The Official Online Source for Flatpicking Guitar Magazine

Written and Compiled by Flatpicking Guitar Magazine Editor Dan Miller

This instructional method teaches you how to play interesting and exciting rhythm guitar accompaniment by showing you how to fill the rhythm guitarist roles of: Keeping Good Time, Outlining the Chord, Leading the Listener's Ear to the Chord Change, and adding Texture, Excitement, Drive, and Interest. The goal of this 96-page instructional book and accompanying CD is to make you a better rhythm player, and to also prepare you to begin playing lead guitar in Volume 2 (Learning How to Solo: Carter Style Leads and Beyond).

What you will learn in the first Volume of the Flatpicking Essentials Series (Rhythm, Bass Runs, and Fill Licks):
1) The Role of the Rhythm Player: Keeping Time, Outlining the Chord, Leading the Listener's Ear to the Chord Change, adding Texture and Interest
2) Bass Line construction based on major scales, the chromatic scale, and arpeggios
3) Bass Line construction using a variety of timing variations (half notes, quarter notes, eighth notes, dotted-quarter notes)
4) Bass Line construction using walk-ups, walk-downs, and leading tones
5) The Rest Stroke
6) Alternate Pick Direction and Eighth Note Runs and Fill Licks
7) Over 20 G-Run Variations
8) Syncopation
9) Over 10 Alternate Strumming Patterns
10) How to Work with a Metronome
Dozens of Examples!

Volume One Table of Contents:

Introduction
The History of the Flatpicking Gutiar Style
Learning to Flatpick: A Historical Approach

Section One: Techniques, Examples, and Exercises
The Role of the Rhythm Guitar Player
Simple G Chord Rhythm
G, C, D Rhythm with Repeating Bass Notes
Alternating Bass Line
Walk-ups, Walk-downs, and Leading Tones
Chromatic Walk-Ups and Walk-Downs
Bass Runs—Old-Time Style
Half Note Bass Runs
The Rest Stroke
Alternate Pick Direction and Eighth Notes
Eighth Note Runs and Fill Licks
Borrowing From Bass Players
G-Runs, Hammer-Ons, Pull-Offs, and Slides
Creating Movement on One Chord
Syncopation
The Bluegrass G Chord and Alternate Strums
"Lonesome Road Blues" Example

Section Two: Examples from the FGM Archives
"Rolling in My Sweet Baby's Arms" in the Style of Charlie Monroe
"Blue Eyes" in the Style of Roy Harvey
Rhythm in the Style of Edd Mayfield 1
Key of G Rhythm in the Style of Jimmy Martin
"Nine Pound Hammer" in the Style of Brad Davis (Key of G)
"Nine Pound Hammer" in the Style of Brad Davis (Key of C)
Key of C Rhythm in the Style of Earl Scruggs
"Tennessee Wagoner" in the Style of Charles Sawtelle
Key of C Rhythm in the Style of Tom Paley
"Soldier's Joy" Rhythm in the Style of Riley Puckett
"Have A Feast Here Tonight" in the Style of Doc Watson
"Molly Put the Kettle On" in the Style of Riley Puckett
Rhythm in the Style of Edd Mayfield 2 (Key of G)
Rhythm in the Style of Edd Mayfield 3 (Key of A)
Rhythm in the Style of Peter Rowan (Key of A)
Rhythm in the Style of Charles Sawtelle (Key of E)
"Ragtime Annie" in the Style of David Grier
The Road Ahead

Appendix 1: Reading Tablature
Appendix 2: Working With A Metronome
Appendix 3: Major Scales, Chords, and Arpeggios


About the Flatpicking Essentials Series:

The Flatpicking Essentials instructional series is designed to teach you the art of flatpicking the acoustic guitar in a sequential, step-by-step method that will gradually build your flatpicking skill in a way that leaves no "gaps" or "holes." While this method will be extremely beneficial to beginners, this series will also be of great value to those guitar players who have been working to learn how to flatpick for quite some time, yet can't seem to get beyond a certain plateau. If you are having trouble moving beyond memorized solos, adding interest and variety to your rhythm playing, learning how to play up-the-neck, learning how to come up with your own arrangements to songs, learning how to play by ear, or learning how to improvise, then this series is for you!

Too many flatpickers are learning how to play by simply memorizing transcribed fiddle tune solos from tab books and video tapes. In doing that they are learning ineffectively and inefficiently. They are skipping over many vital elements in the learning process and thus they have a weak foundation. In this series my goal is to help you build a strong foundation so that you can easily maintain consistent forward progress in your study of flatpicking.

Each volume of this series presents material that provides the foundation for the next volume. In this first volume—Rhythm, Bass Runs, and Fill Licks—you will learn how to develop all of the basic skills you will need in order to become a solid rhythm player. This book is designed to teach you rhythm skills in a way that will thoroughly prepare you for Volume 2, which is titled, Learning How To Solo: Carter Style and Beyond. Volume 3 will start to build your fiddle tune repertoire by providing you with melody-based versions of the most popular jam session tunes. Volume 4 will teach you how to become familiar with the entire fingerboard and understand how to use it to your advantage in creating interesting solos. Volume 5 will explore the styles and contributions of the flatpicking legends: Doc Watson, Clarence White, Tony Rice, Dan Crary, Norman Blake, and others. Volume 6 will provide you with advance arrangements of songs and tunes (arranged by Tim May). From there, future volumes will explore other genres such as Celtic, Western Swing, and Gypsy Jazz.

As you will learn in the first section of this book, the flatpicking guitar style developed chronologically along a very clear line of sequential technical skills. In order to learn how to flatpick fiddle tunes like Doc Watson, the student needs to build a foundation similar to the foundation Doc built for himself before he started picking lead solos on fiddle tunes. The first two volumes of this course present the techniques and skills that were developed on the acoustic guitar during the 30s, 40s, and 50s—the pre-Doc Watson skills—the skills Doc acquired as part of building his own musical foundation. The remaining volume then continue to follow the chronological development of the style.