VIDEO LESSON: The Basics of Fingerpicking a 3-String Cigar Box Guitar

"What you play on your left hand is what you know.  What you play on your right hand is who you are."

Taught by Shane Speal.  Speal's book, Poor Man's Guitar will be released October 2018 by Fox Chapel Publishing.  More info at www.PoorMansGuitar.com. 

Note the picture above:  My hand is relaxed as I rest my thumb on the low string and my index finger on the high string. 

You guys asked for an exercise to develop a solid blues fingerpicking style.  Here's how I do it!  In the video below, I show you the repeating pattern that will get your thumb thumpin' into a nice steady rhythm. 

Good luck!

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Permalink Reply by Snuffy Smith on May 8, 2018 at 5:38am

Very cool, Shane. I tend to fall into my own "safe" comfy picking patterns. I'll have to give this pattern a shot. Please do more videos of various picking patterns (there are so many...and it's always nice to get turned on to new ones). As an ex-drummer who loves fingerpicking patterns, I find my biggest weakness is my fret hand. It has a hard time keeping up with my fingerpicking hand. I wish I could get the two hands completely in sync, but then again, I just started playing strings (CBG) only a year ago, so I guess I need to be more patient.

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