Adding Fills to a Fingerstyle Groove (ft. "Good Time Charlie's Got The Blues")

In this week's lesson, you'll learn how to take an easy-going fingerstyle sequence (Key of G) and dress it up with melodic phrases & fills — all coming from the G major scale. The result is a catchy, low-key groove that's easy to jump in to and get running with. This is a terrific exercise if you're interested in learning Travis Picking, or likewise curious about creating your own improvisational fingerstyle arrangements.

Free Video Lesson

Instructional PDF 2 pages

A visual companion to help you follow this lesson. Expands on what I teach in my video with step-by-step guidance, easy-to-follow graphics, and practical tips.

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Follow along with the print-friendly guide!

A visual companion to help you follow this lesson. Expands on what I teach in my video with step-by-step guidance, easy-to-follow graphics, and practical tips.

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Lead Guitar Study

Here’s a quick bonus video, where I take the lead fills from my free video and tackle them on my electric guitar. I also show the process of transposing those same riffs up an octave (out of open position), which is a handy skill that’s worth learning. The tabs for this are included in my print-friendly PDF above.

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Jam Track

If you want to play along with a drum track, as I show in my video lesson, you can use this audio file. It loops over a 4-count drumming pattern. Simply press play and jump in at any time… see my video lesson for an example!

Normal tempo - 88bpm (download):

Slow tempo - 76bpm (download):

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The Inspiration For This Lesson

Michael over on my Patreon page sent over a request for the 1972 classic Goodtime Charlie’s Got the Blues, a song which I’d never heard before. As I listened to a few different artist’s take on it, the easy-going groove sunk its claws into me. While my lesson above doesn’t teach the precise heard in this song, I definitely drew some inspiration from this original recording. I’ve love to teach this song at some point, but in the meantime please enjoy these clips from the original artist and a few others who have covered it.


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Fingerstyle Riffs & Exercises

Title (short)
YouTube URL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHFTCTTmc2E
Thumbnail (video)
Video thumbnail for Adding Fills to a Fingerstyle Groove (ft.
Thumbnail (pdf)
PDF thumbnail for Adding Fills to a Fingerstyle Groove (ft.
Slug
443
Lesson URL
/lessons/443/
PDF num pages
2
Patreon URL
https://www.patreon.com/posts/68739556
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n/a
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