Sure, playing lead guitar is great, but most of the time you’re just accompanying a singer or soloist.
Fingerstyle guitar gives you a chance to play a lot of different musical parts at once while also providing a more intricate sound and playing experience.
Here are 33 essential fingerstyle guitar songs for beginners!
Fingerstyle is one of the many guitar techniques that is incredibly fun to learn. With fingerstyle, you can play a multitude of tunes by plucking individual strings with your fingers, rather than strumming with a plectrum as with traditional guitar playing.
While difficult for beginners to master, learning fingerstyle guitar is rewarding and is something that all guitarists should attempt at some point. While it may not be the best technique for rock or metal songs, fingerstyle works well for softer, slower pieces which sound great through an acoustic guitar.
In this article, we will be taking a look at 33 essential fingerstyle guitar songs perfect for beginners who want to learn to play fingerstyle. We have included a brief description of each song, as well as links to tablature and/or video tutorials.
Let’s dive in!
In this lesson, you will learn 33 fingerstyle guitar songs by various artists.
Fingerstyle guitar is the technique of playing the guitar by plucking the strings directly with the fingertips, fingernails, or picks attached to fingers, as opposed to flatpicking (picking individual notes with a single plectrum called a flatpick) or strumming all the strings of the instrument in chords. The term “fingerstyle” is something of a misnomer, since it is present in several different genres and styles of music—but mostly, because it involves a completely different technique, not just a “style” of playing, especially for the guitarist’s picking/plucking hand.
The term is often used synonymously with fingerpicking except in classical guitar circles, although fingerpicking can also refer to a specific tradition of folk, blues and country guitar playing in the US. The terms “fingerstyle” and “fingerpicking” also applied to similar string instruments such as the banjo.
Often, the guitarist will play the melody notes, interspersed with the melody’s accompanying chords and the deep bassline simultaneously. Some fingerpicking guitarists also intersperse percussive tapping along with the melody, chords and bassline. This enables a single guitarist to provide all of these important song elements. This enables singer-guit
Fingerstyle guitar is the technique of playing the guitar by plucking the strings directly with the fingertips, fingernails, or picks attached to fingers, as opposed to flatpicking (picking individual notes with a single plectrum called a flatpick) or strumming all the strings of the instrument in chords. The term “fingerstyle” is something of a misnomer, since it is present in several different genres and styles of music—but mostly, because it involves a completely different technique, not just a “style” of playing, especially for the guitarist’s picking/plucking hand.
The term is often used synonymously with fingerpicking except in classical guitar circles, although fingerpicking can also refer to a specific tradition of folk, blues and country guitar playing in the US. The terms “fingerstyle” and “fingerpicking” also applied to similar string instruments such as the banjo. Music arranged for fingerstyle playing can include chords and other elements such as artificial harmonics, hammering on and pulling off with the fretting hand, two-hand tapping, multiple non-adjacent string plucking (i.e., skipping strings) and intricate percussive strumming. Often, the guitarist will play the melody notes,
Fingerstyle guitar is the technique of playing the guitar by plucking the strings directly with the fingertips, fingernails, or picks attached to fingers, as opposed to flatpicking (plucking individual notes with a single plectrum called a flatpick) or strumming all the strings of the instrument in patterns. Some fingerpicking guitarists also intersperse percussive tapping along with the melody, chords and other parts. This combined percussive technique is often called ‘hybrid picking’.
The term “fingerstyle” is something of a misnomer since it is present in several different genres and styles of music—but mostly, because it involves more than simply plucking with the fingers. Basic fingerstyle technique generally incorporates the use of a thumb pick while employing one or more fingerpicks on the right hand that are worn over the fingertip or fingernail. The term “fingerstyle” also refers to a particular tradition of folk, blues, bluegrass, and country guitar playing in the United States. The acoustic bass guitar (also called “bass fingerstyle”) is typically plucked with the fingernails of one hand while simultaneously fretting with the fingers of the opposite hand.
Around The World – Red Hot Chili Peppers
Angel Of Small Death & The Codeine Scene – Hozier
Bad Moon Rising – Creedence Clearwater Revival
Blackbird – The Beatles
Blue On Black – Kenny Wayne Shepherd
Brown Eyed Girl – Van Morrison
Bubble Toes – Jack Johnson
Come Together – The Beatles
Crazy Little Thing Called Love – Queen
Dust In The Wind – Kansas
Fields Of Gold – Sting
Fix You – Coldplay
Free Falling – Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers
Going To California – Led Zeppelin
Hallelujah – Jeff Buckley, Leonard Cohen, Rufus Wainwright, and many others… (it’s a popular one)
Handyman Blues – Mississippi John Hurt/Jack White (a good one for beginners)
Hey Jude – The Beatles
Highway To Hell (introduction) AC/DC. Just the intro. It’s a good one to start with. Here’s the tab. I recommend using a capo on the third fret for this one. It’ll be easier on your fingers. And it’ll sound more like the original that way too. A capo is a little clamp that you can