Advanced Alternating Thumb

The examples below takes the alternative thumb technique covered earlier to a more advanced level of complexity.

In the exercise below, the alternating thumb creates most of the accompaniment, and the melody at the top is played by the m or a finger. You will notice that the second melody note in each bar is played on the offbeat of beat 2, tied across to beat 3.

The placing of notes on offbeats, and the placing of ties across beats or barlines, is called syncopation. Syncopated fingerpicked notes can be tricky because most fingerpicking starts on the beat, followed by continuous offbeat notes.

This example uses upper-voiced triads with the steady thumb technique.