This article looks at some of the best finger-picking guitar songs and the people who played them. However, this is not the only genre of music we cover in our best fingerstyle list. Simplicity is the best when it comes to choosing songs in a fingerpicking style. The best fingerstyle guitar songs are not limited to any particular guitar. You don’t need to be an acoustic maestro to play the best finger-picked guitar songs and can even have a go on an electric equivalent.
This list covers the finger-picking songs that are the most iconic. You can pick up a guitar and utilize this format to teach yourself finger-picked guitar songs.
47 Of The Most Popular Fingerstyle Songs To Learn (To Impress Your Friends)
- Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You Led Zeppelin · 1969 | TAB | AUTHENTIC GUITAR TAB
- Stairway to Heaven Led Zeppelin · 1971 | TAB | AUTHENTIC GUITAR TAB
- Dust In The Wind Kansas · 1977 | TAB | AUTHENTIC GUITAR TAB
- More Than Words Extreme · 1990 | TAB | AUTHENTIC GUITAR TAB
- Fire And Rain James Taylor · 1970 | TAB | AUTHENTIC GUITAR TAB
- The Boxer Simon & Garfunkel · 1970 | TAB | AUTHENTIC GUITAR TAB
- Stop This Train John Mayer · 2006 | TAB | AUTHENTIC GUITAR TAB
- Blackbird The Beatles · 1968 | TAB | AUTHENTIC GUITAR TAB
- Fast Car Tracy Chapman · 1988 | TAB | AUTHENTIC GUITAR TAB
- Never Going Back Again Fleetwood Mac · 1977 | TAB | AUTHENTIC GUITAR TAB
- Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life) Green Day · 1997 | TAB | AUTHENTIC GUITAR TAB
- Ain’t No Sunshine Bill Withers · 1971 | TAB
- Scarborough Fair/Canticle Simon & Garfunkel · 1966 | TAB | AUTHENTIC GUITAR TAB
- Let Her Go Passenger · 2012 | TAB
- We’re Going to Be Friends The White Stripes · 2001 | TAB | AUTHENTIC GUITAR TAB
- Road Trippin’ Red Hot Chili Peppers · 1999 | TAB | AUTHENTIC GUITAR TAB
- Naked as We Came Iron & Wine · 2005 | TAB | AUTHENTIC GUITAR TAB
- Just Breathe Pearl Jam · 2009 | TAB | AUTHENTIC GUITAR TAB
- The Sound of Silence Simon & Garfunkel · 1964 | TAB | AUTHENTIC GUITAR TAB
- Homeward Bound Simon & Garfunkel · 1966 | TAB | AUTHENTIC GUITAR TAB
- Street Spirit Radiohead · 1995 | TAB | AUTHENTIC GUITAR TAB
- Tenerife Sea Ed Sheeran · 2014 | TAB | AUTHENTIC GUITAR TAB
- Everybody Hurts R.E.M. · 1992 | TAB | AUTHENTIC GUITAR TAB
- The Heart of Life John Mayer · 2006 | TAB | AUTHENTIC GUITAR TAB
- Wherever You Will Go The Calling · 2001 | TAB
- Why Georgia John Mayer · 2001 | TAB | AUTHENTIC GUITAR TAB
- Tears In Heaven Eric Clapton · 1992 | TAB | AUTHENTIC GUITAR TAB
- Can’t Help Falling in Love Elvis Presley · 1961 | TAB | AUTHENTIC GUITAR TAB
- Wonderful Tonight Eric Clapton · 1977 | TAB | AUTHENTIC GUITAR TAB
- Angeles Elliott Smith · 1997 | TAB | AUTHENTIC GUITAR TAB
- Deep River Blues Doc Watson | TAB | AUTHENTIC GUITAR TAB
- April Come She Will Simon & Garfunkel · 1966 | TAB | AUTHENTIC GUITAR TAB
- Is There Anybody Out There? Pink Floyd · 1979 | TAB | AUTHENTIC GUITAR TAB
- House Of The Rising Sun Animals · 1964 | TAB | AUTHENTIC GUITAR TAB
- Classical Gas Mason Williams · 1968 | TAB | AUTHENTIC GUITAR TAB
- Silent Lucidity Queensrÿche · 1990 | TAB | AUTHENTIC GUITAR TAB
- Don’t Know Why Norah Jones · 2002 | TAB | AUTHENTIC GUITAR TAB
- River Flows In You Yiruma · 2001 | TAB
- I See Fire Ed Sheeran · 2013 | TAB | AUTHENTIC GUITAR TAB
- Big Love Fleetwood Mac · 1987 | TAB | AUTHENTIC GUITAR TAB
- Hallelujah Jeff Buckley · 1994 | TAB | AUTHENTIC GUITAR TAB
- Safe & Sound (from The Hunger Games Soundtrack) Taylor Swift · 2012 | TAB
- Take Me Home, Country Roads John Denver · 1971 | TAB | AUTHENTIC GUITAR TAB
- Benighted Opeth · 1999 | TAB | AUTHENTIC GUITAR TAB
- Don’t Cry Guns N’ Roses · 1991 | TAB | AUTHENTIC GUITAR TAB
- Papa George Tommy Emmanuel · 2008 | TAB | AUTHENTIC GUITAR TAB
- Un-Break My Heart Toni Braxton · 1996 | TAB
Many online platforms are offering the best instructional guitar DVDs and audio CDs to help you with your technique. The achingly iconic ‘Now and Forever’ fingerstyle tab is a modern classic. This tune is best suited combined with a fingerstyle notation to aid your fingerpicking technique. Trying out some fingerstyle solos provides important insights into your guitar, including the fingerpicking techniques that you can try on your instrument.
Consider checking out instruments known as bottleneck guitars. These are the best in the fingerstyle business as you use a hard object pushed against the strings to make an evocative sound as you strum. The sound is melodic and almost vocal in quality.
The guitar of Peppino D’Agostino was designed as a fingerstyle guitar and is a massive step-up from your beginner guitar. D’Agostino has broached both the acoustic and rock guitar worlds. He is quite simply one of the best finger-picking guitarists alive today so check him out.
If you know a little about fingerpicking already, you might be tempted to try your hand at anything by Happy Traum or ‘Canon in D’. As a folk musician, he relished the fingerpicking style with many different genres and was a stalwart of the 1960s music scene. His more advanced fingerstyle songs for fingerpicking guitar are worthy of a look. You can use standard notation & tab audio to hone your skills and improve your fingerpicking technique.