- The next important technique to use is fingerstyle.

There are so many different situations

where I have to play fingerstyle

in my professional life gigging.

There might be a situation where you're accompanying

a vocalist and you have to play something with arpeggios.

It's much easier for me to use fingerstyle

in this situation or a solo guitar performance

where I have to play for a while just playing solo guitar,

often times playing fingerstyle is very useful

for me in this situation.

So let me give you some ideas about

how to get better with fingerstyle.

The first thing that you want to think about

when you're playing fingerstyle is the basic idea

that when you put your fingers down onto the notes

that you're about to play that you plant your fingers.

They're not going to be hanging over the guitar like this.

They're going to be planted in the place

that you want to play.

You're preparing for each note.

So one thing that I like to do is take, for example,

a major seven chord, and play it as a chord.

Try to play all the notes evenly.

(chord reverberating)

And then try to arpeggiate.

Okay, but once I'm done arpeggiating four notes, I plant.

So...

(lively guitar chords)

Plant the fingers.

Now go up some chords.

Plant.

Now you will not always be doing this

when you're performing, but I find when I practice

with this planting technique, it gets my fingers

used to where they are going.

If they're always floating above the strings,

I find that you will have a lot of inaccuracies

with where your fingers hit the strings,

so this is a great way to teach your fingers

where they're going and that eventually

you can deviate from that a little bit here and there,

but it's a great place to start.

Even if you are arpeggiating like this...

Every time I come around to the bottom,

I plant again, watch.

This simple exercise is great for developing

control and accuracy.

Another great exercise for fingerstyle is

to learn how to control the dynamics of each note,

sometimes you may want to bring out one of the notes

in a chord, make it louder and you have to develop

the control with your fingers in order to do that,

so here's a great way to work on that.

I'll take a chord, say a D major seven chord.

What I do is I try to play the chord over and over again

to achieve an even sound.

The next thing that I do is I try to direct my attention

to each of the different fingers.

Right now I'm going to try to make the top note

louder than the rest of the notes.

Here it is even.

Here's with the top note louder.

Now I will try to direct my attention

to the middle note.

And now the first finger.

And the bass note.

Then I will try an exercise of doing

each one of them individually.

This is a bit of an advanced topic,

but I think it's something to strive for.

At the beginning, you might not be able to do this.

As you develop, make it a priority

to learn how to adjust the dynamics

between all of the notes on the chord.

Eventually this will lead to more accurate

and more dynamic playing.

(instrumental music)