It’s Finger Pickin’ Good!

Presented by

Colonel Chicken Katsu

Contents• Right Hand Position and Nail Care

• Finger Picking Notation

• Ukulele Tablature

• Three Finger Picking

• Four Finger Picking

“Brother John”

“London Bridge”

• Finger Picking Multiple Notes

“Skip To My Lou”

“Buffalo Gals”

• Playing triplets“Row, Row, Row Your Boat”“He’s Got The Whole World”

• Finger Picking Strum & Arpeggio• Finger Picking Variations

“This Old Man”“Yellow Bird” – duet sheet music“Stairway To Heaven” – sheet music“Hotel California” – sheet music

• Arpeggios with open string chords

• Power Tab Editor• Arrangements by Katsu

“Silent Night” – sheet music“Sakura (Cherry Blossoms)” – sheet music

“Aura Lee” – sheet music

Right Hand Position & Nail Care

• The thumb and three largest fingers of the right hand pluck the strings. The normal position is for the hand to be shaped as if it were loosely holding an apple with the wrist slightly bent, the forearm resting on the upper large bout of the guitar, and the fingers near the strings.

• A good tone is produced by a combination of fingernail and flesh striking the string, as well as a broad, rounded contact surface on the nail itself.

Elements that affect volume and tone

• length, shape and surface of your fingernails affects

• curvature, smoothness, and hardness of the nail

Nail hardener – to help strengthen nails, multiple layers can be applied

Nail file – to help smoothen out nail shape to get optimum tone

Finger Picking Notation

• Classical guitar music uses the following notation (these letters are abbreviations of their Spanish words):

P = Pulgar = Thumb

I = Indice = Index finger

M = Medio = Middle finger

A = Anular = Ring fingerpp

mmaa ii

!!

Ukulele Tablature (Uke Tab)• Tablature is used to represent music for

string instruments with frets.

Advantages of tablature

• easier to learn to read than standard music notation

• specifies fret number for each note

• specifies which string to play a particular note (it is possible to play the same note on different strings on the ukulele)

The numbers that appear on the tab indicate which string to play and what fret to play it at

The number 1 indicates that the string should be played at the first fret. Playing the E string at the first fret gives us an F note

Each of the horizontal lines represents a string on the ukulele. The top line of the tab is the A string, below that is the E string, below that is the C string and the bottom line of the tab is G string

Open strings – ones played without fretting a note at all –are indicated by a 0. In this case the E string will be played without fretting a note

Whole chords can be written the same way, such as the F chord in the diagram

Three Finger Picking

Three finger picking involves playing the top two G and C strings with the thumb (p), the third E string with the index finger (i), and the bottom A string with the middle finger (m). The thumb can move between the top two G and C strings

p i m p i m p m i m p m i m

Four Finger Picking

p i m a p i m a p i m a p i m a

Four finger picking involves playing the top G string with the thumb (p), the second C string with the index finger (i), the third E string with the middle finger (m) and the bottom A string with the ring finger (a). Each finger is assigned a specific string

“Brother John”

(played with C chord only)

Are you sleeping? Are you sleeping?

Brother John, Brother John

Morning bells are ringing! Morning bells are ringing!

Din-dan-don, Din-dan-don

Four Finger Picking Patterns for “Brother John”

These finger picking patterns can be applied to any chords and therefore be used for any song

Make sure each note in the finger picking pattern is played clean and clear

“London Bridge”

Apply the 3 finger and 4 finger picking patterns to a two chord song:

(C) London Bridge is (C) falling down

(G7) Falling down, (C) falling down

(C) London Bridge is (C) falling down

(G7) My fair (C) lady!

Finger Picking Multiple Notes

Multiple notes can be finger picked at the same time in order to play chord arrangements, while incorporating single note finger picking as well. In this example the thumb (p) alternates between the top G string and second C string, while the index finger (i) and middle finger (m) play the third E string and bottom A string

“Skip To My Lou”

(C) Choose your partner (C) skip to my Lou

(G7) Choose your partner (G7) skip to my Lou

(C) Choose your partner (C) skip to my Lou

(G7) Skip to my Lou my (C) darling!

“Buffalo Gals”

(C) I was walking (C) down the street,

(G7) down the street, (C) down the street a

(C) handsome gal I (C) chanced to meet oh

(G7) she was fair to (C) see

(C) Buffalo gals won’t you (C) come out tonite,

(G7) come out tonite, (C) come out tonite

(C) Buffalo gals won’t you (C) come out tonite and

(G7) dance by the light of the (C) moon

Playing Triplets

Playing triplets involves finger picking three notes consecutively within the time of one quarter note (one beat). In this example a four finger picking pattern is arranged for an arpeggio. Arpeggio style playing is especially beautiful when used as an accompaniment to a ballad

Row, Row, Row Your Boat

(C) Row, row, (C) row your boat

(C) Gently down the (C) stream

(C) Merrily, merrily, (C) merrily, merrily

(G7) Life is but a (C) dream

He’s Got The Whole World

He’s got the (C) whole world (C) in his hands

He’s got the (G7) whole world (G7) in his hands

He’s got the (C) whole world (C) in his hands

He’s got the (G7) whoel world (C) in his hands

Finger Picking Strum & Arpeggio

Finger picking strum involves playing multiple strings in a strum manner, with a different finger plucking each string. When combined with arpeggios consisting of single note plucking, it is possible to play arrangements that incorporate both a strum and finger picking sound with just one ukulele

Finger Picking Variations“This Old Man”

Arpeggios With Open String Chords

Open string chords adding elements such as major 7th suspended 4th notes can sound beautiful when played as arpeggios with finger picking. They can have a jazzy, new age, sophisticated or romantic sound and feel

Note how the chord slides down one fret each measure, while keeping the bottom A string as an open string, which creates the additional 6th, 7th and major 7th flavors. For the last A chord hold the second fret on the top G string with the ring finger and the first fret on the second C string with the middle finger

Power Tab Editor

Power Tab Editor is freeware that allows ukulele players to generate ukulele tablature sheet music. The following features are available:

- Tune each string (ie. GCEA, DGBE)

- Specify number of strings (3-7)

- Add chord names (Cmaj7+5, Bm6, etc)

- Add and edit chord diagrams

- Add musical symbols (ritardando, dynamics, etc)

- Add tab symbols (hammer-on, harmonics, etc)

- Add strum rhythm patterns

- Add additional text

- Copy and paste

- Generate PDF document with PDF995

Thank You!

Katsu shows how NOT to play the ukulele