“Salt Creek” is a popular bluegrass flatpicking tune that you’ll hear at bluegrass jams all the time. This song was originally titled “Salt River” and it was renamed by Bill Monroe in the 1960s to honor the actual Salt Creek in Indiana near the location of Monroe’s annual Bean Blossom Festival. This song has been recorded by several bluegrass artists over the years, including Tony Rice, Doc Watson, Bill Monroe, Norman Blake, Clarence White, Billy Strings, and many others.
In this bluegrass guitar lesson, you’ll learn how to play two flatpicking guitar solo breaks for “Salt Creek”. Both of the guitar solo breaks have a ton of momentum and they are loaded with some really nice bluegrass guitar licks. First we’ll play through each of the flatpicking guitar solos with guitar tablature. Then Devin will teach you each solo line by line and he’ll give you some helpful flatpicking tips along the way. The “Salt Creek” guitar tablature is available for download below the lesson videos.
Video 1 – Playthrough with Tablature
Video 2 – Full Breakdown
| Video Start Time | Lesson Topic |
|---|---|
| 00:00 min | Kickoff – Measures 1 through 4 |
| 03:27 min | A Part – Measures 5 through 8 |
| 08:55 min | A Part – Measures 9 through 12 |
| 14:06 min | A Part – Measures 13 through 16 |
| 15:52 min | A Part – Measures 17 through 20 |
| 18:47 min | Practice the A Part with Me |
| 20:14 min | B Part – Measures 21 through 24 |
| 25:24 min | B Part – Measures 25 through 28 |
| 30:05 min | B Part – Measures 29 through 32 |
| 31:42 min | B Part – Measures 33 through 36 |
| 33:16 min | Practice the B Part with Me |
Video 1 – Playthrough with Tablature
Video 2 – Full Breakdown
| Video Start Time | Lesson Topic |
|---|---|
| 00:00 min | A Part – Measures 1 through 4 |
| 03:09 min | A Part – Measures 5 through 8 |
| 08:46 min | A Part – Measures 9 through 12 |
| 10:17 min | A Part – Measures 13 through 16 |
| 16:01 min | Practice the A Part with Me |
| 17:30 min | B Part – Measures 17 through 20 |
| 22:39 min | B Part – Measures 21 through 24 |
| 27:50 min | B Part – Measures 25 through 28 |
| 28:57 min | B Part – Measures 29 through 32 |
| 31:37 min | Practice the B Part with Me |
Bluegrass Series Mid Tension / Acoustic Guitar Strings
https://woodtonestrings.com/product/classic-triangle-pick-1-0mm-3-pack/
New guitar lesson! This is one of my all-time favorite bluegrass tunes. I had an older version of this lesson on the site but I really wanted to re-record this lesson in the new lesson format since it’s one of my favorite songs. The two guitar flatpicking breaks are different than what I taught in the older lesson. Hope y’all like it! I should have the full breakdown video for the second break and the rhythm breakdown video posted early next week.
Thanks!
Devin
Thanks so much for this lesson Devin. Took me a few weeks but tonight, I finally got it all!
Beautiful one….thanks Devin!
Nice arrangement!
Whoa awesome! Just wrapping up railroad Bill, and then I’ll dig into this one. Bluegrass has always been my favorite to play. Thanks Devin!
Beautiful arrangement! This is fantastic!
I’m so glad you chose to remake this one, I was listening to it last week and decided to make it my next project. Perfect, thanks Devin!
So glad to have come across this one!
Could you add any of the leads from Norman Blake/Tony Rice?
What kind of guitar is that? Pre-War?
I’ve been wanting to order one of the Pre-War guitars… I found out about those through one of Molly Tuttle’s videos. They look really interesting! The guitar in this video is a Collings D2H — one of my other favorite guitars to play these days.. really nice craftsmanship all around.
Ahh, thanks! It’s a beautiful guitar for sure. I have a Martin DSS-17 which I absolutely love, but might look at Pre-War before going the higher end Martin route. They do look amazing. Thanks again! Love this site.
Thanks Devin, I like the lesson for rithm pick strum , very usefull. I need learn many way to play different strumming for my composition, great!
What a great video lesson. Ive wanted to play this a long time. Never thought I could but im making my way through and its amazing. So many great riffs and fills. Well worth the investment.