Getting started with finger picking.

Been learning and playing chords for about 1/2 a year. Now I'm looking into finger picking. Any advice? Programs? Resources? Techniques? Etc. not even sure what I'm asking for.

Aaron Keim's Fingerstyle Ukulele is a great place to start. It is well written, easy to follow and most of all fun.

If you can find proper tab, it will make starting easier, (unless you know your way around a fretboard).
Download a fretboard map, as well, as that will help learn where the individual notes are.
If you can read music, create your own tab, (I do).
Then just practice.

I started with Ken Middleton tabs.

Mcgorman said:

Been learning and playing chords for about 1/2 a year. Now I'm looking into finger picking. Any advice? ..... not even sure what I'm asking for.

Click to expand...

Love the honesty

For the fretting hand, stick with the chords for the time being. For the picking hand, instead of strumming, pick the G-string with the thumb, pick the C-string with the index finger, the E-string with the 2nd-finger and the A-string with the ring-finger ... repeat - repeat - repeat

This is called arpeggio and is the basis of a lot of folk-style picking patterns.

If this is starting to sound like what you're after, try different picking patterns over different chord sequences ... 1-3-2-4 or 2-4-3-4 instead of 1-2-3-4 etc.

You'll find, with a lot of tunes, the notes you're wanting to finger-pick lie within the pre-determined chord shapes ... and so they should ... a little practice and you can choose to just pick the notes you want from the chords you already know so only the picking-hand to learn.

This is just an absolute basis for all sorts of more advanced finger-style playing, but it's one step on from strumming (nothing wrong with strumming!!) and shouldn't give you any bad habits.

Good luck

I'd start with the fingerpicking chapter in Ukulele Exercises for Dummies, and follow up with Aaron Keim's book. Ukulele Aerobics also has weekly fingerstyle exercises.

Aaron Keims fingerstyle book for sure. Great resource for a pure beginner and it gradually progresses to more challenging stuff. There are also youtube video lessons that go along with it which are invaluable. He has a masters degree in teaching music, is a professional musician and builds Mya Moe ukuleles. Can't think of anybody with more qualifications then that. I've got the book and enjoy it and the videos.

For me the trick was to find music that I like to hear, know the general tune of and enjoy playing. There are loads of free fingerstyle tabs online, take a look at PDFMinstrel and Welti's site. Google those and play around with the very simple all the way up to the holy crap! Check out Tony Mizen's great books and also John King. The other thing i still do when practice is picking patterns, find a repetitive picking pattern that you enjoy the sound of and practice playing the picking pattern across various chords for a song you know or you can use Uncle Rob's great practice resource for the chord changes.

I made my own and you are welcome to my practice sheets if it will help you, i play this pretty much every day as a warm up...

https://www.dropbox.com/s/e5qdowzpj7yqws5/Fingerpicking exercises 1.pdf?dl=0

Hanon for ukulele is free and may help you on your path. http://ukeofcarl.com/hanon-for-ukulele-free-ebook/

More advice would be just pick a song you like and instead of strumming the chords arpeggiate them instead. My first song was Please Dont Talk About Me When I'm Gone. Strummed its an old tin pan alley tune and arpeggiated with a few notes thrown in its more along the lines of Leon Redbone. I still haven't worked my way through the Hanon book but I will.

Loosen up relax and noodle a bit, find what sounds good to you while fitting the timing of the song. Just have fun.

~AL~

billten said:

For me the trick was to find music that I like to hear, know the general tune of and enjoy playing. There are loads of free fingerstyle tabs online, take a look at PDFMinstrel and Welti's site. Google those and play around with the very simple all the way up to the holy crap! Check out Tony Mizen's great books and also John King. The other thing i still do when practice is picking patterns, find a repetitive picking pattern that you enjoy the sound of and practice playing the picking pattern across various chords for a song you know or you can use Uncle Rob's great practice resource for the chord changes.

I made my own and you are welcome to my practice sheets if it will help you, i play this pretty much every day as a warm up...

https://www.dropbox.com/s/e5qdowzpj7yqws5/Fingerpicking exercises 1.pdf?dl=0

Click to expand...

Thanks for sharing, billten.

Inksplosive AL said:

... My first song was Please Dont Talk About Me When I'm Gone. Strummed its an old tin pan alley tune and arpeggiated with a few notes thrown in its more along the lines of Leon Redbone...
~AL~

Click to expand...

I just pulled "please don't talk about me..." from Doctor Uke and found it an awesome little beginner's finger picker. Everything's there for that relaxed, simple, pluck a chord...pick a few notes with a thumb counter every other note, pluck another chord, etc. Thanks for the recommendation. Rolls right off the fingers.

Thank you so much everyone. I've got a Ohana ck38 in the mail. Can't wait to get started on some of these.