Ukulele MASTERCLASS || Learn any arpeggio piece / fingerpicking pattern GUARANTEED
This is a masterclass part of my Ukulele Fingerstyle Pro course that I decided to share with all of you to help you conquer any arpeggio or fingerpicking pattern you encounter, and to give you a taste of the material we talk about in the Pro course.
This is a 5-step method I use in both my Basics and Pro course to break down arpeggio etudes into their simpler parts and then put the whole thing together .This is a guaranteed approach to learning those pieces and can be applied as well to chord progressions played with a fingerpicking pattern instead of strumming since these are essentially over simplified arpeggio etudes.
Step #1 - We begin by isolating the right hand and figuring out the fingerpicking pattern.
A. Mute all notes or convert them to open notes to completely negate the left-hand.
B. Figure out which fingers you want to use for the pattern. Resist the urge to apply PIMA to strings 4, 3, 2 and 1. In my Basics and Pro courses I go through over why that's bad for you and cover many contexts where alternates are better options.
C. Write those fingerings down and FOLLOW THEM!
Step #2 - Isolate the melody
A. Melody is usually with stems pointing up. However, most arpeggios mix the melodic with inner layer notes together so you have to use ears, eyes, and experience to isolate those melodic notes.
B. Highlight the melody on the score.
C. Practice playing the melodic line until you're comfortable playing it from start to finish, and have some ideas as to how you want to perform it (ie dynamics, rubato, phrasing, etc)
Step 1 and 2 can be applied anytime during the process, simultaneously or together if you'd like. Step 3 to 5 are chronological and must be done in order:
Step #3 - Identify the chord shapes from the tabs. In my courses we go over how to scan a tab and come up with the sum of notes in that tab to produce a chord shape. This is a complicated topic so I'll leave it for now but the goal of this step is to know all the left hand chord shapes you'll be required to play.
Step #4 - Play those chord shapes in block chord format. This is more difficult than the next step because block chords required ALL left-hand fingers to move at the same time.
Step#5 - Play the arpeggios as written! this is easier than step#4 but it is not simply playing the pattern to the chord shapes! if you did that, you'd have pauses between the chords and you'll never sound legato (and I'd argue, never sound good!).
To execute this you have to plan out which finger moves to which notes, when, and why! I discuss this in this tutorial and in depth in my courses.