 Hello everyone and welcome to Blackstar Potential. My name is Lee Fuge and I'm here today with MusicTeacher.com. In this video we're going to start looking at adding percussive hits to your acoustic fingerstyle playing. Adding percussive hits to acoustic fingerstyle is a great way to take your acoustic playing to another place and make it a little bit more interesting. If you're bored of playing the same finger pick rhythms and strummed pans, some percussive hits can really give your playing another dimension. It can really make it sound like yourself accompanying yourself and give the impression of a percussionist being with you at the same time. Adding a percussive element to your playing is a great technique to have in your trek bag. You've probably heard this ranging from players like Ed Sheeran and John Mayer right up to guys like John Gomm and Newton Faulkner. It doesn't have to be super complex or super technical, you can do this at a basic level and really transform your acoustic playing. All of the tones you're hearing in this video are coming from the Blackstar Sonnet 60. So I've got my acoustic plugged straight into the Sonnet and I'm running out of the XLRDI output on the back straight into my audio interface. All of the examples in this video are going to be played with just three chords. So I'm going to be using a G chord here with all four fingers. I'm going to be using a Cadd9 and a D. The percussive element of this involves using your picking hand to strike the guitar to create different percussive sounds. So the most common ones are a slap on the top string. So I'm going to be using my thumb to get this click sound or I can use the heel of my hand to get a more thump sound. I can also combine the two. So different players are going to have their own personal preferences when it comes to choosing different ways to add percussive elements to the guitar. Those are the main ones you can use but feel free to experiment and try your own variations as well. So we're going to start off with a really simple rhythm. So here's what we're going to do first. So this first one is just played very very straight. On the first beat I'm playing the root of the G chord and the G and B strings together. And on the two I'm adding my percussive hit. On the third beat I'm doing the Cadd9 in the same way. So I'm playing the root on the A string and the G and B strings and that percussive hit on the four. The second bar I'm playing the D chord. This time I'm playing the root on the D string and the G and B strings together on the one beat with a percussive hit on the two and then the Cadd9 on the three. So here's that one slowly and then a little bit faster. So when you start playing percussive finger style exercises like that are very important because that sets you up with the foundation. It gives you the skills to change between the chords and add the percussive element while still staying in time. So now we're going to take this a little bit further. So here's the second exercise. So this time I'm adding something extra to that first beat. So on the one I'm playing the root note and on the end I'm playing the G and B strings. Then on the two my percussive hit. I'm repeating this on the third beat with my Cadd9 chord. So it's three and and then on the four my percussive hit. And I'm doing the same in the second half with the D chord and the Cadd9. So now I'm actually starting to split those beats up and add additional notes in there. So here's this one slowly and again at full speed. So for this third exercise I'm going to be adding the additional notes in somewhere else in the bar to give a different feel. So here's what we're going to do. So that time you'll notice my additional notes came between my two percussive hits which are on the two and the four. So on the one beat I'm just playing my chord. So I'm playing the root and the G and B strings. Then on the two I'm doing my hit. On the end of two I'm playing that root note of the chord. Then I'm playing the G and B on the third beat. Then the root again on the end of three. One more percussive hit. So like with all percussive guitar based techniques the rhythm is very important. So get that rhythm in your head. Think about where those percussive hits are falling and where you're going to be alternating between your thumb and your picked fingers rather than just playing the whole chord or the segment of the chord you're playing all at the same time. So in this one I'm actually doing a full bar on each chord. So I'm going to do a bar of the G like you just saw there. Then we're going to the C add nine, then the D and back to the C add nine. So it's the same rhythm in each bar but you're just moving where that root note is as you move up through the chords. The root note changes from the E, the A and the D strings. So here's that one slowly. And once again at full speed. The fourth and final exercise we're going to look at is going a little more down that rabbit hole of the John Mayer style of acoustic fingerstyle playing. This isn't a full breakdown of his technique. This is a simplified version of what his approach is. So here's what we're going to do. So this one is a little bit more complicated. I'm bringing in some 16th notes as well. So I'm actually starting on the one with the chord something the root and the G and B together. Then I'm doing my percussive hit on the end. So it's one and on the two and the E of the two. So when we've got the first 16th note there I'm going just the G and the B string twice. So two E and then another percussive hit on the end of two. So with these kind of rhythms which are a little bit more complicated like I said it's very useful to get that rhythm in your head first of all. Even if you just take one chord like I just did there and just roll that rhythm until it fits naturally under the hand then you can start bringing the other chords into things. We're actually just doing half a bar on each chord here. So when I get to the end of that G I'm actually getting up to my third beat now which is my C-add nine. So the picking remains the same but the root note has changed because of the chord. So my root is now on the A string but I'm still playing the G and B strings. You'll notice in this one that I'm only playing the root of the chord on the first initial hit of the chord as well. So for the C-add nine for instance on the third beat I'm playing the root with the higher two strings. Then I'm just playing the higher two strings. So there's an alternating movement here between low and high as well. So like I said I'm doing half a bar on each chord so the first bar is the G to the C-add nine. The second bar is going to be the D back to the C-add nine. So here's this one all the way through slowly and once again at full speed. So there you go there is an introduction to how you guys can add some percussive aspects to your acoustic fingerstyle playing. There's going to be a further video where I break down more of that John Mayer guitar style as well but for now that should get you going if you've never done any of this acoustic style fingerstyle playing up until this point. It's a great way like I said to add an extra depth to your playing and give that sort of self-accompanied feeling and sound. When you're doing this you will notice that the percussive hits can spike a lot louder than the pick notes. If that is the case you can use a compressor to level it out. So I'm using a compressor in post-production just to tame those peaks because I'm quite heavy-handed but if you wanted you could line up a compressor pedal in front of the amp just to tame those percussive hits as well if you are going a bit too hard on them. Thank you all so much for watching I hope you've enjoyed this video let me know down below in the comments how you've gotten onto this technique and if there are any other topics you'd like to see us talk about in these videos please put those below as well and don't forget to check out Blackstar amplification on YouTube for more videos just like this. If anyone out there is looking for Guitar Teacher please head to MusicTeacher.com it's a great network of guitar teachers all around the country waiting to help you guys out. Thanks so much for watching and I'll see you soon.