Crosspicking Archives

Wabash Cannonball

April 13, 2025June 30, 2017 by Devin

Lesson ID: A0125

“Wabash Cannonball” is a traditional American folk song that was originally published to sheet music in 1882 under the title “The Great Rock Island Route” written by J. A. Roff. The song was later rewritten under the title “Wabash Cannonball” in 1904 by William Kindt. In this guitar lesson, we’ll show you the chords and lyrics to “Wabash Cannonball” along with two full-length guitar solos. The first guitar solo incorporates a lot of the song’s melody line notes and the second solo is loaded with bluegrass flatpicking licks.

Lesson Overview

Melodic Solo

Bluegrass Flatpicking Solo

Rhythm Breakdown

Member Content

Backing Track

Member Content

Chords & Lyrics Melodic Solo TAB Bluegrass Solo TAB Melodic Intro TAB Woodtone Strings

How to Mix Country Crosspicking with Your Strumming

April 13, 2025October 19, 2016 by Devin

country and bluegrass crosspicking patterns guitar lesson

Lesson ID: A0098

In this guitar lesson, we’ll show you some country and bluegrass crosspicking patterns that’ll help you improve your pick control. After we learn the patterns and discuss proper technique, we’ll go over how you can mix these patterns with your country strumming to spice up your rhythm guitar playing.

Video Start Time	Lesson Topic
00:00 min	Crosspicking Overview
01:25 min	Crosspicking Pattern 1
03:31 min	Pick Direction
04:21 min	Crosspicking Pattern 2
05:17 min	Proper Technique
06:47 min	Changing Chords
08:07 min	How to Mix Crosspicking with Country Strumming
15:38 min	Shifting to Different Strings
16:48 min	Intermediate Crosspicking/Strumming Rhythm

Crosspicking Patterns TAB Crosspicking Drills TAB Woodtone Strings

Wildwood Flower

February 22, 2026May 25, 2016 by Devin

Lesson ID: A0073

“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.

Overview

Traditional Version

Intermediate Version

Traditional Tablature Intermediate Tablature Chords Progression Woodtone Strings