How To Add Fingerstyle to Any Song (Even as a Beginner)
Learn how to add fingerstyle to any song with easy patterns you can start using today. Perfect for beginners – works on songs in 3/4, 6/8, and 4/4 time.
How to Add Fingerstyle to Any Song (Easily)
Fingerstyle is one of the most beautiful and intricate things you can do on guitar. In this lesson, I’ll show you how to break into fingerpicking in a way that’s simple and frustration-free – perfect if you’re just starting out or looking to add some depth to your playing.
We’re going to start with a really simple pattern that helps build strength and accuracy in your picking hand…
The First Pattern: Ascending + Descending
It’s a basic fingerpicking pattern that works beautifully with songs in 6/8 time, like:
If you’ve ever heard music with a lilting “1 + a 2 + a” feel, that’s 6/8. This pattern also works in 3/4 time (“1 + 2 + 3 +”) and 12/8 time (“1 + a 2 + a 3 + a 4 + a”), which are all commonly used in ballads and slow emotional tunes.
But together, these time signatures only account for about 10% of songs.
Fingerstyle for 4/4 Time (Most Songs!)
Most of the music we hear – about 90% – is in 4/4 time, also called common time. That includes songs like:
- Yellow by Coldplay
- Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd
These songs are usually played with strumming patterns, like “the most common strumming pattern ever!”
But you can fingerpickify them too. In the lesson at the top of this page I demonstrate the easiest ways to accomplish this!
A More Intricate Pattern
Once you’ve got those patterns down, you’re ready for something a bit more advanced. This next one is a stepping stone to intermediate fingerstyle playing. It’s the type of pattern used in songs like Simple Man by Lynyrd Skynyrd (though they use a pick – we’ll use our fingers).
This one gives your fingers a bit more of a workout, but it’s incredibly rewarding and opens up a lot of musical possibilities.
With what we’ve covered in this lesson, you can start adding fingerstyle to almost any song – no matter the time signature.
If you want to go deeper, I have a full course called Fingerstyle Beginner to Advanced that gives you the foundation to explore this style in whatever direction you want.
👉 Check out the course here
When you sign up, you also get access to the Good Guitarist Community where you can ask me questions directly and get feedback on your playing.
Have fun practicing – I’ll see you next time!
