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Top 30 Best Intermediate Guitar Fingerpicking Songs

There’s something hypnotic and soothing about playing fingerpicking songs. Beautiful melodies and harmonies are all integrated in fingerstyle arrangements. Once you’re in the flow of fingerpicking you can play on and on and on. A perfect moment to forget about everything and just be one with your guitar.

Of course, in order to get there you first have to practice. But also practicing in itself is a joy. Overcoming the obstacles and challenges in a fingerpicking song can be really exhilarating. The hard work pays off and gives you a song to play for the rest of your life.

Guitar playing is a win-win situation. You play for yourself but you also make other people happy if you play for them. Fingerpicking is just magical.

Intermediate Guitar Fingerpicking Songs

Today we have 30 beautiful fingerpicking songs for the intermediate guitar player. From pop fingerpicking hits to classics and golden oldies.

If you’re a beginner, first start here: Top 20 Easy Guitar Fingerpicking Songs For Beginners.

Now on the intermediate fingerstyle songs. Each song title contains a guitar video lesson. The “Chords” link shows you the chords and lyrics to the song and “Tabs” will give you the tablature notation for the song.

Pick one and start your practice session now. Enjoy!

Video lesson	Artist	Chords	Tabs
1 Blackbird	Paul McCartney	Chords	Tabs
2 T he boxer	Simon and Garfunkel	Chords	Tabs
3 Tears in heaven	Eric Clapton	Chords	Tabs
4 Every breath you take	The Police	Chords	Tabs
5 Never going back again	Fleetwoodmac	Chord s	Tabs

Video lesson	Artist	Chords	Tabs
6 Dust in the wind	Kansas	Chords	Tabs
7 More than words	Extreme	Chords	Tabs
8 Landslide	Fleetwoodmac	Chords	Tabs
9 Good Riddance	Greenday	Chords	Tabs
10 Fire and rain	James Taylor	Chords	Tabs

Video lesson	Artist	Chords	Tabs
11 Let it go	James Bay	Chords	Tabs
12 Stop this trai n	John Mayer	Chords	Tab s
13 Leaving on a jet plane	John Denver	Chords	Tabs
14 Stairway to heaven	Led Zeppelin	Chords	Tabs
15 Bloo m	The paperkites	Chords	Tabs

Video lesson	Artist	Chords	Tabs
16 Nothing else matters	Metallica	Chords	Tab s
17 Just Breathe	Pearl Jam	Chords	Tabs
18 Safe and soun d	Taylor Swift. ftr. The Civil Wars.	Chords	Tabs
19 Tenerife sea	Ed Sheeran	Chords	Tabs
20 Street spirit	Radiohead	Chords	Tabs

Video lesson	Artist	Chords	Tabs
21 Road trippin	Red Hot Chili Peppers	Chords	Tabs
22 Homeward bound	Simon and Garfunkel	Chords	Tabs
23 Shape of my hear t	Sting	Chords	Tabs
24 Yesterda y	The Beatles	Chords	Tabs
25 I won’t give u p	Jason Mraz	Chords	Tabs

Video lesson	Artist	Chords	Tabs
26 Let her go	Passenger	Chords	Tabs
27 C lassical Gas	Mason William	Chords	Tabs
28 Silent Lucidity	Queenryche	Chords	Tabs
29 You’ve got a friend	James Taylor	Chords	Tabs
30 I see fire	Ed Sheeran	Chords	Tabs

Top 20 Easy Guitar Fingerpicking Songs For Beginners

By Klaus Crow 17 Comments

Fingerpicking also referred to as fingerstyle, is one of the many guitar techniques that is part of the complete guitar skill set and incredibly fun to learn.

Fingerpicking is a technique where you pluck the strings directly with the fingertips, as apposed to strumming where you move your fingers in a sweeping action across the strings to play some nice and easy guitar songs in a more rhythmic fashion.

Fingerpicking Basics

There are some basic fingerpicking principles for how to place the fingerpicking hand. The traditional way to approach the strings is as follows:

Use the thumb for the Low E, A and D string (6th, 5th and 4th string)
Index finger for the G string (3rd string)
Middle finger for the B string (2nd string)
Ring finger for the high E string (1st string)

See image below:

how and where to place the fingerpicking hand

Make sure your fingers are curved when you place your fingers onto the strings. When you pluck the strings your thumb goes downwards and the fingers are going in an upwards movement. Now you are ready to practice some fingerpicking patterns.

Alternating Bass Fingerpicking Patterns Part I

By Klaus Crow 7 Comments

Fingerpicking patterns make your chord progressions really come alive. It’s a beautiful musical element that can give a song just what it needs. The amount of fingerpicking patterns are infinite. If you are just starting out you might want to check out the 16 legendary fingerpicking patterns first. If you got the basics down and you’re ready to step up, check out the alternating bass fingerpicking patterns in this post.

With the alternating bass fingerpicking technique the thumb of your fingerpicking hand is constantly alternating between two or more bass notes while in between your fingers are playing the higher notes. It sounds like you’re playing two guitars at the same time.

Today I will show you two patterns that you can use for your own songs and apply to many popular songs.

Tips:
– Practice slowly in the beginning. Be patient and don’t rush at the start!
– Memorize the pattern for each chord.
– Make sure every notes sounds clean and clear.
– When you feel comfortable playing it slow, gradually build up your speed.
– Practice the pattern using the chord progression.
– Practice regurarly

Enjoy!

Alternating Bass Fingerpicking Pattern I

Alternating Bass Fingerpicking Pattern II

Next time (Part II) I will show you two more beautiful and challenging patterns. To be continued…

16 Legendary Fingerpicking Patterns

By Klaus Crow 153 Comments

Pattern #1 – For TABS see below.

Fingerpicking style is a technique that is used in many famous and legendary songs over the years. The 16 examples in this post are a good source to learn the most common fingerpicking patterns you will ever come across. The fingerpicking patterns can be applied to almost every folk, pop, country or rock song.

Try and figure out which pattern suits your favorite song. Maybe you’ll already recognize some of these patterns from songs you heard before.

I personally think pattern #12 is a really nice one. It’s a Travis fingerpicking style arrangement named after Merle Travis. The Travis fingerpicking style is known for it’s steady bass pattern played with the thumb while the rest of the fingers fill out the rest of the pattern on the treble strings.

Right hand finger positioning

Now let’s take a look at the finger positioning assuming you are a right handed guitar player.

For my right hand position I use my thumb to pluck the low-E, A and D-string. The index finger is on the G-string, the middle finger on the B-string and the ring finger on the high E-string.

For each different chord, you play the corresponding bass note with your right hand thumb.
Whenever you play an A or Am chord with your left hand, you pluck the A-string ( A root note) with your right hand thumb.
For an E or Em chord pluck the E-string (E root note) with your right hand thumb.
D or Dm chord = D-string (D root note).
G chord = E-string (The G root note is played with your left hand on the low E-string).
C chord = A-string (The C root note is played with your left hand on the A-string) and so on.

In the video lessons above the tabs I show you what each pattern sounds like and explain the pattern slowly in close up.

Practice each and every one of them thoroughly. It’s really good for you.

Enjoy!

Pattern #1

A E e:-------0-------|-------0-------|-------0-------|--------0-----------| B:-----2---2-----|-----2---2-----|-----0---0-----|-----0----0---------| G:---2-------2---|---2-------2---|---1-------1---|---1--------1-------| D:---------------|---------------|---------------|--------------------| A:-0-------------|-0-------------|---------------|--------------------| E:---------------|---------------|-0-------------|-0------------------|

Pattern #2

A E e:-------0---------|-------0---------|-------0---------|-------0---------| B:-----2-----2-----|-----2-----2-----|-----0-----0-----|-----0-----0-----| G:---2-----2-----2-|---2-----2-----2-|---1-----1-----1-|---1-----1-----1-| D:-------------2---|-------------2---|-------------2---|-------------2---| A:-0-----0---------|-0-----0---------|-----------------|-----------------| E:-----------------|-----------------|-0-----0---------|-0-----0---------|