I had the privilege of sitting down with John Butler recently as he went through the fingering and technique for his new song “Spring to Come” off the upcoming album Flesh and Blood.
John’s guitar is in an unusual tuning: C-G-D-G-B-D. This enables some interesting fingerpicking, and easily changing the bass from G to C changes the chordal coloring completely.
The fingerpicking pattern John utilizes incorporates a “double thumbing” technique, with the thumb playing the lower G and D tuned strings and the second and third finger covering the rest. Here’s the pattern.
John uses a double stop scale pattern up the neck for much of the song. He goes quite deliberately through the fingerings in the video, so watch it through. And here are the positions up the neck.
Check out the instructional video here.
And when you’re ready, play along with John as he performs “Spring To Come” live in the Acoustic Nation studio:
Find out what's next for John Butler at www.johnbutlertrio.com
