Down in the Swamp, Part 1

from: Advanced Flatpicking Guitar with Scott Nygaard

This lesson is part of the course Advanced Flatpicking Guitar with Scott Nygaard.

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Learn the essential techniques of bluegrass flatpicking guitar through classic and lesser-known songs and tunes, from bluegrass blues to old-time fiddle tunes to country swing sounds.

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Home Sweet Home

In Part 2 of the lesson on crosspicking, you'll learn the first part of Scott's arrangement of "Home Sweet Home," which mostly uses the traditional 3-3-2 roll. Since crosspicking is usually used to play song melodies, it's a good idea to learn the melody of a song before tackling a crosspicking arrangement, so Scott starts by making sure you know the melody to "Home Sweet Home" and then takes the arrangement apart phrase by phrase (or roll by roll).

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Down in the Swamp

Down in the Swamp, Part 1

Down in the Swamp, Part 2

Down in the Swamp, Part 3: Melody in D Position

“Down in the Swamp” Play-Along Track

Down in the Swamp, Part 1

Béla Fleck’s stune “Down in the Swamp” is one of the highlights of his iconic album Drive, which was released in the late 1980s and features an all-star band of Tony Rice, Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, and Mark Schatz. “Down in the Swamp” is a fiddle tune in the key of E, actually E Mixolydian, which makes it the same as an A major scale. You’ll learn the tune in E without a capo, and also out of D, with the capo at the second fret. In this first video, Scott shows you “Down in the Swamp” without a capo, talking about some of the phrasing choices he makes to get the tune to sound the way he wants it to.

"Down in the Swamp" (Available to subscribers)

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