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The underlying boom-chuck rhythm of bluegrass and old-time country guitar playing has been at the heart of old-time and bluegrass guitar since the dawn of recorded country music. Learn the basic pattern and some variations, as well as the classic Lester Flatt G-run, and use them to play the bluegrass standard “Long Journey Home.”
This great Flatt and Scruggs song was recorded by JD Crowe and the New South on their classic self-titled album, with Tony Rice singing lead. It's a great example of a medium tempo bluegrass song played with a light swing feel. You'll learn a strum pattern that helps accent the swing feel, as well as some bass runs to use at the ends of phrases.
This classic Carter Family song is great for working on your waltz (or 3/4 time) rhythm. You’ll learn a couple variations on a boom-chuck-chuck 3/4 strum pattern, as well as some bass runs in the key of C. Scott also talks about a couple of different approaches to playing in 3/4 time, from an aggressive rhythmic approach that might work well for a dance to the more gentle approach that works well for a mournful song like “The Storms Are on the Ocean.”
Learn a straight-eighths country/country-rock feel to play the Hank Williams classic “Jambalaya.” “Straight-eighths” means that the eighth notes are played evenly, not swung, as in some previous lessons. “Jambalaya” was recorded by Hank Williams in the key of C, and Emmylou Harris recorded a great country-rock version in the key of A. You’ll learn it using key-of-A chord shapes, capoed at the third fret, which puts it in the key of C. In addition to a simple straight-eighths strum pattern, you’ll learn a rock-oriented bass pattern that can be fun to play during an instrumental or behind another singer.
Learn some simple Western swing–style closed chords to play this Bob Wills classic. The chords on the verses of “If No News Is Good News” are basically just D, G, and A, but you can use closed chords to get a swingin’ rhythm sound. You’ll also get advice on how to lift your fingers off the chord right after you play it to get a percussive “sock” rhythm sound. The bridge of “If No News Is Good News” ends with a short circle-of-fifths progression—B7–E7–A7–D7, which you’ll play using closed chords, with advice on how to negotiate those quick chord changes.
The Flatt and Scruggs song “I’ll Stay Around” is a bluegrass classic, with great recordings by Ricky Skaggs, Tony Rice, and many others. Scott uses “I’ll Stay Around” to show you a few contemporary bluegrass rhythm techniques, including some new bass runs and an accented strum that’s a good way to mark the beginning of a verse or instrumental solo. You’ll also learn to refer to chords by Roman numerals (I, IV, V) instead of letter names, so you can transpose songs to different keys more easily.
Getting a good, consistent and punchy boom-chuck is a matter of repetition, hours and hours of it. But practicing such a seemingly simple thing can be difficult by itself. The best way to practice rhythm guitar is with other people—behind a fiddle player, for example—but another good way to practice your basic boom-chuck groove is to learn simple songs that have a lot of verses and just a few chord changes. “Rove Riley Rove” is one of those: a great old-time song that’s fun to sing and play with just a couple of chord changes, in this case A and D.
The John Prine classic “Angel from Montgomery” is a good song to learn to work on two things: a medium-tempo rock strum pattern that Scott calls the “Neil Young strum” and an anticipated strum used when a chord change is played before the downbeat of the measure.
The bluegrass standard “Dark Hollow” is a favorite among a wide swath of roots musicians. In this lesson, you’ll learn some “stealth” chords you can add to the main G, C, and D voicings: G7, G9, Cadd9, Dsus2, etc. Played as the main voicings, these chords would give the song a completely different (contemporary or jazzy) sound, but played as “color” chords (quick variations of the main chords) they create variety without significantly changing the bluegrass feel and sound of the song.
Learn to play basic swing chords using a Western swing version of the jazz/blues standard “Trouble in Mind” It’s an eight-bar blues form, but the chords you’ll use to play “Trouble in Mind” swing style are G6, D7, G6/B, C6, C#dim, E7, Am7, C9, and Daug, with closed voicings you can use to play numerous swing songs. You’ll also get tips on moving between chords smoothly by figuring out which fingers stay in the same place and which fingers change positions as you move from chord to chord.
Steve Earle’s hit song “Someday,” from his 1986 debut, Guitar Town, has a cool riff that serves as an intro, ending, and instrumental interlude, and is also played at the ends of the lines of verses. As rhythm guitarists it’s often helpful to be able to play riffs or simple melodies like this. In this lesson, you’ll learn the riff to “Someday” and a medium tempo rock groove that can be played with all downstrokes or with a combination of downstrokes and down-up strums.
The bluegrass song “I Know What It Means to Be Lonesome” has a circle-of-fifths progression similar to “Salty Dog Blues” and others. The chord progression is C–A–G–D–C and you’ll learn some one-measure bass runs that lead into each new chord, as well as a couple longer runs and patterns that last for two measures.
The great bluegrass singer and banjoist Ralph Stanley’s “mountain music” was a major influence on the development of bluegrass. You’ll learn the gospel song “Green Pastures,” which was introduced to the bluegrass world by Ralph’s recording. It’s a fast waltz with some unusual phrasing, and you’ll learn a couple of variations on the waltz strum pattern that allow you to drive the rhythm along.
Alison Krauss’s hit recording of the ‘60s pop song “Baby, Now That I’ve Found You” uses some sus2 and add9 chords that come in handy when playing more contemporary bluegrass and country songs. You’ll learn the arpeggiated intro of the song, which includes a descending bass line, as well as all of the chords you’ll need to play “Baby, Now That I’ve Found You,” including Dus2, Cadd9, G6/B and Gm6/Bb. You’ll also learn what those chord names mean and how to turn the intro’s arpeggiated single-note pattern into the strum you’ll use to play the rest of the song.
The traditional Irish song “Lily of the West” was recorded by numerous American folk greats in the 1960s, and Tim O’Brien recorded a bluegrass version that you’ll learn in this lesson. It’s in A minor capoed up two frets, putting it in the key of B minor, and you’ll learn a cool intro riff that corresponds to the first line of the song, which you can play as an intro as well as an interlude between verses.
In this lesson, you’ll learn a style of “hybrid picking” in which you use your pick and one or two fingers to imitate fingerpicking, in particular the fingerpicking patterns Bob Dylan used to play his song “Tomorrow Is a Long Time.” In hybrid picking, your flatpick plays the bass notes that a fingerpicker would play with the thumb, while you play treble notes with one or two fingers of your picking hand.
In these three lessons, you´ll learn three styles of fiddle-tune backup: bluegrass, old-time, and Texas (also called “contest” or Western swing) style. Scott is joined by Peghead Nation fiddle instructor Chad Manning, who plays the fiddle tune standard “Sally Gooden” in A so Scott can demonstrate each style. In bluegrass style, you’ll use a capo at the second fret along with the standard bluegrass G chord shape and strum pattern. In old-time style you’ll play “Sally Gooden” without a capo, which allows you to use the low E in your alternating bass pattern. Texas-style backup evolved from 1940s and ’50s Western swing guitarists who used swing-style “sock” chords to back up fiddle tunes. The style features a moving bass line with passing chords, often using two chords per measure, even when the basic chord progression remains on one chord, as in “Sally Gooden.”
Neil Young’s song “Comes a Time” has an interesting chord progression and is good for practicing one-quarter-note bass runs and a new strum pattern: bass strum _up down-up. You’ll also get advice on playing Bm barre chords and the unusual Dm7 chord Neil plays at the end of the chorus.
The old-time song “Milwaukee Blues,” recorded by North Carolina singer/banjo player Charlie Poole in 1930, is a great song for working on more of the two-beat bass runs covered in the bass runs lessons. You’ll learn how to create more elaborate bass runs by substituting two eighth notes for one of the two quarter notes in the two-beat bass runs. “Milwaukee Blues” is in the key of C, so you’ll learn bass runs that connect C, G, and F chords, first by playing two eighth notes instead of the first quarter note, and then by playing two eighth notes instead of the second quarter note. You’ll also learn how to use these runs when you’re just staying on one chord.
The bluegrass standard “Old Home Place” was written by Dean Webb and Mitch Jayne and the Dillards and was famously recorded by J.D. Crowe and the New South, when that seminal 1970s bluegrass band included Tony Rice, Ricky Skaggs, and Jerry Douglas. It has a few chords not often heard in bluegrass, including a B7 in the key of G. You’ll also learn a few four-beat bass runs that connect the G and D chords, as well as the A (II) chord in the bridge.
Jimmy Martin’s train song “Mr. Engineer” has been recorded by Tony Rice and others, and is a good song for demonstrating bluegrass bass runs in 3/4 time. You’ll learn some modified G runs that fit well in 3/4 as well as some nice bass runs between G, C, and D chords. Since “Mr. Engineer” is not only a waltz but also has a swing/shuffle feel, some of the runs you learn will include triplets, and you’ll learn how to use slurs (slides, hammer-ons, and pull-offs) to play triplets with just two pick strokes.
The traditional ballad “Pretty Polly” has been recorded by numerous musicians, including Ralph Stanley, the Byrds, Tim O’Brien, and many others. “Pretty Polly” is usually played with just one main chord and it’s often sung using a straight minor pentatonic scale, but many singers use both the minor and major third for more of a bluesy sound. In this lesson, you’ll learn to play “Pretty Polly” in dropped-D tuning with a few different bass runs and fills. You’ll also learn a cool “capo trick” you can use if you want to get the sound of dropped-D tuning in the key of E by using a partial capo that covers just the top five strings.
John Hartford’s song “Gentle on My Mind” was a hit for Glen Campbell in the 1960s, but it remains popular among roots musicians and was recently recorded by Alison Krauss as well as Molly Tuttle. It’s a fun song to play and deceptively simple, with just two main chords, but it has a cool descending melodic line that runs through those chords. In this lesson, you’ll learn some voicings of the two chords (D and Em in the key of D) that allow you to play that descending line and a boom-chuck, _a-chuck-a strum pattern that you can play with an emphasis on the treble strings. You’ll also learn a few variations on the chords and a more syncopated version of the strum pattern.
It’s essential when playing rhythm in a band to listen to your fellow musicians and be able react to what they’re playing in order to create a solid groove, especially in a bluegrass band where the various rhythmic duties of the instruments change during the course of a song, with some instruments playing solos, some players focusing more on singing, etc. Scott gives you advice about how you can change your playing to make a band work better depending on what the other instruments are doing. He also talks about how to approach playing with a band if you’re the lead singer, in which case you will need to focus more on your singing than what the other instruments are doing.
Norman Blake plays his song “Church Street Blues” out of C position but with a capo high up the neck at the seventh fret. He takes advantage of the high ringing sound you can get in this position by playing lots of full strums and ringing chords, including a couple of unusual voicings that allow those high strings to ring out. You’ll learn a short intro that imitates the way Norman plays his more-elaborate solo, as well as the chord voicings and strums he plays throughout the song.
The chords known as sus (suspended) and add chords can add a contemporary sound to your chord voicings. You’ve played a few of them in some of the previous lessons, but in this lesson, Scott goes through sus and add chords in the guitar-friendly keys of C, G, D, A, and D. He also explains the difference between, for instance, a sus2 and an add9 chord. James Taylor is known for using a lot of sus and add chords, and his version of Buddy Holly’s “Everyday” is a good example. Scott uses "Everyday" to show you how to use sus and add chords (as well as min7 and min11 chords) on a song, and shows you versions of "Everyday" in the keys of D and E.
