jimmytansey
Verified buyer
01/11/26
Great course, well explained and easy to follow
Progressive Fingerstyle: First Steps
Interactive Video Masterclass For Guitar Presented By Mike Dawes
Get this course and 1,000+ more with All Access
Try 14 days free. Cancel any time.
About this course
Named ‘Best Acoustic Guitarist in the World’ two years in a row by Total Guitar Magazine/MusicRadar reader polls, Mike Dawes’ ability to seamlessly combine melody, bass, harmony, and percussion leaves audiences absolutely stunned with his original music and massively popular covers.
Whatever style of guitar you play, you’ve likely already been blown away by watching one of his videos online (100-millions views across all social platforms!), or caught him live at a gig, festival, or performing with Justin Hayward of The Moody Blues. His progressive fingerstyle genius is best summed up by Guitar Player magazine, “Jaw-dropping!”
Fortunately for we guitar players and music learners, Mike is also an accomplished and passionate educator who has written countless articles for magazines and conducted standing-room-only workshops all over the world.
We are thrilled to welcome Mike to the family with his first TrueFire course, Progressive Fingerstyle, First Steps. You will likewise thank your lucky stars as you learn and play your way through Mike’s curriculum, which will get your own “progressive fingerstyle” technique up and running in less time than you would ever imagine.
”As a progressive rock player I was ultimately drawn to the acoustic guitar due to its vast potential for polyphony and self-accompaniment. For the next 15 years, I combined my influences to produce a variety of tones, textures, and percussive effects on a single acoustic guitar.
In this course, we’ll start by ditching the pick and expanding your instrument’s potential with progressive fingerstyle guitar right-hand techniques, alternate tunings, harmonics, legato and staccato fluidity, body percussion and more.
This method accurately mirrors my own journey as a player, cutting out years of trial and error to deliver you results as efficiently as possible. I invite guitar players of all abilities to try something new and join me on this progressive fingerstyle journey. It begins here…”
Mike will thoroughly explain and demonstrate essential progressive fingerstyle guitar concepts as you learn and play your way through his contextual series of guitar lessons. You’ll get standard notation and tabs for all key examples and performance studies.
Plus, you’ll be able to use TrueFire’s learning tools to sync the tab and notation to all the video lessons. You can also loop or slow down the videos to work with the lessons at your own pace.
Grab your guitar, ‘ditch the pick” and let’s take those first steps with Mike Dawes!
Whatever style of guitar you play, you’ve likely already been blown away by watching one of his videos online (100-millions views across all social platforms!), or caught him live at a gig, festival, or performing with Justin Hayward of The Moody Blues. His progressive fingerstyle genius is best summed up by Guitar Player magazine, “Jaw-dropping!”
Fortunately for we guitar players and music learners, Mike is also an accomplished and passionate educator who has written countless articles for magazines and conducted standing-room-only workshops all over the world.
We are thrilled to welcome Mike to the family with his first TrueFire course, Progressive Fingerstyle, First Steps. You will likewise thank your lucky stars as you learn and play your way through Mike’s curriculum, which will get your own “progressive fingerstyle” technique up and running in less time than you would ever imagine.
”As a progressive rock player I was ultimately drawn to the acoustic guitar due to its vast potential for polyphony and self-accompaniment. For the next 15 years, I combined my influences to produce a variety of tones, textures, and percussive effects on a single acoustic guitar.
In this course, we’ll start by ditching the pick and expanding your instrument’s potential with progressive fingerstyle guitar right-hand techniques, alternate tunings, harmonics, legato and staccato fluidity, body percussion and more.
This method accurately mirrors my own journey as a player, cutting out years of trial and error to deliver you results as efficiently as possible. I invite guitar players of all abilities to try something new and join me on this progressive fingerstyle journey. It begins here…”
Mike will thoroughly explain and demonstrate essential progressive fingerstyle guitar concepts as you learn and play your way through his contextual series of guitar lessons. You’ll get standard notation and tabs for all key examples and performance studies.
Plus, you’ll be able to use TrueFire’s learning tools to sync the tab and notation to all the video lessons. You can also loop or slow down the videos to work with the lessons at your own pace.
Grab your guitar, ‘ditch the pick” and let’s take those first steps with Mike Dawes!
What you'll learn
- Execute kick drum technique using wrist motion in two locations
- Perform multiple snare drum variations (click, sound hole, side, palm)
- Combine kick and snare patterns in 4/4 time
- Use index finger hook technique to strum while executing kick drum
- Develop right-hand finger assignment discipline for consistent fingerpicking
Release date: 07/21/2022 • 2h 51m runtime
Sample lessons
Fingerstyle Foundations & Innovation
Concept & Demo
Thumb & Fingers Etude
Performance
Separating Bass, Chords & Melody: 1
Concept & Demo
Purr & Sway Etude
Performance
What's included
52 lessons • 19 charts
Progressive Fingerstyle: First Steps
Hi, I'm Mike Dawes. Welcome to Progressive Fingerstyle, Essential Riffs.
I'm excited to present my first ever riff pack, taking you through ten passages lifted from my own discography designed to diversify and enhance your fingerstyle skillset.
I've organized this collection of 10 riffs and passages to diversify and elevate your fingerstyle skillset.
Although these riffs fall under the progressive fingerstyle umbrella, they draw influence from a variety of genres; rock, celtic, new age – all playable with the progressive fingerstyle toolkit.
Not only are these passages broken down in immense detail, I also cover the creative intent behind their composition.
Everything is tabbed and synced to the video. You can slow down or loop any of the video lessons to learn at your own pace.
Grab your guitar and let’s get started.
I'm excited to present my first ever riff pack, taking you through ten passages lifted from my own discography designed to diversify and enhance your fingerstyle skillset.
I've organized this collection of 10 riffs and passages to diversify and elevate your fingerstyle skillset.
Although these riffs fall under the progressive fingerstyle umbrella, they draw influence from a variety of genres; rock, celtic, new age – all playable with the progressive fingerstyle toolkit.
Not only are these passages broken down in immense detail, I also cover the creative intent behind their composition.
Everything is tabbed and synced to the video. You can slow down or loop any of the video lessons to learn at your own pace.
Grab your guitar and let’s get started.
SECTION 1: Fingerstyle Primer
In this first section of the course we're going to be looking at the right-hand and how to ditch the guitar pick and get the fingers moving. This might be tricky for some of you at first but by the end of it, hopefully, you'll be honed in on the geography of the instrument and you won't be thinking about what your hand is doing. Let's go!
Fingerstyle Foundations & Innovation
In this first section of the course we're going to be looking at the right-hand and how to ditch the guitar pick and get the fingers moving. This might be tricky for some of you at first but by the end of it, hopefully, you'll be honed in on the geography of the instrument and you won't be thinking about what your hand is doing. Let's go!
Choosing a Guitar for Fingerstyle
In this lessons we're going to be talking about choosing an instrument and what gear you will need to effectively perform and compose fingerstyle guitar.
Thumb & Fingers Etude
In this series of lessons I'm going to set you up with a very basic exercise to get a little right hand independance going between the thumb and the fingers. I'll kick things off with a short overview, then we'll jump into a performance, and finally I'll break everything down for your in detail. Let's get started!
Thumb & Fingers Etude
In this series of lessons I'm going to set you up with a very basic exercise to get a little right hand independance going between the thumb and the fingers. I'll kick things off with a short overview, then we'll jump into a performance, and finally I'll break everything down for your in detail. Let's get started!
Thumb & Fingers Etude
In this series of lessons I'm going to set you up with a very basic exercise to get a little right hand independance going between the thumb and the fingers. I'll kick things off with a short overview, then we'll jump into a performance, and finally I'll break everything down for your in detail. Let's get started!
+ 45 more lessons
Reviews
19 results
Yaroslav
12/29/25
Super!
Hello, Mike. Thank you very much for the excellent course! Unfortunately, I don't know English, so I watched all the videos in this course and translated each one. From what I've seen, I can tell that you are an excellent teacher! I have purchased all four of your courses available to date and look forward to the next ones. Good luck!
sharonmerlier
Verified buyer
10/01/25
Amazing Musicality!
I really like this course and I love the dynamic, free flowing, musical style of Mike Dawes. His teaching style resonates with me and makes me feel relaxed. He weaves a web of fascinating musical possibilities! Thanks Mike!
JoePaige
Verified buyer
08/29/25
Great Primer
Good overview of basics before getting into the detailed lessons.
djc5317
Verified buyer
01/31/25
great
Stop searching. Start improving with All Access.
Try 14 days free. Cancel any time.
