Below is the lesson for “Fingerpicking Etude no. 11”.

Helpful Tips

In this ukulele etude, you will be working to develop precision in your right hand picking and strumming attack. There are two concepts we will be focusing on:

1) Using the palm of the right hand to mute the strings that we do not want to hear (and are not playing). This concept is vital to grasp if you perform through an amplifier, as the speaker(s) will amplify a “hum” from open strings. Muting will help to produce a cleaner sound.

2) Developing an even picking and strumming attack. It’s important to maintain an even timbre when performing complex parts that interchange between picking, strumming, and percussive hits. We do not want one of the three to overshadow the others.

As the goal of this etude is to develop the right hand, the piece itself was composed to be more simplistic; consisting of only 3 chords in the key of A: A (1) D (4) E (5). There are two themes in this etude, each theme comprising 8 bars in length.

Part 1 – Performance & Free Lesson

Tab Play Along