Below is the lesson for Fingerpicking Etude no. 33: “Pacing & Space”.

Helpful Tips

This bluesy fingerpicking etude teaches how to play with pacing and space. So what do we mean by space? Often, when we’re playing music, we feel like we have to fill all of the space with notes or chords. In other words, there can be no pauses or gaps in the music. But sometimes, having some dead space in the music adds a lot to the music! This is best demonstrated in measures 1 and 2:

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Listen to these two measures.

The second thing that this piece teaches you is pacing. Pacing, at its simplest definition, is the speed at which a composition is to be played. In other words, the tempo. But let’s dive deeper than that for this etude. Think of pacing as the overall vibe and feeling that a piece of music sets out to convey. For this song, we want to convey a slow, chill groove.

Part 1 – Performance & Free Lesson

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