apply what you did here to another cool song, go check out my Landslide lesson right over there, where I show you, step by step, how to play the amazing song.