Dansm's Fingerpicking Lessons
Changing Strings While Picking
Once you know how to change chords and move your fingers to accommodate the new chord,
we will begin to move your fingers around during chords. This becomes necessary when a
chord requires you to play more than four strings (such as G or F).

  1. We will look at the F chord first because the only finger that moves while picking it is the thumb. Try to make the F chord shape shown in Figure 1.


  1. Now play the picking pattern shown in Figure 2 using the form of the F chord shown in Figure 1.


  1. Now play the pattern for a G chord as shown in Figure 3. Like the F chord, G requires you to play more than four strings to get a decent sound. However, the main difference is that instead of moving your thumb, you move the three fingers.


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© 1997 Daniel E. Smith.