Intro to fingerpicking “Molly Malone” on guitar. My Nana sang this song to my ma as a baby and of course I heard it first from mom too, as these kinds of things usually go. “Molly Malone” tells the fictional tale of a fishmonger who plied her trade on the streets of Dublin, and who died of a fever. Here’s a picture of her statue in Dublin.
I like “Molly Malone” in the key of C as a starting point for fingerpicking because in the first position, you can pick the melody right out of the two chords you need- G and C. Play this in 3/4 time though, meaning three beats to a measure. You count it “one two three, one two three” instead of “one two three four, one two three four”. To get your timing down, you can articulate the syllables of the lyrics as quarter notes, taking just a few liberties, like this:
You can see that by following the syllables in the lyrics, you can tell pretty easily where the chords change.
Of course you can play the tune just with the chord changes, accompanying yourself vocally. But the idea is to play the melody while playing the chords too! Here’s what that sounds like.
Position your fingers as indicated so you can move quickly to the next notes. Below is the tab for the melody line above, only including the bass notes from the chords as well. I play this by plucking between my thumb and first finger.
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