Rolling Chords to Spice Up Your Fingerstyle

Rolling chords is a very tasty technique to get under our fingers!

This lesson is not on how to play Greensleeves on the acoustic guitar - yet. Actually, it's about a technique we call Rolling Chords. Greensleeves is really a great song to practice that, but first things first: let's make sure we learn this technique the right way, so we stay away from bad habits and make the most out of our guitar time. :)

 

Rolling Chords To Accent The Melody

The Rolling Chords is an acoustic guitar technique that consists of playing a block of notes of a chord, but one at a time. It really brings out the melody of a song! Really think about the idea of playing blocks of notes: we'll roll through the notes from lowest to highest. Get it?!

 

💡 Rolling Chords is great for accenting the top note of a chord. You'll very commonly find this technique in chord melody arrangements. Here's a great example: Yesterday by The Beatles. 

 

There are a few different approaches to learning finger style like this. This lesson will give you my best tricks and guide you to find out what works best for you - one of these approaches should. :)

 

Before You Start

Here are a few things to keep in mind before checking out the different approaches to play the Rolling Chord Techniques:

• Make sure you start with all the fingers on the strings and then peel them off.

• The Rolling Chord technique can be a bit tricky as you first start. But once you have it down, it shouldn't feel so clumsy. Stick with it, and you'll get there!

 

If you're following my Beginner Guitar Course, we'll be practicing fingerstyle a log in the next modules. You're about to learn a lot more, so make sure you take time to really explore what you're learning now. Combining your knowledge will get loads easier down the road. ;) Just trust the process. 

Now let's take a look at the different options you've got to play Rolling Chords on the acoustic guitar! 

 

Approach 1: Peel It Off

Place the chord shape you want to play - I'm using an A chord in the video lesson! For your strumming hand, think about peeling your hand away and fingers off, starting with the lowest note. Try to get that peeling feeling!

 

🚨 You’ll probably find you accent the thinnest string heavily too, which is ok. One of the things you want from a roll is to accent that note - but don’t let it get too out of control.

 

Once you have the feeling, you should aim to decrease the hand movement but retain its feeling in the fingers. This is likely to take some practice, but trust me - that's how most of my students learn faster. The process is literally just doing this over and over and over again!

Learning to play fingerstyle is like programming your mind and your ear into what it should sound like and feel like. Make sure your hand stays pretty consistent, and don't learn wrong patterns here.

 

Approach 2: Start Slow

Another approach is to play the notes slowly and then gradually speed it up until it becomes a ‘roll.’ Some people might find this easier, but be careful. You should make sure to keep the notes evenly spaced. You don't want it to sound lumpy. 

 

💡 A Slow Roll can also be a useful technique to have in your bag! So, it’s worth working on different speeds.

 

Be careful not to let the back of your hand move much. If you need to do that, then maybe switch to Approach 1 and see how you go that way.

 

Approach 3: Split Notes and Fill

Sometimes a full roll can be a little over the top. Splitting the bass note and the top note (melody) are separated - the melody note is coming ever slightly after the bass note. Then if needed, you can fill in some more notes with the other fingers afterward.

 

🎥 Check the video tutorial for the close-ups on each of these approaches. Which's your favorite? Let me know in the Discussion section!

 

Don’t Overuse This! 

Rolling Chords is a very useful technique when playing chord melody, but it can get tiring and lose its beauty when you put it on every chord. ;)

 

How to Practice

Try rolling and splitting many different chords and different strings within the chords. Get creative as you want, but remember that it’s always better to start simple and get it right before trying anything too fancy!

 

Time to practice what you've just learned. And yep, with Greensleves. :) Coming soon.