Finger Picking Arpeggios on a Twelve String Guitar

Video Transcript

"Hi! I’m John Armstrong with expertvillage.com. I’m a professional guitar instructor and today we’ll be going over the 12 string guitar. Okay, another way in which I can do arpeggios on the 12 string instead of using the pick, I can finger pick. Many different finger picking patterns, but basically all finger picking allows you or enables you to do is to pick some outside notes and fill them with some inside notes. So mine is having to strum all the notes in between, you’re just picking 2 notes simultaneously and then following up with a group of individual notes. Some common finger picking patterns are the kind of the dust in the wind style finger picking pattern or what’s referred to as a cotton picking pattern where the thumb and middle fingers on the right hand pick 2 strings simultaneously and is followed by thumb, index, thumb, middle, index, middle. Now in order to finger properly, you may need to grow to some extent some finger nail on the right hand. Especially with the 12 string, because it’s really hard to kind of get your fingers to strike those strings with the nail. By using a little more nail, it enables the right hand to kind of strike those strings together at the same time on a little bit more evenly of a tone or pressure. "