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Order Number: NGB-106 ISBN: 978-1-883206-58-1

Come visit us at www.nativeground.com

by

Wayne Erbsen

Flatpicking Guitarfor the CompleteIgnoramus!

©2010 Native Ground Books & MusicLibrary of Congress Control Number: 2009934422

All arrangements ©2010 Fracas Music Co. (BMI)Asheville, North Carolina. International Copyright Secured. All Rights Reserved.

Roy H

arv

ey &

Leonard

Copela

nd

2

Writing a guitar book is less like a solo gig and more like the performanceof an entire band. Thanks to Steve Millard for cover art, Barbara Swellfor putting up with me, John Miller, Kelli Churchill, Tom Mindte and Mike

Wright for support, Mark Wingate, Carolyn Dickson and Hilary Dirlam for proofing, MikeCooke, Trent Haynes and Walt Koken for photos, and Tina Liza Jones for illustrations.In particular, I’d like to thank 15 year old Brennen Ernst for his careful research in dis-covering that Charlie Cline was indeed the first guitar flatpicker to record with a fullbluegrass band. Finally, my thanks go to you, the guitar student, for having the faith that Ican teach you to flatpick your guitar, and for sticking with it long enough for me to do so.

Thanks!

Instructional CDAn essential part of this book is the instructional CD you’ll find tucked

in the sleeve on the inside front cover. For the CD I recorded a whopping91 tracks. Each song is played slow enough so you can play along with alittle practice, but fast enough so it sounds like a real song, rather than asnail slowly slithering sideways (try saying that five times). On each tuneyou’ll find an illustration of an old gramophone with a number inside it.These numbers correspond to the tracks on the CD. Be sure to listen to each songbefore you try to play it. As a bonus, if you insert the CD into the slot on your com-puter, and then open the CD drive, you’ll find a file named “lyrics.” Inside this file arethe complete lyrics to all the songs found in the book. Print out the lyrics to eachsong so you can sing the song while accompanying yourself on your guitar.

1

Pick

PickguardTuners

Nut

Bass Strings

Treble Strings

Bridge

Parts of a

Guitar(ist)

Fingerboard

Fret

3

ContentsBook PageNumber

Parts of a Guitar(ist).......................................... 2Come into the Schoolhouse! ............................. 5Pioneers of Flatpicking Guitar ......................... 6The Birth of Flatpicking Guitar ....................... 7Masters of Flatpicking Guitar ......................... 8My Flatpicking Heroes ....................................... 9Tuning Your Guitar.............................................. 10How to Hold the Guitar .................................... 12How to Hold the Pick......................................... 13How to Play the Strings .................................... 14Guitar Chords ....................................................... 15Rhythm Guitar on Campfire Songs .................. 16Wayne’s New Tab for Ignoramuses............... 18Nearly Painless Music Theory.......................... 19The Fear of Scales ............................................ 20Finding Your G Scale .......................................... 21Playing by Ear ....................................................... 22Starting Notes of Popular Tunes ................... 23Picking Out Melodies.......................................... 24Amazing Grace ..................................................... 25Bill Monroe’s Shady Grove ............................... 26Boogie Woogie ..................................................... 27Down the Road .................................................... 28Flatpicker’s Blues................................................ 29Goin’ Across the Sea .......................................... 30Little Maggie ........................................................ 31Will the Circle Be Unbroken ............................ 32Playing in the Key of C ....................................... 33Black-Eyed Susie ................................................ 34Bury Me Beneath the Willow ........................... 35Cotton-Eyed Joe ................................................ 36Darling Corey ....................................................... 37Deer Lake Polka .................................................. 38Little Rosewood Casket .................................... 40Keep on the Sunny Side of Life ...................... 41On Top of Old Smoky ....................................... 42Red River Valley .................................................. 43Shortenin’ Bread ................................................. 44Where the Soul Never Dies ............................. 45Wildwood Flower ................................................ 46Playing in the Key of D ....................................... 47Angelina Baker..................................................... 48Arkansas Traveler .............................................. 49Cluck Old Hen ...................................................... 50

CD Track Number

.......................................................................... 1

......................................................................... 2

.....................................................................3, 4

.....................................................................5, 6

................................................................ 7, 8, 9

................................................................. 10, 11

.......................................................... 12, 13, 14

................................................................. 15, 16

................................................................. 17, 18

................................................................ 19, 20

....................................................................... 21

................................................................ 22, 23

................................................................ 24, 25

................................................................ 26, 27

................................................................ 28, 29

................................................................ 30, 31

................................................................ 32, 33

................................................................ 34, 35

................................................................ 36, 37

................................................................ 38, 39

......................................................... 40, 41, 42

................................................................ 43, 44

................................................................ 45, 46

....................................................................... 47

................................................................ 48, 49

................................................................ 50, 51

................................................................ 52, 53

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Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down .......................... 51In the Pines .......................................................... 52Little Willie ........................................................... 53Soldier’s Joy ........................................................ 54Train 45 ................................................................. 55Whiskey Before Breakfast .............................. 56Playing in the Key of A Minor ........................... 57House of the Rising Sun .................................... 58Muley’s Daughter ................................................ 59Poor Wayfaring Stranger ................................. 60Rain and Snow ...................................................... 61Shady Grove ......................................................... 62Key of D Minor .................................................... 63Little Sadie ........................................................... 63Swannanoa Tunnel .............................................. 64The E Minor Scale .............................................. 65The Cuckoo........................................................... 65Wild Bill Jones ..................................................... 66The Key of A ........................................................ 68Man of Constant Sorrow .................................. 69Tater Patch .......................................................... 70Using a Capo ......................................................... 71How to Jam .......................................................... 72Figuring Out What Chords Go Where ............ 73Backing Up Fiddle Tunes ................................... 74Popular Fiddle Tune Chords.............................. 75Flatpicking Listening ........................................... 77Chords & Bass Notes.......................................... 78Tune & CD Index ................................................. 79Native Ground Books & Music ......................... 80

Contents

Book PageNumber

CDTrack Number

................................................................ 54, 55

................................................................ 56, 57

................................................................ 58, 59

................................................................ 60, 61

................................................................ 62, 63

................................................................ 64, 65

....................................................................... 66

................................................................ 67, 68

................................................................ 69, 70

................................................................ 71, 72

................................................................ 73, 74

................................................................ 75, 76

....................................................................... 77

................................................................ 78, 79

................................................................ 80, 81

....................................................................... 82

................................................................ 83, 84

................................................................ 85, 86

....................................................................... 87

................................................................ 88, 89

................................................................ 90, 91

Tommy Jarrell, left, & Fred Cockerham

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Come into the Schoolhouse!

It’s your first day of guitar school.

You’re nervous as a long-tailed cat at a rocking chair convention.

You select a seat nearest to the back door,so you can slip out if things get a little rough.Sheepishly taking your guitar out of yourcase, you try to act invisible so the instruc-tor won’t know you’re there. Just beforethe bell rings, you stare at the textbookfor the class: Flatpicking Guitar for the Com-plete Ignoramus! My gosh! What have I got-ten myself into? As you look around, you

Who This Book is For• True and total beginners with no experience with the guitar.

• Folks who once knew two or three chords, but have forgotten half of them.

• Guitarists who have been playing for many years, but are stuck playing the same twelve songs over and over and want to be prodded with a sharp stick. Ouch!

• People who have a sense of humor and love to laugh out loud.

What You WILL Learnin This Book

You’ll learn how to: tune your guitar,hold your pick, play basic chords and scales,pick out simple melodies, play solid rhythm,start to learn to play by ear, and learn themeaning of the word “boom-chick.” By thetime we’re done, you should be able to playforty great flatpicking tunes using a newsystem of writing out tunes, sometimescalled “tab,” that I invented just for thisbook. As if that’s not enough, you’ll also learnto play back-up guitar to any number of com-mon and bizarre fiddle tunes without break-ing a sweat or breathing heavy. All this inthe comfort and luxury of your home, apart-ment, treehouse, or while squatting under arailroad bridge with a tattered blanket overyour head.

realize that this is not the stuffy kind ofguitar class where the instructor raps youon the knuckles with a ruler if you hit awrong note.

“Welcome to your first day of guitarclass!” says the grizzled old guitar profes-sor from his stool at the front of theschoolhouse. “Today we’re going to learn toflatpick a guitar. Take a deep breath andlet it out slowly. Now we will begin.”

What You WON’TLearn in This Book

Because this book is for ignoramuses, ornear-ignoramuses, you won’t find a whole lotof fancy-schmancy stuff in here. Instead,you’ll find SIMPLE arrangements of fortytunes. These tunes have been reduced downto their basic nakedness, just like the daythey were born.

The Callahan Brothers

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Wayne’s New Tab for Ignoramuses

If you already know how to read mu-

sic, I stand up and salute yourintelligence and musical chops. Good

work! The only thing is, since this is a bookfor ignoramuses, if you read musical nota-tion, you may be overqualified to be calleda true “ignoramus.” No matter. We’ll justsweep that under the rug and sneak you intothe ignoramus club by the back door withno questions asked. Tell them I sent you.

Instead of standardmusical notation, we’regoing to use a new easyform of tablature (or“tab”) that I inventedjust for you and otherreaders of this book. Ifyou look at other guitarbooks, or download tabfrom the Internet, youalready know that thereare normally six horizon-tal lines that representthe six strings of the gui-tar. On those lines (orstrings) are numbers,which tell you which fretto play on that line orstring. Everybody usesthis system, and I’ve gotto tell you, it STINKS.

What’s so stinky about the number sys-tem of tab that everyone uses? Althoughthis system will certainly get a beginnerstarted, it will be your ruin down the line.Why? Because the numbers don’t reallymean anything! You never hear a real musi-cian say, “we’re going to play in the key of 4on the 3rd string, or 7 on the 6th string.”Instead, real musicians use a language ofletters and say stuff like, “this is going tobe in the key of D,” or “that’s a handsome G

run you just played.” So, if you’re ever go-ing to join the ranks of the non-ignoramuses,you might as well get used to using letters,not numbers, right now.

As if that’s not enough, if you ever planto play with any other musical instrument,or learn even a tiny bit of music theory, you’llfind the language of “3 on the 4th string,”to be useless. Most other instruments speak

in terms of letters like A,B, C and D. Correct me ifI’m wrong, but I’ll betthat some of you willeventually learn to readmusic. My new tab systemwill get you well preparedto do just that, becauseyou’ll already know whereto find your notes on thefingerboard.

Not yet convinced?Here’s several examplesof why my new systemmakes sense. A G run al-ways ends on a G note,and a D run always endson a D note. If you knowwhere your Gs and Dsare, you won’t have toread a stupid number in a

book. Instead, you can find it yourself. An-other example: A G chord always contains aG, a D and a B. If you ever want to learn toimprovise on a G chord, my system will helpyou find the notes of a G chord, becauseyou’ll know where to find those notes onyour guitar. The bottom line is that you’llhave to trust me on this. My system willteach you to play guitar in the short run,and in five years or less, you’ll be thankingme for teaching you this way.

Court

esy o

f R

ik &

Bonnie

Neuste

in

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Picking Out Melodies

As you start to get acquaintedwith this book and peruse itscontents, you may notice that

you won’t find any of the newly-writtensongs by your favorite bluegrass or acous-tic composers. Why? Because the publish-ers who own many of the newly-composed

“Amazing Grace” is a good tune to startout with because it’s so well-known. Abovethe six lines, which represent the six stringsof your guitar are bigger letters, like G, Cand D. Those are those chords. Since it startsand ends with a G, you’re right if you guessedthat “Amazing Grace” is in the key of G. Ofcourse, that means we’ll be using the G scale,the G triad, and the chords normally foundin the key of G: G, C and D.

Please keep in mind that “Amazing Grace”is in 3/4 or waltz time. That means therhythm will be ONE two three, ONE twothree. In guitar lingo, that translates to“boom-chick chick.” The “boom” is your bassstring for whatever chord you are on andyour “chick chick” means you strum DOWN(toward the floor) twice with your pick.

Bass Strings: In the box to the right areyour bass strings for the key of G. For songsin waltz time, play two crisp strums down onthe bottom three or four strings. That’s your“boom-chick chick.”

Bass Notes Chord Name String G G & D 6 & 4 C C & E 5 & 4 D D & A 4 & 5

The Order of the Tunes to PlayThe songs that will be easiest for you to pick are generally the ones you are

already familiar with. To make it easier to find your favorites in the book, thesongs are arranged in alphabetical order within each key.

Before you start reading the tab andtrying to pick out the tune, I suggest you gothrough and play the chords while keeping asteady beat with your “boom-chick” or“boom-chick chick.” When you can do that,try singing the song while you change chords.Next, try picking out the tune, without look-ing at the tab. You can find the starting noteson page 23.

NOTE: In the upper right hand cornerof each of the following tunes in the book,you’ll find a chart with the notes of the scaleyou’ll need to play the melody of that song.A note in a circle means you play that noteopen, or unfretted. Review these notes be-fore you play each song.

songs have made it prohibitively expensiveto print their songs without mortgaging myhouse and giving them my guitar and dog toboot. Instead, the songs Ill be teaching youhave proudly stood the test of time and arehappily in the public domain.

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Amazing Grace

When first picking out “Amazing Grace,” justplay the melody without any strums. Thestrums are represented by an arrow. After

you’re comfortable playing the melody, hold down the chordat the same time you’re playing the melody.

Timing: Since “Amazing Grace” is in 3/4 or waltz time, that means each measure willget three beats. Starting at the first complete measure (”maz-ing”), tap your foot threetimes, not too fast. The G note would get a down-up with your foot, the arrow or strumwould get a down-up and the B would get a down and the G would get an up.

At the beginning of line 3, use your four finger G chord (page 78, far right). On linefour, over the word “now,” play B string open, then quickly get to your D and strum it.

Key of G

3,4

79

.................... G

.................... D

.................... D

.................... G

.................... C

.................... G

.................... C

.................... D

.................... C

................. Em

.................... C

.................... C

.................... D

.................... G

.................... G

.................... G

................. Am

.................... D

.................... C

.................... G

.................... C

................. Dm

.................... D

.................... A

................. Am

.................... C

................. Am

................. Am

.................... C

................. Am

.................... G

.................... C

.................... D

................. Dm

.................... A

.................... D

.................... C

.................... D

................. Em

.................... C

.................... G

................... 3, 4

................... 48, 49

................... 50, 51

................... 5, 6

................... 22, 23

................... 7, 8, 9

................... 24, 25

................... 52, 53

................... 26, 27

................... 83, 84

................... 28, 29

................... 30, 31

................... 54, 55

................... 10, 11

................... 12, 13, 14

................... 15, 16

................... 67, 68

................... 56, 57

................... 34, 35

................... 17, 18

................... 32, 33

................... 78, 79

................... 58, 59

................... 88, 89

................... 69, 70

................... 36, 37

................... 71, 72

................... 73, 74

................... 38, 39

................... 75, 76

................... 5, 6

................... 40, 41, 42

................... 60, 61

................... 80, 81

................... 90, 91

................... 62, 63

................... 43, 44

................... 64, 65

................... 85, 86

................... 45, 46

................... 19, 20

Amazing Grace .......................................... 25Angelina Baker.......................................... 48Arkansas Traveler ................................... 49Bill Monroe’s Shady Grove .................... 26Black-Eyed Susie ..................................... 34Boogie Woogie .......................................... 27Bury Me Beneath the Willow ................ 35Cluck Old Hen ........................................... 50Cotton-Eyed Joe ..................................... 36Cuckoo, The .............................................. 65Darling Corey ............................................ 37Deer Lake Polka ....................................... 38Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down ............... 51Down the Road ......................................... 28Flatpicker’s Blues..................................... 29Goin’ Across the Sea ............................... 30House of the Rising Sun ......................... 58In the Pines ............................................... 52Keep on the Sunny Side of Life ........... 41Little Maggie ............................................. 31Little Rosewood Casket ......................... 40Little Sadie ................................................ 63Little Willie ................................................ 53Man of Constant Sorrow ....................... 69Muley’s Daughter ..................................... 59On Top of Old Smoky ............................ 42Poor Wayfaring Stranger ...................... 60Rain and Snow ........................................... 61Red River Valley ....................................... 43Shady Grove .............................................. 62Shady Grove (Bill Monroe) .................... 26Shortenin’ Bread ...................................... 44Soldier’s Joy ............................................. 54Swannanoa Tunnel ................................... 64Tater Patch ............................................... 70Train 45 ...................................................... 55Where the Soul Never Dies .................. 45Whiskey Before Breakfast ................... 56Wild Bill Jones .......................................... 66Wildwood Flower ..................................... 46Will the Circle Be Unbroken? ............... 32

Tune & CD Index

Tune PageCD

Track NumbersKey

80

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