Spanish Guitar Fingerpicking Lesson

This is great way to learn both a Spanish finger-picking pattern and a common chord progression found in Spanish and flamenco music.

The 3 chords that this exercise is based on are Am, E and an E shape moved up one fret (Fadd#11/E). The diagram above shows the three chords and how they fall on the guitar fretboard. 

Practice moving between the chords in the order Am, E, F/E and back to E. You can strum each chord separately and check if each string is clearly ringing out. If there are any muted strings this could be due to two reasons 1) the fingertips are not vertical enough when pressing down on the strings or 2) the thumb on the back of the neck is not near the middle spine.

Once you have mastered the chords, practice plucking the finger picking pattern separately on open strings. 

In the first bar the thumb (marked p) is plucking the A and D string. The index finger (i) is plucking B string and the middle finger (m) is plucking the E string. 

For bar 2 to 4 this changes where the thumb is plucking the E and A string, the index finger is plucking G string and the middle finger is plucking the B string.

You may find your hand will tense, this is due to constantly contracting the same hand muscles, if this occurs shake your hand out to relax it. Once you have a clear and consistent plucking of each string add the chords into the mix to complete the exercise.

Hope you enjoyed!

Alex