Below is the lesson for “Fingerpicking Etude no. 18”.

Helpful Tips

This cute sounding etude will help you develop these two concepts: playing with a swung rhythm and playing eighth note triplets. If you are new to understanding the difference between playing with a straight rhythm vs. a swung rhythm, check out this lesson. Likewise, if you are new to understanding the rhythm behind eighth note triplets, check out this lesson. Lastly, this song uses a triplet strum near the end of the piece. Here’s a great lesson from Jake Shimabukuro which teaches the mechanics behind this technique.

I also want to point out that the lesson video teaches a slightly simplified version of AJ’s performance. As such, I’ve included 2 tabs and 2 on-screen tab viewers. One for the simplified version, and one for the performance version. I’d recommend learning the simplified version before learning the performance version. The differences between the two is a great example on how you can add slight variations to arrangements to make them unique to you.

Part 1 – Performance & Free Lesson

Tab Play Along