I hope you enjoy the dramatic walk in! 

I’m new to bluegrass style flatpicking and am wondering if you have any tips to improve my fluidity in lead runs. I’m just getting started with your lessons and I’m really enjoying the, so far!

Hi Joe, I like the walk-in! 

First of all, you sound great. You have a really lovely singing voice and you're obviously a fine musician. The main thing I think you should work on is the development of your right hand mechanism so that your pick *direction* is tied to the beat that your playing. You did a good job of rendering the music here, including the solo. So for this song your technique isn't getting in the way much, but as you start to play harder, more notey material I think you might encounter more hiccups.

Check out the lessons on Soldier's Joy, particularly the first one in the series. They address the topic of pick stroke theory. I think that when you can establish a super solid physical mechanism and integrate it into your musicianship the results will be really strong. 

Cheers!

Chris

Thanks Chris! 

I just started working on soldiers joy over the past week and learned a lot. I trained myself to alternate pick as often as possible because for some reason I thought it would be more efficient! I’m trying to unlearn that and actually pay attention to the 16th notes if I can. Up until now I’ve handled rhythm 100% by feel without counting. Thanks for the feedback!

I don't know if this is relevant, but do you notice that your index finger is all the way up on your sixht string? Maybe if you place your index on your bass notes (b and c# instead of f# and g#), the strecht becomes easier? Maybe this is wrong, but it's a suggestion :)

Torgeir

Hi Torgeir,

You know – I just always bar everything when I do bar chords. I don't really know why. I think I've picked up a lot of bad habits over the years. I'll give it a try and let you know how it feels NOT pressing down as hard as I can, lol. Granted – I do want the high E (string) to play..... So I think that's part of the thought process.

Hi Sarah,

I think Torgeir’s advice here is good. The less work your first finger has to do, the better. Because you’re fretting strings 4, 3 and 2 with your other fingers, you only need to actually bar strings 1 and 5, which is much easier than pressing down all 5 strings. Because your finger is curved, this is actually much easier than feeling like you need to press down on all 5 strings. You can use the tip of your index finger to gently mute the 6th string. This should relieve the amount of work (read: tension) required of your first finger and should make the change much easier. 

Also, for what it’s worth, I almost never play the first string when I’ll playing those particular chord shapes unless for some reason I feel like those notes have an important voice leading or melodic function. I’ll tend to play strings 5, 4, 3 and 2 and use the underside of my fingers to mute the first string. This can *really* make the physicality of playing those chords much easier. 

Let me know if those suggestions help!

Chris

Torgeir, beautiful playing. Truly. You’re doing the triplets a bit differently than I did, but what you did is better. I wish I had phrased them that way. Really nice. The one issue I hear is that occasionally you are jumping ahead on the beat. This happens at 0:33 and again at 0:47. Make sure you can keep the beat straight in those sections where the melody syncopates and you’ll be in good shape. 

Also, the timing between the solo and rhythm playing is very consistent. 👍

Hi Weeks, welcome to the site!

I've mostly laid things out so that different concepts and techniques tend to build on each other, so I'd recommend going in chronological order. Banks of the Ohio is probably one of the more accessible songs, but I'd encourage you to browse your way through the whole catalog. Also, there will often be lots of more advanced content in the musical example at the beginning of a lesson series that we will explore over the course of the 4 or 5 lessons. Don't let the first lesson scare you!

Looking forward to seeing you on here,

Chris

Hi Maurizio,

Nice job playing the tune. 2 things I notice:

1. Your ring finger is coming much further off the fingerboard than it needs to. Try paying attention to keeping it closer down so that it's ready to pounce, but doesn't have so far to travel.

2. Your entire and and wrist seem to be rotating when you play an upstroke. Maybe this is because you are aiming to use rest strokes on your upstrokes? If so, you don't need to do that. Either way, you might have an easier time if you don't use so much rotation. Not that your wrist should be tight, but try limiting the rotation and instead focusing on a more consistent up and down motion.

Hey Jack,

You're playing it well as far as the sound you're getting but there's an issue: you're adding an extra beat into each measure and playing the song in 4/4 (straight time) as opposed to 3/4 (waltz time). So what we need to do is make sure that you're really feeling the three meter. Practice counting along to my orignal melody where you simply count aloud: "ONE - two - three - ONE - two - three - ONE - two - three - ONE - two - three", etc. Don't play while you do this - just speak the count and accent the ONE of each measure. Once that feels familiar and you really feel like you've got the three internalized, then go back and play along with me in the original video some more. Once you feel like you've got that comfortable and you're still feeling the 3 meter, then go back to the metronome. The most important thing here is that you're really feeling that 3 meter.

Good luck and let me know if you have any questions!

Chris

John, that's great! The last thing I'd say as you work on it more is be sure that you can do it without the video, but with the metronome. The metronome in this instance is less about working on time and more about keeping you on track as far as knowing the phrasing. Don't shy away from accenting the 1st beat of the 3/4 measure.

Hey John,

First of all, great job. You've totally got the idea and all of the notes. The missing piece is the timing of the phrases.You're very close so I think you can figure it out on your own with a little help from the metronome.

My suggestion is that you get a metronome where you can highlight the first beat of every measure. If you have an iphone or android you can download a metronome app. I would highly encourage doing this. There is a really great, basic one called Tempo. It costs $3 and is rock solid; strongly recommended. One feature of this app is that you can easily set it so that the first beat of each measure is spelled out. Practice White Dove again with the metronome going in 3/4 and see if you can iron out the spots that are giving you trouble.

Let me know how it goes!

Chris