Active Melody

Learn to play blues guitar.

How to create a singer-songwriter fingerstyle composition on guitar – Guitar Lesson EP372

Description

In this week’s guitar lesson, you’ll learn how to create a James Taylor inspired guitar composition. In addition to explaining how the chords are put together, I’ll also show you how to use this percussive fingerstyle technique which adds both bass and rhythm to your chords. You can use this technique both while singing and playing guitar, or while simply playing solo guitar.

Part 1 - Free Guitar Lesson

Slow Walk-Through

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Comments

    • john T says

      Hi Brian I am new to your site and am loving your teaching style and all the knowledge you share.

      Love this tune and the beautiful chords you’ve chosen. JT is a hero of mine as well. What a legend!
      I was wondering if you have any advice about practice, specially regarding just not letting your fingers doing random chords that seem to ambush the piece I am learning and then getting into a bad habit.
      I m supposing other people have this difficulty but maybe its just me.
      Anyway love your work and looking forward to spending the year with you and the community.
      John T

  5. Noshan G says

    I had a hard time being a premium member of active melody because I live in a different part of the world and everything not so easy.I go and jam sometimes and people ask me,who is your guitar teacher,one day without me knowing my answer I said….”BRIAN”.All men hair is growing long…..Corona effect I guess.Namaste.

  10. magpie says

    Thanks for another fingerstyle play by your self acoustic melody. Interesting style that I will be working on and with plenty time on my hands I have no excuse to spend as much time practising to get it right. Many thanks again Brian.

  12. Rick R says

    I have always wanted to learn percussive hand techniques. Your instruction was clear and easy to understand. I’ve got the right rhythm nailed. And your right Brian, when broken into segments, it emerges fairly naturally. Great lesson.

  13. JoLa says

    The use of the same tonic bass note over the chords is a great takeaway, Brian! I would never figure that out myself even if I looked at the tab! I love when you explain those little hidden gems for us and let us put it into practice!

  14. kmdub44 says

    Just when I think you’ve offered the best lesson and sound yet, you come up with another just as incredible. I love this sound and being able to learn it. Where were these lessons 40 years ago?

  18. sunburst says

    Very cool enjoyed especially 7 minutes into this how you explain chord family tonic bass note with intervals..looking forward to practicing some this James Taylor style t tonight very nice

  23. sunburst says

    The percussion finger style explanation .. is the biggest take away here. I still played it but man..not use to this.. lol.. I finally think I got it going now .. btw great right hand technique .. I am going to do it exact eventually lol

  24. sunburst says

    The section starting five minutes into the intro is very cool”watch this ” D minor example reminds me of Mark Knopfler finger-style too “Sultan’s of Swing”.. yes I need to watch it a few more times.. something I see sublte is the wrist I admire here in this extraordinary lesson ..ty Brian for sharing man

  32. David G says

    I agree, James is completely under-rated as a fingerstyle guitar player. If I didn’t know this lesson was a James Taylor one, I’d have guessed it anyway because you nailed his later stylings. Not so much Sweet Baby James or Mud Slide Slim but maybe what we heard in JT.

  35. Robert G says

    I have a problem with your lesson approach. I consider myself to be a late beginner . As I watch every week I go to your 81 beginner lessons hoping you will add #82 but I consider what you usually teach is beyond my abilities. Like they are for the expert players like you, most of your students, and EC. It will take us beginners years for us to master your advanced 350 or so lessons . I would like you to balance your lessons 50% beginner, 50% advanced. Or ideally 80% beginner, 15% expert, and 5% advanced. That way everybody is a happy camper. I’m waiting !

  40. Desmond M says

    Can I suggest you make a ‘mark as watched’ tick box on your videos! I have completed a bunch of your lessons and I often get confused as to which ones I have done and which ones I still have to do.

  42. Barb S says

    Brian – I want to thank you so much for the full screen tab viewer since I have poor vision and cannot read the downloaded tab sheet. It has added so much to my enjoyment of learning and playing without having to struggle to read the tiny print.

    Take care and stay safe

  43. Rick M says

    Brian — on beats 2 & 4 when you strike the strings with the back of your fingernails, are you also adding percussive sound by thumping your wrist and/or the base of your thumb on the top of the guitar?

  44. Michael W says

    Hi Brian,

    First, i want to thank you for creating a great place for study and resource. It really is both. i am pretty accomplished in my narrow range and studying with you online has opened up the instrument to stuff i should have learned years ago. So thanks again. in this lesson my right hand wants to upstroke the strings in the “clawhammer” style that is reflexive to me while still hitting the A in the bass. The tone seems fine to me as are the ergonomics. Is there any great advantage to using your method of brushing down? It will require many hours of practice on my part to get there.

  45. Phip says

    Have really enjoyed this as an aspiring picker and after battling this for a bit and play something else my fingers seem to be more adept/agile at doing what I want ’em to.

    That F#7 bar kills me though. Cannot (or have not yet) gotten that solid tone, which is a real DUD in the middle. I work on my placement and figure it will come with perhaps more strength even though I’m pretty rigorous/daily in my work. I start to wonder if my left index (bones/skin?) is just not made for doing this. Any suggestions are welcome!

  46. Ancil K says

    Brian -Great lesson. Just wondering when you slap the strings with your right hand to get the percussive sound, are you simultaneously muting the strings with your left hand? I’ve been playing guitar many years but have never been able to master the percussive technique. Are there any other lessons where you devote some time to this technique?

  47. Anton D says

    Que’stion Brian if you don’t mind. Why do use your ring finger (4th finger) instead of the third one?
    I find myself instinctively using my third finger and it is much easier for me. Is there any advantage to using the fourth finger?

  48. Pat says

    I’m getting it! After a week of practice I’m beginning to feel that I can tap my head and rub my tummy at the same time! also better with the right hand technique with this lesson!

  50. ZagerGuitarFan says

    New here today. You said you weren’t going into thumb/finger (picking) placement (as that would bog down this lesson), but that can be found on the tab. I cannot find it on the tab. I might add that if bogging the lesson down was the major concern, I think a better in-depth right hand instruction would trump the extraneous information found while tramping out into the high weeds with the diatribe about James Taylor, Christopher Cross, the “Walk Don’t Run” excursion, etc. So, PLZ, for the sake of us “slow-hands” PREMIUM MEMBERS, feel free to spend a little more time on the thumb/finger placement (picking) technique (that this whole lesson was about to begin with) as opposed to the extraneous stuff. We love your playing, stye, skill, and technique, and (some of us, anyway) would just be happy as pigs in soft mud if you would “bog the lesson down” with that stuff instead. Thanks, Brian!

  51. Darrell Arnold says

    It’s super helpful how you keep building material from previous lessons into the new ones. And I really appreciate you repeating segments of this after working through a chunk of the material and completing the whole thing again at the end. These lessons are super helpful. Thanks so much.

  52. NICOLAS S says

    Thanks Brian.
    I can’t tell you how grateful I am for this little piece of guitar.
    I appreciate your latest lessons. These 12 or 15 latest lessons have taken me to another level of understanding and techniques in a really fun and nice way.
    Merci.

  55. Jim S says

    Brian, The finger style lesson EP 372, I am having trouble where to strike the string or strings with my ring finger after the first snap of the strings. I have the Thumb- Index -Snap down but the sound gets sloppy trying to know where to strike with my ring finger then do the T-I Snap again. I have been practicing with “Danny’ Song” by Kenny Logins which also has the Taylor percussion snap to the song. Can you give me some instructions. I love the rhythm of my hand when I practice for a while

  61. Peter Griffin says

    Very nice melody and lesson, however I’m having a bit of difficulty understanding the percussive technique that you use.
    It’s hard to tell if you are just hitting only the base strings with your fingernails ?
    Also wondering if you are muting the strings with the side of your palm while
    you are striking the strings ?

    Thank you

  62. Colin C says

    I’m a complete newbie to your lessons but already really like your teaching style Brian. I wasn’t sure where to jump in with so many existing lessons and the temptation is to dip in and out and perhaps not actually see anything through, which has been MY style for ever. I love James Taylor and was pleased to accidentally come across this lesson. I’m going to give it a serious go although there are things I know will take a while, and I’m an impatient guy! This is my website colinsongs.info, so perhaps as a singer songwriter this lesson will really help. Thanks so far Brian. BTW is there a recommended way to approach the lessons as a progressive learning thing or is it designed to dip and delve according to interest? Colin

    • Dave C says

      Hi Colin, I’m also a relative newbie and yes, it took me a while but I looked under weekly lessons and looked thru all the lessons Brian has marked as “easy” until I found some that where more to my capability. Also I went into some theory like “Circle of fifths” which helped my understanding. Then I saved them under favorites here which makes it easy to find them again. All though there is no single way to approach it the lessons are all catalouged quit well. Cheers

  63. jboy says

    Colin…I think that you are on the something.I believe that this site is not for newbies…simply because there is no road map as to how to use it…all the resources are there to learn .that is for sure. I have been thinking about calling Brian to ask him if he had thought about creating a ” road map for newbies”….I would start with the concept of chord families and expand from there….bon voyage 😘👍

  64. Dave C says

    Beautiful song Brian, I can hear Taylor and Clapton in there too. I’ve been strumming and picking for years but this method is much harder than it looks. When I eventually get it I’ll show off to my children. 🙂

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