This guitar learning techique will teach you how to fingerpick folk-style, but in a Latin rhythm in the key of A. This Latin rhythm has eight quick beats to the measure, and is accented on the first, the fourth, and the seventh beats.



This guitar lesson will focus on using your right hand, and your thumb will play the accented beats. Your fingers will follow. Finger number one, the index finger, is to pluck the third string on beats two, five, and eight, and fingers two and three will pluck the second and first strings together on beats three and six.

In the following acoustic guitar lesson, you will chord an A for the first sample. To keep it simple, let's take the beats one at a time...

Acoustic Guitar Lesson - 7 Steps to Chord an A:

1) First, the thumb plucks the open A string for a bass note.

2) Next, finger one plucks the third string, which is sounding an A.

3) Then fingers two and three pluck strings two and one together. These two notes will be a C-sharp and the open top E string.

4) Now the thumb immediately plucks string four, which is an E and works as an alternate bass string. That's beat 4.

5) Now beat five is just like beat two, with finger one plucking string three.

6) Beat six is just like beat three, with fingers two and three plucking the top two strings.

7) On beat seven, use the thumb to pluck the third string, then finish up with fingers two and three plucking the top two strings again.

When you've practiced the acoustic guitar lesson above a few times, it will become second nature to you to pluck this Latin rhythm.

Your next part of this acoustic guitar lesson is to try the same finger picking pattern using an E chord. Since the open sixth string is your bass note, you'll pluck it on beat one. Follow through with the rest of the measure in the same pattern, except your thumb plucks the fifth string on beat four and the fourth string on beat seven. When you've mastered the E chord the acoustic guitar lesson moves on to the D chord. With D, you can just use the fourth string for your thumb-plucked bass note each time.

Acoustic Guitar Lesson Tip:

Here's a fast acoustic guitar lesson secret for making the above finger-picking style of guitar playing a little fancier. Chord an A. Here's how...

When you pluck the fourth beat of the measure lift your chording finger - it's the ring finger on your left hand. Lift it and then press it while plucking. You'll get a little slur at the start of the note. This sounds great when you build speed up. Try the same little trick when playing the key of E, too. It will be finger two that you will be lifting.

Finally in this free acoustic guitar lesson for you, put everything together in a chord sequence. Play A for two measures, then D for two measures. Play E for two measures, then back to D for two measures, then A to finish up.