This course is focused squarely on beginner-level players, or those who can already play but need a little refresh or who maybe haven’t dipped their toes into fingerstyle yet. The overriding aim of the course is to help provide some of the groundwork for our Primer and Intermediate level courses. We’ll cover basic fingerpicking applied to the Blues.
Overview
You could have just started on the guitar and tried a few chords but you want to kick things off properly or maybe you’ve been playing for a while but never ventured into fingerstyle and would like to learn something to play.
The Blues is the place to start – we’ll learn a simple 12 bar in E (don’t worry if you don’t know what this means at the moment). We also tackle using just our fingers. The idea is to pluck the strings i.e. individual notes but it’s also fine to just strum with your thumb.
The course is aimed at beginners and anyone who’s really struggling and so we’ll take it slowly and build things up gradually. It’s structured so that anyone at any level can play along throughout, keeping it as simple or complicated as they feel comfortable with.
To this end, we’ll tackle it in three stages – all equally important:
Prep work
A 10 page Prep document will be available before the course covering all key areas and most subjects as described in the morning session below. The Prep document will act as a good revision for some and a definite leg-up for anyone new. As you sign up you’ll get the Prep Sheets
Morning session
We’ll look at the basics: finger/string assignment, elementary picking technique for thumb/fingers, open chords for the Blues, picking patterns, basic rhythm and notation. We’ll be using TAB, song sheets and chord boxes (these will go out as part of the Prep Sheets). If you’re not sure about the terminolgy above don’t worry – read the Prep sheets and ask questions before we start. But the first session is all about going through the Prep document (and a few other things!).
Afternoon session
This is where we put the basics into action. We’ll put together a Blues shuffle pattern which can used in lots of songs; we might use a classic song as the basis.
Course level: The course is suitable for beginner acoustic and electric guitar players alike i.e. raw beginners to beginner+ or even low intermediate players who are struggling and fancy a refresh. Maybe you can play barre chords but haven’t yet ventured into the wonderful world of fingerstyle.
Materials provided: Prep sheets and video snippets are available along with lesson PDFs. In-lesson videos will be taken if needed.
Call us for a chat at any time
Whatever level you are, you’ll have lots of takeaways to work on later. If you’d like to go through the course please call or email.