“Wildwood Flower” was first published in 1860 and was later recorded by the Carter Family in 1928 on the Victor label. Maybelle Carter leads a rendition of the song on the 1972 album Will the Circle be Unbroken, and frequently performed the song in concert with Johnny Cash. In this guitar lesson, I’ll teach you a traditional version of Wildwood Flower and then an intermediate version with a ton of crosspicking.
Cherokee Shuffle is an old traditional fiddle tune that’s become a popular tune for bluegrass flatpickers to play on acoustic guitar. The first version of this tune was recorded by fiddler Tommy Magness in the 1930’s. Tommy Jackson is generally credited with transforming Magness’s rendition into “Cherokee Shuffle” in the key of A. In this lesson, we’ll slow down this tune and play along with interactive guitar tablature note for note. Be sure to use the AB Looping and playback speed controls on the video player!
In this guitar lesson video, we’ll break down the scales that are commonly played in key of G open bluegrass licks. They’re called “open” licks or open riffs because they incorporate a lot of hammer-ons and pull-offs to and from the open strings. These licks are used all the time in country and bluegrass music and they sound great over a standard I – IV – V chord progression. Clamp on your capo and you can play these open riffs at any location on the guitar neck!
We’ve got a couple drills here in this lesson video that’ll help you build right hand pick accuracy for playing country and bluegrass rhythm guitar. These country rhythm patterns will make your rhythm guitar sound more melodic and complex. We’ll show you exactly how to incorporate these techniques into chord progressions so your guitar will sound fuller when you’re singing and strumming country songs.