IMPROVE Your Fingerpicking: 3-Finger Triplet | Seagull Merlin & Strumstick
This is fingerpicking pattern is common enough, but the meter you might use it on (3/4,or just general triplet feel), is far less common than quarter time (4/4). But because it's so natural to the hand and muscle coordination, as well as how it partners with the 3-Finger Roll and the 2-Finger Claw, it's good to have it in your bag of tricks.
Pair this with the 2-Finger Claw picking style You're starting to build a tool kit now!
Make sure to keep your right hand in a natural position such that your finger movements are not any different than they would be if you were simply flexing your fingers in and out. This will work for all sorts of stick dulcimers, including Strumstick, Seagull Merlin, and pickin' sticks. (And guitars, ukuleles, etc)
Make use of our FREE song guides and cheat sheets
Our "Dulcimer Guitar Chords Cheat Sheet" is really useful, so I recommend you check it out and get strumming along on your stick dulcimer guitar.
Transcription:
Hey before we get going I got a favor to ask, could you subscribe and click on the bell so when I have new videos that come out you'll get them and could you leave a comment. If you could do those things that would help me out a lot.
Thanks, alright, today I'm going to look at a couple ways you can change up finger patterns for your right hand based on a previous lesson that I had this one's going to be what I would call a triplet feel or kind of a waltz feel depending on how fast you want to play it. That means that we're just going to use these three fingers without doing a rolling pattern like we did in
the last lesson [Music]. That's what we did the last time boom boom boom boom instead this time we're just going to go boom boom boom boom boom.
This is probably going to be a less common use for you because a lot of songs are written in four or four more far more songs are written in 4 4 time which is conducive to the then are written in a triplet feel which is the dun dun dun.
But I want you to know it because you might find a way to use it that is adding an interest point to your arrangement which i'll look at in a second.
Ready to Add a New Seagull Merlin to Your Collection? Check Our Selection!
So first the coordination, now if you haven't seen the previous video go back and look at that, that's finger picking in a more roll fashion is how I've called it. First things first though just to recap remember your hand needs to be kind of
like this on the instrument so it's natural and you're just doing boom boom boom boom boom boom. You're wanting your motion to be just like your hand would normally have that motion it would look like that and instead of doing we want to do. That means your beat is on the the downbeat the way I'm doing
it the downbeat is on where your thumb will be, so one two three one two three one two three one two three some people count that triple it triple
it triple triple it triple a two pull it three pull it four pull it. That's how you might think about it so you get that down again match it up against a metronome try and keep your rhythm on your right hand absolutely as close to that metronome as you can without using your left hand just do it open
or plant your left hand in one place [Music] and then once you're comfortable with the right hand and the timing move your left hand around a little bit so you can start to get the coordination between the two hands.
Something like [Music] that's just simple back and forth then you can get into chords. [Music] something like that. What I also wanted to point out here that could be of interest to you there's a separate video on what I call the claw style two-finger where you play like this down and then in with both fingers at the same time. Same coordination, different rhythm so you could use that in the same rhythmic feel, the same triplet feel with one. [Music] So you could you can mix and match that as you're trying to play something that's in a triplet feel so you could do. [Music] Right back and forth just want to throw that in there now
where would you use this, you could use it on any song that already feels in a
triplet.
I don't have one off the top of my head I should have looked that up but what I did think of was amazing grace because amazing grace is one of those
songs that can just sort of flex to whatever arrangement you want it to be so you could do it in a quarter time feel which would be [Music] amazing grace
right but you could also do it in a triplet feel [Music] how sweet.
Right that's a way to approach it I'm curious what you find what songs you're trying to learn how to play and what questions you have so please leave a comment tell me where this is difficult, where I could clarify more where you found it works great and where it doesn't work at all. Try the two finger version too as well as the full arpeggio which is when you play one note at a time in a chord try both let me know what you find I would really
like to hear from you.
Thanks so much you.