Whenever I ask students what they want to improve on when it comes to their guitar playing, along with rhythm, strumming, chord changes and theory, the one thing that crops up a lot is they want to improve their ability to find and use the notes on the fretboard. Today you will learn how to get started on this.
Many guitar students play for years but have literally no idea what notes they are playing at any given time.
Ed Sheeran @ Milan by Sara Somerhalder, licensed under (CC BY-SA 2.0)
If you have already downloaded the free eBook – Fingerstyle 101: : Learn 8 Beautiful Fingerpicking patterns That Every Guitarist Should Know, then you will have come across this simple but wonderful sounding fingerpicking pattern.
Now you can watch the video too. Some guitarists learn better via video and some via tab and eBooks. Most however learn better with a combination of both, so get the eBook out and watch the video to learn this super cool pattern.
Wow, what a modern classic this is. I love the guitar part to this. That intro is very lush, distinctive and down right groovy.
The song is tuned (from low to high) E,A,D,E,B,E which is a little unusual but just goes to show how Ed Sheeran thinks outside the box with his sophisticated guitar playing.
The chords are relatively simple due to the tuning of the song, but if you are like most players who are learning this you may want a little more help getting faster chord changes.