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Fingerstyle Chord Tip: Two-Finger Voicings

Lesson #249 • Aug 2, 2019

Video Lesson

Instructional PDF 2 pages

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It includes all of my notes for this lesson, allowing you to follow along at your own pace. You're free to download, print, and share the PDF across your devices.

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About This Lesson

In this lesson I’ll show you how to play every chord in the key of C using only two fingers (for both right and left hands). For the past decade, this has been a favorite technique to use when I pick up the guitar and simply want to loosely play around.

While this technique obviously can’t be used in all scenarios, it’s still a great trick to learn that can be used for warming up, finger strength, improvisation, and even certain songs (such as Blackbird). I’ll show you tabs for these chords, show a fretboard map, explain the difference in major vs. minor chord shapes, and show a few examples of how to spice it up.

Putting It To Use in Blackbird

Without doubt, the most famous use of this chord shape is in Blackbird by the Beatles. I have two lessons looking at this song, which are linked below. The first does a step-by-step walkthrough of the chord shapes and some suggested first-steps for practicing. The second video is a full-on tutorial, covering the entire song from start to finish.

Fingerpicking "Blackbird" - First Steps

★ Instructional PDF

"Blackbird" by The Beatles

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