Beginner Piedmont Blues Finger Picking Lesson

Piedmont Finger Picking Blues - this is one area of the blues, that until a few years ago, I had never even heard of. It's kind of sad, but you're not going to find an article on Blind Blake or Etta Baker in your popular guitar magazines.

It's time to show the Piedmont Blues legends some love!

I can't think of a better way to do that than by playing some great Piedmont Blues.

If you would love to learn how to pick it Piedmont, let me assure you that being a great -- not just good -- Piedmont picker is not out of reach.

It just takes practice (a lot) and the right approach. With practicing guitar, your results often come from how you practice rather than what you practice. I like to practice making things simpler. As with most things in life, the complexities of Piedmont blues can be broken down to several simpler components.

In this lesson, I'll strip down some fancy finger picking to its bare minimum. For Piedmont blues, that means two things:

Alternating Bass

and

Simple, Memorable Melody.

This video focuses on the alternating bass technique used so heavily in Piedmont Blues. We'll cover how to isolate the bassline of a typical Piedmont blues progression which will be a great way to build your muscle memory in your picking hand.

This is one spot where it's a good thing to be "all thumbs" - sorry, bad line, I know.

Still, we'll focus only on the thumb of your picking hand. It's important to get a good solid beat going in the bass register with your thumb before moving on to more complicated things like adding the melody.

We'll do that next!

Be sure to check out the website for the complete lesson:

http://www.bluesguitarinstitute.com/c...

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Good luck with this lesson, please leave a comment if you have any questions or if there's something you'd like to dive deeper into.

Play On!

-John

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