Chords for Fingerpick Any Song on the Ukulele for Beginners - Easy Fingerpicking Exercises

[G] Hey everyone, [Bm] it's Katie with One Music School and today I'm going to teach you some [Em] basic finger picking patterns
And by the [C] end of this lesson, you will be able to finger pick any song that you [G] like
Now the first thing that we're going to do is we're going to finger [Bm] pick on quarter notes
So [C] it's just the actual beat one two
Three four this [G] is incredibly [D] important because once we add something [Em] called a metronome
[C] It's going to make [G] so much more [Bb] sense and it's going to make your finger picking [Em] cleaner when you actually [C] try it
So I'm going to use a [Bm] metronome that I have on my phone.
It's called [C] seven metronome and
I like it because it's clean.
It's simple and it's free
[G] You can find a [Bb] bunch of different [Eb] metronomes that are free on your app store also online
It's a great resource to have and I highly encourage that you practice with a metronome regularly
So the first chord that I'm going to be using is a C chord
I'm going to take finger number three and place it on the third fret of the a string and then my [E] right hand is going
To be in charge of a certain string and I say that because it's not going to move to a different string for this basic
finger picking exercise
My thumb is never going to leave the C string
Finger number one or the pointer fingers never going to leave [Cm] that E string and my middle finger is going to be in charge of
the A string
So I'm going to pluck with my thumb
So I apply a little bit of pressure and I pluck down on [Fm] the C string and then with [E] my pointer in middle
I'm going to be plucking up [C] like that
So it would be one two three four
_ One two three four now, I'm going to add the metronome that's going to be very important
Now _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ the second thing you have to do is subdivide
So you take that beat and you [Ab] chop it into smaller equal parts
So the next [E] subdivision of a quarter note would be an eighth note.
So one two, three
Four becomes one and two and three and [Eb] four and so the basic finger picking pattern
We're basically going to double it [C] in speed
One and two and three and four and one and two and three and four
And let's try that with the metronome
So _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [Ebm] the next step would [C] be to add your pointer finger.
So first just on the quarter notes, it would be one two three four
one two three
Four so we have thumb
pointer
middle
Pointer and then we go back to thumb
pointer middle
Pointer, let's try it with the metronome _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ now.
You can use that same finger picking pattern while you're switching chords
It's actually really quite simple.
[B] I just avoid this string right here
That's tuned to the high G if it's tuned to a low G, it sounds just a little bit more fluid
You could still pick with this one.
But just for the basic part, we're just going to focus on these three strings right here
so I'm going to choose a chord progression from C to F to C to G and
What's going to happen is I'm going to hold my fingers in the chord position
So just in case my thumb accidentally plucks this string right here
It's going to sound like you meant to do it because your fingers are in the chord.
So you really can't lose
Let's start with the quarter note finger picking pattern
[C] one two three four
one two three four
F
[F] one two three four
one two three
[C] Four back to C one two three four one two three
four G [G] one two three four one two three four
Let's try it with the metronome
_ _ _ [C] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[F] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ [C] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [G] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [C] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [F] _ _ _ [C] _
_ _ _ [G] _ _ _ _ [C] _
_ _ _ _ [F] _ _ _ [C] _
_ _ _ [G] _ _ _ _ [C] _
_ [G] You
And that's it those are two [Bm] basic finger picking patterns that you can [Em] use as a beginner
Of course, there are more complicated ones that you can use you can switch between [G] quarter notes and between eighth notes to switch it up
[Bm] It's really really [C] simple.
Just start off slow.
Don't try to go too fast and eventually you can always speed it up
[D] I'll see in the next one.