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Bluegrass Standards

Easy Flatpicking Arrangement – “Arkansas Traveler”

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arkansas-traveler-guitar-lesson-with-tab

Lesson ID: A0219

In this guitar lesson, you’ll learn how to play one of the most common bluegrass standards called “Arkansas Traveler” in the key of D. We’d highly recommend learning this song if you ever go to bluegrass jams, and even if you’re not into playing fiddle tunes on guitar, it’s a really good song to use for working on your pick control and accuracy.

After you learn the flatpicking arrangement, practice along with the “Arkansas Traveler” backing track that comes with this guitar lesson. The lesson tablature is available for download below the lesson video.

Lesson Overview
Playthrough with TAB

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Full Breakdown

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Backing Track

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Dust in a Baggie by Billy Strings

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Lesson ID: A0209

In this guitar lesson, you’ll learn how to play the guitar solos from “Dust in a Baggie” by Billy Strings. We’re going to cover the popular version on YouTube where Billy is playing this song on a couch. We’ll cover all the guitar breaks that Billy plays in this version. The tablature files are available for download below the lesson videos.

Guitar Break 2

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Guitar Break 3

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Guitar Break 4

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My New Favorite Guitar Picks

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best triangle guitar picks for flatpicking bluegrass

We just wanted to post a quick video to show you the new Woodtone Picks that I helped design. Long story short, I prototyped and sampled a ton of different pick shapes, and finally settled on three triangle shapes that felt very comfortable to grip. These new Woodtone Picks are made of an upgraded celluloid plastic and we put a ton of effort into making sure the edges of the picks are super smooth for better tone and less pick scraping noise.

We’re extremely happy with how the picks turned out! I use them as my go-to guitar pick and I’d put them up against any of the other high-dollar picks on the market. I like all of the sizes, but my personal favorites are the .96mm Small Triangle and .96mm Medium Triangle picks. If y’all have any questions about them, just let me know!

Here’s a link to the new picks if you want to check them out:
https://woodtonestrings.com/shop/?_sft_product_cat=guitar-picks

“Nothing To It” In the Style of Billy Strings

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Lesson ID: A0201

In this guitar lesson, you’ll learn how to play a variation of the song “Nothing To It” written by Doc Watson in the style of Billy Strings. This song is loaded with some classic Doc Watson style guitar licks that you can use when you’re improvising guitar solos in the key of C. The guitar riffs and melody line walks in this song use some unusual note combinations which will really help push your flatpicking to the next level.

If this song is a bit out of your comfort zone, we recommend trying to learn it at a very slow pace. Focus on getting clean pick strokes, relax the grip on your guitar pick, and pick each note softly. This practice method will help you build the right technique and muscle memory — your picking speed and volume will develop over time. Overall, this is a great song for working on flatpicking technique!

Overview

Playthrough with TAB