Tips on How to Fingerpick

"So, the main thing I hoped you learned from this is that, even though there are a few kind of guidelines and a few parameters that you use when you play country blues, we've named what they are. Right? That your right hand separates what the thumb is doing from what the other fingers are doing. Your thumb is always kind of on the beat, especially on the downbeat, usually playing the root or the third, or the fifth or some combination of them. Whereas, your other fingers, the other four fingers, or two or three or however many you decide to use based on your own comfort, sometimes they're on the beat, sometimes they're off the beat, syncopated. Left hand, you can just hold the chord by itself or you can add notes or take notes away as you see fit, you know. Do hammer ons, do pull offs, you know. Really learning to play music is listening to kind of the source material. Knowing how to combine kind of several techniques and kind of doing it your own way. And so, I'm just going to finish up by kind of playing some of these songs, kind of the way I do them and, you know, I'm sure you'll develop your own versions of this stuff too. So, let's see. "Baby let me be your salty dog. I know you don't need no man at all. Hey, hey, won't you be my salty dog. I say, one, two, three, four, five, six, how did you get me in this fix. Hey, hey, you salty dog." So like, so let's see, what's next. Let me get on F here. "Won't you lay me a pallet on your floor. Won't you lay me a pallet on your floor. Lay me a pallet right there on your floor. Lay me a pallet on your floor." Here's another one I like in C, actually it goes from C to G. "Miss Collins weep, Miss Collins moan, to see her poor son, Louis, leaving home. The angels laid him away. The angels laid him away. Laid him six feet underneath the clay. The angels laid him away." Let's see, the "Stagger Lee Blues" kind of goes like...wait a minute, I'm messing it up. Here we go. Right, like that. "Police officer, how can it be, you arrested everybody but cruel Stagger Lee. He's a bad man, that cruel stack of lean. Billy Lyon told Stagger Lee, please don't take my life. See I've got two little babies and a darling, loving wife. That bad man, old cruel Stagger Lee." Well, here we go, wait, "Sliding Delta," is that whole, this is the one I like the best. It's the, "The sliding Delta run right by my door. Well, I'm leaving here. Honey, don't you want to go? I'm leaving here. Honey, don't you want to go? Yeah, I'm going up the country and I ain't coming back no more. My suitcase is packed. My trunk's already gone. So, tell me, Sugar, what in the world you waiting on?" So, it goes on and on. I mean, I can sit and play these all day long with, you know, until your fingers bleed and they probably will. So keep it up and good luck."