Okay, you want to play Bluegrass guitar.
So what different styles of playing do you have to learn? Let's start
with the two roles the guitar plays in Bluegrass: rhythm and lead.
Then we'll look at Carter-syle, crosspicking, and the question of
flatpicking versus fingerstyle.
The most important role of the guitar in Bluegrass
is a rhythm instrument. In the early Bluegrass recordings, the
guitar often never took a lead break at all. Just a few bass runs,
and the rest was rhythm. Today it's common for guitarists to take
lead breaks in bands, but even then the guitarist is playing rhythm
80% or more of the time. Playing rhythm requires you to:
- Learn the basic chord shapes in several keys (C, G, and D are
the important ones)
- Develop a rock-solid sense of timing to keep the beat (metronomes
help)
- Learn how to vary your rhythm patterns with different time
signatures and tempo
- Learn how to play bass runs to transition between chords
- Always remember that you're part of a band, and develop an awareness
of how your playing is contributing to the whole sound
A tradition in Bluegrass is for the musicians to take
turns playing lead breaks in tunes, so learning to play lead is an
important goal. It will also increase your overall knowledge of music
and enhance your rhythm skills, because learning to play lead means
you need to understand more about music theory. A good place to start
is to learn how to play traditional fiddle tunes. These can be memorized
and you can gradually build up a repertoire. At some point, however,
you may find yourself wanting to learn variations to the tunes. You'll
find yourself experimenting ("noodling"), and that is an excellent
way to start exploring. Most players start out learning how to play leads in the lowest
part of the fretboard - the first five frets. Eventually, you will
be faced with having to learn how to play up the neck. This can be
like exploring uncharted territory at first. There are a variety
of methods to help you learn, though. One of the more popular ones
is called the CAGED system, where you learn how to play five different
closed position scales based around the C, D, E, G and A chords.
Once start exploring how to play up the neck, you start to see how
it all fits together - and how to shift positions. One of the most challenging aspects of lead playing is developing
speed. Learning how to play fast is a survival skill in Bluegrass,
where tempos of 240 bpm are common. It's common for all of us to
crash and burn when we try to take lead breaks at high speeds. That's
part of the learning process. One of the best methods to learn tunes
and build up speed is the "Parking Lot Picker" series by Steve Kaufman.
Carter-style
picking can be thought of as a blend of rhythm and lead. It is
a technique named after Maybelle Carter of the Carter Family,
who popularized this style in the group's recordings in the 1930's.
Carter-style is characterized by playing the melody notes on
the bass strings and rhythmic fills on the treble strings. This
lets the guitar
perform as both a lead instrument and rhythm instrument at the
same time.
Carter-style is often heard in slower songs like ballads and
in old-timey songs. It also works well in introductions and
endings. For more information about
Carter-style picking, visit our Study
Tune pages.
They include a short tutorial on how to play this style.
Crosspicking is a technique often heard in Bluegrass. A lot
of people think of it as doing banjo rolls on the guitar. In
crosspicking, the flatpick is used to pick a group of strings
in a repeating pattern. The father of crosspicking is George Shuffler,
who got the idea for playing this way when playing with Jim and
Jesse McReynolds in the early 1950's. Jesse McReynolds was doing
a similar style of picking on the mandolin. Later, Shuffler joined
the Stanley Brothers band, where he used his cross-picking style
extensively.
Most guitarists use crosspicking as way to accentuate specific
passages in a song rather than as a technique applied to the
entire song. It is a technique that can add richness and variety
to a song when used judiciously, but can become monotonous and
repetitive if used too much.
Crosspicking is a challenging style
to play, particularly at higher speeds. Nonetheless, it is
a valuable and rewarding technique to learn. You can see a short
tutorial on crosspicking in our Study
Tune section.
The flatpick is the preferred method for picking in
Bluegrass today. It wasn't always that way, however. Many of the
early guitar players in Bluegrass - such as Charlie Monroe, Lester
Flatt and Carter Stanley - used the combination of a
thumbpick and a fingerpick. Flatt played bass runs (ala the Flatt
G-run) and melodies with his thumbpick on the low strings while using
the pick on his index finger on the high strings to add rhythm fills.
Flatt, like Maybelle Carter, first started to learn drop-thumb frailing
style banjo before he started to learn guitar, and this undoubtedly
influenced how he approached the guitar. His mastery of the two-pick
style in Bluegrass was never equalled.
Today, the flatpick is the plectrum of choice for Bluegrass
guitarists. Players like Doc Watson,
Clarence White, Dan Crary, Tony Rice and Norman Blake and many
others have inspired countless players with their flatpicking
skills. The flatpick is a simple tool that lends itself well
to both rhythm and lead playing. However, for most of us mere
mortals, it is a tool that is easy to use but difficult to master.
For more information about flatpicks, see our Gear page. |
