It wasn’t long ago that playing folk music meant learning the changes to “Tom Dooley” and calling it a day. Today, folk music has become a global musical form with influences stretching from the British Isles to Northern Africa and the Middle-East. And with today’s ease of information sharing, it won’t be long before folk music will include music from every continent. While this is great for musicologists, it can be a bit overwhelming for a guitarist looking to break into this style. Folk in a Day eases guitarists into this style by breaking the style down into easy lessons, which are fun to learn and play.

Video Introduction

Click below for a sample video from the course.

About the Lesson Plan

Building logically on simple concepts delivered in short, easy-to-manage segments, Folk in a Day takes aspiring folk artists from tuning up to complex fingerstyle patterns in no time. Using familiar chord progressions, this course shows you the common open chord combinations which are the foundation of popular folk songs. Folk in a Day also covers various picking techniques, from simple strumming to syncopated, alternating-bass fingerstyle riffs.

To bring you the folk is Rick Payne, an extraordinary acoustic guitarist renowned for his mastery of traditional blues and folk styles in addition to being one wicked slide player. With a number of albums under his belt, Rick has toured the US and Europe extensively and turned in numerous TV and radio performances in the UK and Europe.

Folk in a Day is a fast-paced journey into the ins and outs of the genre. You will begin by learning Rick’s “three-chord tricks,” then use them almost immediately to play familiar songs. Rick builds on these tricks to teach you more complex chords, such as major, minor, minor 7, sus4, sus2 and major7 voicings and how to incorporate them into more involved arrangements. Along the way, you'll pick up various strumming patterns, learn how to read tab and master the scales used in folk music. You will also learn techniques to add emotion to your playing, such as hammer-ons, pull-offs, slides and vibrato.

After mastering many strumming styles, Rick will teach you how to play fingerstyle while using techniques such as arpeggios, alternate-bass and right hand rolls. Other right hand techniques you will learn include pluck, pinch and claw-hammer styles. You will learn how to play shuffles, rags and fingerstyle blues as well as slash chords, barre chords and free-form, movable chord shapes played against open strings. Rick will then show you how to play in drop-D, D, G and DADGAD tunings as well as the common chord shapes for each. The course finishes off with a look at Gypsy jazz chords such as 7 and 9 shapes to add even more flavor to your playing.

If you haven’t been playing long, or even if you’re a flat-out beginner, and want to explore both the foundation and the nuances of folk music, Folk in a Day’s concise, fast-paced learning system is the perfect place to begin your journey.