Fingerpicking Lessons for the Acoustic Guitar (Part I)

The following article is a introduction to learning how to finger-pick the guitar (whether steel or nylon strum). This is ideal for any guitarist wanting to add a folk, ballad feel to their playing. Also as we are going to focus solely on your picking hand so these exercises can be attempted by any guitarist even if an absolute beginner.

Before we get started there is some terminology we need to cover. Finger picking requires we can pick each string with our thumb and three fingers respectively. 

Thumb = P  (stands for pulgar)

Index finger  = I

Middle finger = M

Ring finger = A  (stands for annular)

Typically the thumb plays the 3 bass strings (E, A, D string) and the fingers plucks the respective treble strings e.g. index plucks the G string, middle finger plucks the B string and the ring finger plucks the E string. However, this is not always the case. To get started we will pluck open strings only so we can focus on our picking hand. 

Exercise 1

The TAB indicates each string on your guitar with the low sounding E string represented as the bottom line, from there each string is represented as A, D, G, B, E. Both the TAB and notation represent time as you go from left to right. Also the notation indicates the exercise has a 4/4 time signature, simply meaning that we play 4 notes per bar. 

In order to play this exercise play the E string with your thumb, G string with your index finger, B string with your middle finger, E string with your ring finger. Listen to the video to get the feel. 

Exercise 2

Similar to the exercise above however, we are alternating the thumb so it plays different bass strings. 

 Each time the thumb plays the low E, then the low A, then the low D string and then back to the Low A string. The fingers keep the same pattern as in exercise 1. 

Exercise 3

We will now try finger picking but in 3 time, meaning there will be 3 beats in each bar and for our exercise 6 notes in each bar. To help with timing you can count them as either 1 and 2 and 3 and or 1 2 3 4 5 6. Listen to the video to help with timing. Extending on from the first 2 exercises the fingers pick up and down on the treble strings of G, B and E. The thumb plucks the low E string throughout.

Last Exercise

The final exercise builds on from exercise 3, The only difference is that you will need to alternate the thumb so it plays the E string then A string then the D string. Once again count 1 and 2 and 3 and or 1 2 3 4 5 6 to get the timing.


I hope you have enjoyed your first try at finger-picking.  This will provide you with a good foundation. The second part of this lesson will be adding left handed chords to get a ballad folk accompaniment.