How To Actually Pick Blackbird by The Beatles

Here's how it really goes. Thanks to Youtube for the "slow mo" feature and for Paul McCartney for playing this live so I could learn from the real deal. :)
Thanks everyone! -Mike

[mr.sean.kennedy]

I saw an interview with McCartney where he basically said he never learned how to fingerpick properly so he had to 'cheat' on Blackbird and it wrecks his nails when touring. So his wife (or daughter) came up with the idea of him have acrylic nails fitted for tours. He also insinuated that no one else plays Blackbird correctly because of his 'cheat' technique. It seems you have discovered this.

[GhostOfJohnLennon]

I saw Paul in concert and he made a joke about how it’s one of his most covered songs and “everyone plays it wrong”. He then said he was kidding...something tells me he wasn’t kidding.

[thensel]

teaching us blackbird AND how to find the g spot! :D

[dooleyfan]

I’ve been playing it wrong for over 30 years. I was hitting the open D throughout. Great lesson. Glad the Beatles cops haven’t pulled it.

[ZeroCool]

That's real nice ! Black Bird one of my all time favorites from Paul McCartney during the Beatles era too, actually one of my top ten songs of all time.

[Assasain]

You're awesome, thanks for giving me some motivation to get back into playing guitar. Been a rough year mentally and watching your videos with you teaching seems to remedy those bad thoughts.

[manelthegreek]

Same here! I learnt the song by ear and I played a similar picking pattern as yours until I cross a live video and I noticed that index finger. Now I guess it sound better!

[schifoso]

Always amazing to see what a good songwriter comes up with.

[louelladiezmo]

I am 56 yrs old and learning blackbird. Thank you so much for this video. It is very helpful.

[Robwhat]

This is great, thank you! Now it finally makes sense how he plays that rhythmic “clicking” sound while fingerpicking. The downstroke with your fingernail makes that constant string click throughout the pattern. I have been trying to figure that out for ages!

[leaveitorsinkit]

John Mayer also anchors his pinky when he plays acoustic. Perhaps Blackbird’s where he got it from?

[danegonzales]

I think I learned it "correctly" like that from an old YouTube video.

[AnAmericanComposer]

Robbie Basho used that kind of technique often in his pieces. Listen to the beginning of Green River Suite. Often the high group strings are "strummed" with the flicking of the index nail.

[EddieOtool]

So, you're telling me having your index finger doing a lot of work over the G string to do a big job on the G spot is actually a guitar technique? All that while having your pinky keeping an anchor on the body??

Who would've known...

[psivil.disobedience]

Years ago I watched another YouTube channel’s video on ‘Blackbird’ & they used 3 fingers & a thumb on the picking hand, like I always had, but when I read the comments someone mentioned that another channel had the “real way to play it.” I checked it out & they were using their thumb & index finger & I thought “well that’s ridiculous.” Then I remembered hearing a story of how Paul took acid & went of by himself when learning finger picking & that he didn’t learn any proper techniques... so I tried this unorthodox style out & its 1000% the way Paul played it. It’s awesome that it’s been verified to me now by this video. I never thought to slow down footage of Paul... I have so much to do now

[GodRock]

I've been playing it wrong for several years, from the picking to the walk-up. Now I have to learn it all over again.

[gmoore]

There’s lots of players in history who only used their index and thumb to pick, I’ve learned one thing in my 50 years of playing that there is no right or wrong way as it’s the sound you get that’s important:)

[miriamkrusemark]

Thank you for this video. I am just learning how to play Blackbird and thank to you I'll learn it right, right from the start!

[jacoblawson]

Thank you for the video! This is the best video on You Tube that explains how Paul actually plays Blackbird!

[jerememes]

Hell yeah, I came to learn Blackbird fingerpick technique and I learned how to find the g spot. Thanks!