Dust Off Your Fingerpicking Welcome to the first Azorik Vovin lesson page. This lesson offers a little immediate gratification for the folks out there who are struggling with fingerpicking. This lesson is the intro to the song “ Dust In The Wind” from Kansas. It is rumored that Kerry Livgren (The Composer) wrote it as a fingerpicking exercise to work on this technique. This is a fairly easy piece so your level of frustration should be eliminated. This fingerpicking pattern is based on what we call “ Travis Picking”. However, I believe Merle Travis used a flatpick and fingers approach. The first two notes of the pattern are played together using the Thumb (T) and Middle (M) fingers. Then the rest of the notes are played individually. The right hand fingering markings for the picking pattern are Thumb (T), Index (I), Middle (M) fingers. The Thumb covers the A (5th) and D (4th) strings. The Index finger covers the G (3rd) string. The Middle finger covers the B (2nd) string. The rhythm is simple. The first two notes are held for a 1/4 note (one beat or count). The rest of the rhythm is straight 1/8 notes (half a beat or count). So the first two notes played together are held twice as long as the rest. In the left hand, your Middle and Ring fingers remain planted in both chord forms. Your Index and Pinky fingers move to play the melody notes on the B (2nd) string. The C Major chord is the Tonic (I) chord in the piece. Lifting your Index finger for the open B (2nd) string creates the Cmaj7. Planting your Pinky at the 3rd fret-B string creates the Cadd9. The A minor is the relative minor (VI) chord in this progression. Your Index and Pinky move in the same motion as in the C chord shapes. Lifting your Index for the open B (2nd) string creates the Asus2 chord. Planting your Pinky at the 3rd fret-B string creates the Asus4 chord. Now you are ready to go through it. Start slow and play the right hand pattern with accuracy, slowly building up to tempo. Just playing through the chords it will really start to sound familiar to you. So practice hard and have fun with it! Catch you next time! Click here to go back.