Alternating Thumb Fingerpicking on Ukulele

Alternating Thumb Fingerpicking on Ukulele

With a guarantee of being the most comprehensive, organized, and complete series of lessons available, you'll discover a valuable resource for learning this technique on the ukulele.

1
Alternating Thumb Style, Building a Solid Foundation - The Basics
As the subtitle of this Fingerpicking Basics lesson for Ukulele implies, this lesson’s focus is on the alternating thumb part of the style. Commonly called Travis Picking on guitar and Scrugg's Style for banjo. For guitar it’s an alternating bass note style with the thumb playing the lower, bass notes. For ukulele, without any real bass notes, the thumb handles the lower two strings, four and three.
The alternating thumb fingerpicking style works in any tuning.
2
Alternating Thumb Style, Thumb and One Finger - Level One
In this lesson we’re introducing the index finger once to the alternating thumb pattern mastered in the Alternate Thumb Fingerpicking Style - Introduction. There are four possible patterns when adding the index finger once in common or cut time.
3
Alternating Thumb Style, Thumb and One Finger - Level Two
In this lesson we’re introducing the index finger twice to the alternating thumb pattern mastered in the Alternate Thumb Fingerpicking Style - Introduction. There are six possible patterns in common or cut time.
4
Alternating Thumb Style, Thumb and One Finger - Level Three
In this lesson we’re introducing the index finger three times to the alternating thumb pattern mastered in the Alternate Thumb Fingerpicking Style - Introduction. There are three possible patterns in common or cut time.
5
Alternating Thumb Style, Thumb and One Finger - Level Four
Lesson Four, Thumb and One Finger - Level Four builds on the primer by using the thumb and index combination on all four beats.
There is only one possible variation in this lesson.
6
Alternating Thumb Style, Thumb and One Finger - The Middle Finger
In this lesson we’re reolacing the index finger with the middle finger for the patterns mastered in chapters/lessons two, three and four.
7
Alternating Thumb Style, Thumb and Two Fingers - Level Two
In this lesson we’re introducing the middle finger to the fingerpicking patterns mastered in chapter/lessons four. There are six possible patterns in common or cut time.
8
Alternating Thumb Style, Thumb and Two Fingers - Level Three
In this lesson we're introducing the middle finger to the fingerpicking patterns mastered in lesson/chapter four. There's three patterns in common or cut time.
9
Alternating Thumb Style, Thumb and Two Fingers - Level Four
In this lesson we're introducing the middle finger to the fingerpicking patterns mastered in lesson/chapter five. There's only one pattern in common or cut time. this pattern is demonstarted on the four possible string orders.
10
Alternating Thumb Style, The Pinch
All the previous lessons in the Fingerpicking for Ukulele, Alternating Thumb Style series where melodic, single notes only. This lesson introduces The Pinch, where any one of the thumb/index finger or thumb/middle finger combinations can be played together - harmonically.
11
Alternating Thumb Style, Rhythmic Variations
Rhythmic variations can be incorporated into this style of fingerpicking, creating a variety of syncopated patterns. All previous patterns were steady in nature, with the thumb alternating and playing on every downbeat.
Many of the following patterns are syncopated, creating rhythmic variety.
12
Alternating Thumb Style, Additional Time Signatures
The patterns in the previous chapters were all in 4/4, common time with four beats per measure or pattern. The alternating thumb fingerpicking style can be used with additional time signatures.
A time signature is placed at the beginning of a score or piece of music and indicates the number of beats in a measure and the type of note to receive one beat. A time signature is represented as stacked numerals where the top number is the number of beats in a measure and the bottom number is the type of note to receive one beat.
12
Alternating Thumb Style, More Rhythmic Variations
More rhythmic variations can be incorporated into this style of fingerpicking, creating a variety of syncopated patterns.
14
Alternating Thumb Style, Banjo Rolls on Ukulele
Previous lessons covered a lot of material. With all the patterns starting with the thumb on string four and also suggested exploring the patterns starting with the thumb on string three.
You can also start with the index or middle finger. This is a big part of the technique of rolls, very popular on banjo and styles of music such as bluegrass where the banjo is prominent instrument.
In bluegrass music, a banjo roll or roll is a repeated accompaniment pattern of eighth notes. Each roll pattern is a right hand fingering pattern, which can be played while holding any chord position.
Rolls are a core technique on banjo and can be adapted to ukulele. They sound especially cool on a ukulele in the high G, re-entrant 'C' tuning. The re-entrant tuning is a similar setup to the 5-string banjo's tuning with the lowest string not the lowest note.
15
Alternating Thumb Style, Embellishments
Hammer-ons, Pull-offs, and Slides are the most basic embellishments and an integral part of rock, folk, country, bluegrass, and pop music styles.
16
Alternating Thumb Style, Reading TAB
Tablature, or "TAB" for short, is a musical notation system for indicating instrument fingering rather than musical pitches in the standard music tradition.
Tablature is common for fretted stringed instruments such as the lute, vihuela, or guitar. Tablature has been around for centuries and was common during the Renaissance and Baroque eras.
17
Alternating Thumb Style, Remembering the Patterns
In addition to the individual rhythmic make-up of the pattern which is represented in the Standard Music Notation. Musical direction and the strings can help in remembering the patterns. The string pattern can really help with getting the plucking hand to actually execute the pattern as intended.
18
Alternating Thumb Style, Patterns Summary
Summary of the core Alternating Thumb patterns from the Alternating Thumb Fingerpicking for Ukulele book.
19
Alternating Thumb Style, Additional Practice Material
Additional Practice Material
Additional practice material for developing and exploring the possibilities of the alternating thumb on ukulele no found in the book.
20
Alternating Thumb Style Series - Videos
Fingerpicking for Ukulele – Alternating Thumb Style videos all in one place. The videos are FREE to view for the months of April and May. After that they are for site members with Premium Site Access only.