Consolidation Fingerstyle Piece

In our final lesson, we will be combining the techniques and ideas of previous lessons to play an exciting percussive finger-style piece.

Tuning: D - G - D - G - Bb - D

In the first section, we start with hammer-ons to highlight chords, plus adding kick and snare sounds in the areas of rest. The hammer-ons play an important role, as we are able to share the rhythm between both our hands.

Top tip - The effect of percussive elements, like the kick and snare, can be bigger when used sparingly or in this case, we build up to them after we have established the resting moment.

Transitioning into the second section as a percussive element, we use our picking hand to pick and fret hand to slap on muted strings, with less focus on actual notes. To finish this section, we use a finger-roll technique to ring out a chord for a full bar.

For the next section section of this piece, we start with tapping, then into slap-bass notes and finish with a slapped harmonic down the 12th fret.

Top tip - We can keep our picking hand mostly of the fretboard for this entire section, where taps and slaps are progressing the rhythm and melody.

Returning to strumming, we have a quick burst of 16th note strums and string slaps that compliment each other well in a start-stop fashion.

Immediately after, we finish this piece with lovely artificial harmonic taps, where the chord shape dictates the frets we need to tap on.

Top tip - When fretting notes, we essentially move the 12th fret harmonic position. Remember to imagine the chord higher up the neck to help know where is best to tap!