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Play Acoustic Guitar 5: Fingerstyle Approaches

Energize Your Fingerstyle Chops with this Acoustic Learning Path Core Course

Marty FriedmanTommy EmmanuelSteve VaiEric GalesEric Johnson

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Play Acoustic Guitar 5: Fingerstyle Approaches
TrueFire

TrueFire

Educator

acoustic, fingerstyle

Genres

About this course

Welcome to Play Acoustic Guitar 5: Fingerstyle Approaches for intermediate to late Intermediate students of Acoustic guitar.

This Acoustic Learning Path core course is presented by 4 top TrueFire educators: Adrian Legg, David Blacker, Joe Dalton, and David Hamburger.

The Fingerstyle Approaches curriculum is comprised of select Acoustic guitar lessons from the educators’ existing TrueFire course libraries.

Fingerstyle guitar technique takes full advantage of the instrument’s polyphonic qualities, which is one of the main reasons it's so popular across so many styles of music. You’ll find fingerstyle techniques in blues, rock, jazz, country, classical, folk, singer-songwriter, and dozens of other genres and subgenres. While the specific technique will vary across musical styles, fingerstyle guitar calls for finger and thumb independance so that you can play a bass line, a rhythm part, and a melody line simultaneously. The video guitar lessons in this core course will equip you with the requisite skills to take your fingerstyle technique to the next level.

Play Acoustic Guitar 5: Fingerstyle Approaches is organized into 2 sections. In the first section, Adrian Legg shares the very same approaches he himself used to learn fingerstyle including his innovative 2-week Guitar Diary of workouts designed to get you up and running very quickly. Adrian also presents 3 performance studies to apply your skills to. In the second section, you’ll play your way through 12 more performance studies in different styles. David Blacker introduces you to traditional country blues, David Hamburger shows you a few fingerstyle blues, and Joe Dalton guides you through arrangements for Amazing Grace and Silent Night.

When you’ve completed the lessons here in Fingerstyle Approaches, you’ll find more lessons focused on fingerstyle techniques in Fingerstyle Principles, also a Play Acoustic Guitar 5 core course.

All of the key examples are tabbed and notated for your practice, reference and study purposes. You’ll also get Guitar Pro files so that you can play, loop or slow down the tab and notation as you work through the lessons.

Take as much time as you need to work through each video guitar lesson before moving on to the next lesson. If you want to dig deeper or wider into any of the topics covered in this core course, check out the recommended supplementary courses in your learning path where you’ll find more examples, techniques and insight from top TrueFire educators.

Grab your guitar and let’s get started!

What you'll learn

  • Combine previous exercises into a melodic piece
  • Learn chord variation
  • Effective metronome practice techniques
  • Develop consistent right-hand picking technique
  • Develop alternating thumb technique
Release date: 09/14/2016 • 3h 31m runtime
intermediatelate intermediateacoustic guitarguitar
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Sample lessons
Adrian's 2-Week Guitar Diary
Adrian's 2-Week Guitar Diary
Overview
Week 1 Workout 4
Week 1 Workout 4
2 Week Guitar Diary
Getting Some Movement In It
Getting Some Movement In It
Movement Workouts 2
Van Stoneman Lick (3-3-2)
Van Stoneman Lick (3-3-2)
Pattern Workouts 1

What's included

74 lessons • 42 charts

Play Acoustic Guitar 5: Fingerstyle Approaches
Welcome to Play Acoustic Guitar 5: Fingerstyle Approaches for intermediate to late Intermediate students of Acoustic guitar.

This Acoustic Learning Path core course is presented by 4 top TrueFire educators: Adrian Legg, David Blacker, Joe Dalton, and David Hamburger.

The Fingerstyle Approaches curriculum is comprised of select Acoustic guitar lessons from the educators' existing TrueFire course libraries.

Fingerstyle guitar technique takes full advantage of the instrument's polyphonic qualities, which is one of the main reasons it's so popular across so many styles of music. You'll find fingerstyle techniques in blues, rock, jazz, country, classical, folk, singer-songwriter, and dozens of other genres and subgenres. While the specific technique will vary across musical styles, fingerstyle guitar calls for finger and thumb independance so that you can play a bass line, a rhythm part, and a melody line simultaneously. The video guitar lessons in this core course will equip you with the requisite skills to take your fingerstyle technique to the next level.

Play Acoustic Guitar 5: Fingerstyle Approaches is organized into 2 sections. In the first section, Adrian Legg shares the very same approaches he himself used to learn fingerstyle including his innovative 2-week Guitar Diary of workouts designed to get you up and running very quickly. Adrian also presents 3 performance studies to apply your skills to. In the second section, you'll play your way through 12 more performance studies in different styles. David Blacker introduces you to traditional country blues, David Hamburger shows you a few fingerstyle blues, and Joe Dalton guides you through arrangements for Amazing Grace and Silent Night.

When you've completed the lessons here in Fingerstyle Approaches, you'll find more lessons focused on fingerstyle techniques in Fingerstyle Principles, also a Play Acoustic Guitar 5 core course.

All of the key examples are tabbed and notated for your practice, reference and study purposes. You'll also get Guitar Pro files so that you can play, loop or slow down the tab and notation as you work through the lessons.

Take as much time as you need to work through each video guitar lesson before moving on to the next lesson. If you want to dig deeper or wider into any of the topics covered in this core course, check out the recommended supplementary courses in your learning path where you'll find more examples, techniques and insight from top TrueFire educators.

Grab your guitar and let's get started!
Workouts & Techniques
In this section, Adrian Legg guides you through a series of workouts and approaches for getting up and running quickly with your fingerstyle technique. He shares the very same approaches he himself used to learn fingerstyle including his innovative 2-week Guitar Diary of workouts. Adrian also presents 3 performance studies to apply your skills including Gas Bill, Folky Little Finger, and Dying Embers Steel Bends.

TIP! Don't forget to take a look at the tab that comes with every lesson. Sometimes it is easier to get a concept in your head if you can see it written out. Especially if you are struggling with anything, instead of driving yourself crazy watching the video a million times - take a break and just sit and look at the tab. Sometimes that really helps.

Of course with Guitar Pro files you can listen to the example and loop or slow it down to really see what is going on, so remember to use all the tools at your disposal as you are working through these lessons.
Adrian's 2-Week Guitar Diary
Adrian's 2-Week Guitar Diary - Overview is a video guitar lesson presented by Adrian Legg and is sourced from Fingerstyle Revisionist: Origins.

This group of six lessons represents how I learned alternating thumb patterns, practicing two hours a day for two weeks. There is no shortcut to learning this, only being learned by doing these exercises over and over again. If you put the time in, and aren't afraid of looking like a fool at playing guitar again, these techniques will become yours. Let's get to it!

Week 1 Workout 1
Week 1 Workout 1 - 2 Week Guitar Diary is a video guitar lesson presented by Adrian Legg and is sourced from Fingerstyle Revisionist: Origins.

This is quite literally where I started working out how to do fingerstyle some forty-odd years ago. At the time I was in a social club band on the Liverpool working men's club scene, and most of the repertoire was country. There was no information flow whatsoever in those days—which is hard to imagine now, as we have the internet and anything we need to know is a few clicks away. As a result, most of us developed technically way outside the mainstream in America, and we sounded very different from each other and the rest of the guitar world. We tended to learn by copying each other.

I had a quite transient lifestyle then, and didn't even have a record player, but could grab bits from band rehearsals and a colleague's record player. Someone in one of the other bands could do a passable alternating thumb-style back-up and filler, and it seemed to me that if he could do it, so could I.

This is what I did for two hours on the first day. If you're brand new to it, you'll find it the same kind of hopelessly ham-fisted slog as when you first put left handed fingers on the fretboard. In the same way you got your left hand fingers to obey orders, you'll be able to organise those on your right hand. It takes patience; do not be downhearted. If Jimmy Moran could do it in Linacre Gasworks Social Club (I kid you not) and if I can do it, so can you. Do it really slowly, build your muscle memory carefully—this and what follows will serve you well.

Week 1 Workout 2
Week 1 Workout 2 - 2 Week Guitar Diary is a video guitar lesson presented by Adrian Legg and is sourced from Fingerstyle Revisionist: Origins.

By the second day of the self-lead programme, I was still fumbling badly, but there were signs of possible life! So, I added in a sixth on the second string, with the right hand staying the same.
Week 1 Workout 3
Week 1 Workout 3 - 2 Week Guitar Diary is a video guitar lesson presented by Adrian Legg and is sourced from Fingerstyle Revisionist: Origins.

By day three, I was becoming more confident, so I added another chord to the programme. Bold stuff indeed, as it reversed the pattern in the thumb and caused chaos, but not for long.
Week 1 Workout 4
Week 1 Workout 4 - 2 Week Guitar Diary is a video guitar lesson presented by Adrian Legg and is sourced from Fingerstyle Revisionist: Origins.

By day four, I could do the A pattern and the E7 pattern reasonably reliably but very slowly, and added in removing finger 1 on the left hand to give a little movement in the treble. Once again, the right hand stays the same.

+ 67 more lessons

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Reviews

4 results

geschatz

Verified buyer

11/27/25

Practice

This is a great program for learning and also to keep one motivated. The instructors and videos are fantastic. The best show and tell for my needs and pace. I purchased the all access and there is so much material available. Thank you truefire

wholmer

01/04/21

Fantastic Course!

Lots of different teachers give you different points of view, I like that. Learning fingerstyle guitar is an interest of mine that I kept putting off. I knew the time needed to train my right hand to play the patterns would be extensive. These teachers made it a lot eaiser! I made it through so now I need to get the left to catch up.

nigge99

Verified buyer

10/09/20

sometimes ...

i love to play acoustic guitar - pause the electric... here come these "play acoustic guitar" courses... all the time ... good stuff ... interesting to learn from different teachers... i like it very much ;-)

JohnSmithers

Verified buyer

07/13/20

A good course

This course offers a good overview of the fingerstyle techniques needed to be prepared for the big and versatile world of guitar fingerstyle.It has an introductory feel and does not overwhelm.Keep at a stable pace with this one and you'll be a better player for it.

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