| Carter-style picking is a technique named after Maybelle
Carter of the Carter Family. She was the first recording artist to
popularize this style, which became the driving rhythmic force behind
the Carter Family's music - as well as an inspiration for generations
of guitar players to come.
Carter-style is characterized by playing the melody notes on the
bass strings and rhythmic fills on the treble strings. What makes
this style significant is that it makes the guitar perform as both
a lead instrument and rhythm instrument at the same time. |
| Here is an audio clip of Maybelle taking an instrumental
break on "Wildwood Flower". Listen to how she carries both
the melody and the rhythm. The clip is in mp3 format. |
(mp3 - 627 KB) |
It is interesting to note that while most modern players
use a flatpick for Carter style picking, Maybelle herself used a thumbpick
for the bass note and her index finger for the rhythmic strums. For
Maybelle, this approach was a natural adaptation of the banjo picking
style she had learned from her mother before she started playing the
guitar.
We're going to show by example how this to arrange a tune for Carter
style picking. Our starting point is the basic melody discussed in
the previous section. |
| Click on the link shown to view a simplified Carter-Style arrangement
that shows how it's done. The TAB file is in Scorch format
and contains both standard notation and tablature. |
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Let's look more closely at this TAB file and compare
it to the one of the basic melody. The two arrangements are identical
except that rhythmic fills have been added in the Carter-style. Remember
that Maybelle had to make her guitar perform both as a lead and rhythm
instrument, so she had to keep the beat going even when there are
pauses in the melody. So, whenever there are notes longer than a
quarter note (the basic beat in 4/4 time), you have to add something
to keep the rhythm going.
In the graphic below, we've highlighted in longer notes the simple
melody that need to have rhythm support. In the Carter-style version
below, these notes are replaced with a quarter note of the same pitch
PLUS some kind of rhythmic fill - either a strum or a combination
of notes and a strum. This fills out the rhythmic structure and makes
it more driving. |
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This Carter-style arrangement is very simple, and you may have noticed
that it doesn't sound exactly like Maybelle's version in the recording.
That's because she was doing some other things with it to make it
more interesting. One technique is to convert the quarter-note strums
into eighth-note strums - basically going down and up on the strum
instead of just down. Another technique is her use of hammer-ons
and pull-offs.
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| We've created a more advanced arrangement of "Wildwood Flower" that
uses both of these techniques and is closer to what you hear on the
recording. Click on the link shown to see this arrangement in Scorch format. |
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Our next step will be go back to the
melody and then look at how to cross-pick "Wildwood Flower." |
