Recently I have been playing a lot of Paul Simon tunes: Kathy's Song, Bleecker Street, The Boxer, etc., and I love his style of fingerpicking, but I don't really know where to go with it. I like playing acoustic, and strumming is fun, but I think there's a lot more subtlety and interesting stuff to be done with fingerpicking than this root-fifth-root-fifth pattern. Any advice on songs to learn that would introduce me to other styles of fingerpicking, especially ones suitable for vocal accompaniment?
~Sam
Try "Turn Turn Turn" by the Byrds. Roger McGuinn's fingerstyle technique was influenced by his banjo playing days.
"Everybody got to elevate from the norm."
i like fingerpicking too. you could learn Blackbird if you don't already know it. that's a fun one. Or look up some old acoustic blues stuff. Or take songs you already know and find picking patterns for them.
the next level of fingerpicking is the classical method. A thumb and three fingers. The thumb does a bassline while the 3 fingers do a melody. It is much harder and allows you to do more things at once.
"And above all, respond to all questions regarding a given song's tonal orientation in the following manner: Hell, it don't matter just kick it off!"
-Chris Thile
try some easy fingerpicking blues, trust me there's nothing like it. U can try Candyman - mississipi john hurt
and if u wanna go through easy tunes go through peter,paul & mary
try dust in the wind - kansas :D
" Take what you can from your dreams and make them real as anything " - Dave Matthews.
Nancy wilson from "Heart" has some good ones also. Dog and butterfly, the dragon, minstral wind to name a few.
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