Question about flat-picking melodies with accompanying chords. Help please.

[John H]

This style is the Carter Style of guitar playing. Flat-picking melodies while integrating chords to embellish melody is fairly easy when written out. When arranging a tune in the Carter Style, a 1,4,5 progression in the key of C for example, with other chords too, landing on the right chords after playing the melody is not always as simple as it sounds. Is there a formula or system for this? Or, is something that has to be done by ear or trial and error? Thank you in advance.

John

[sunjamr]

Hey John, it sounds like you are describing bluegrass style flatpicking. I tried to get into it a while ago, but I found it very hard to do. Wildwood flower is the classic song many people seem to start with, then maybe Freight Train. If you find any good tutorials, let us know.

Sunjamr Steve

[John H]

Yes but it is the Carter Style… I am just trying to figure out how to arrange pieces myself and of course use chords and chord melodies to ’embellish’ the single note melody. I am on to something, will share when I have time. Thanks.

JH

[Jean-Michel G]

Hi John,
I don’t immediately see what your problem is…
The chord sequence is whatever you want it to be, and it is largely determined by the melody. This is not style-dependent. So the “right chord” is simply the chord for the current bar – there is no escape!

The Carter style is basically thumb – frail – thumb – frail … But instead of playing exclusively “root + 5th” in the bass like you would for a strict bluegrass-type accompaniment, you play melody notes in the bass. Of course, if the song is in 4:4 and the melody notes are quarter notes, you won’t be able to easily strum chords. So there is balance to find.

…but I suppose I’d better wait for your next post?

[Richard W]

John, I think you’re talking about the kind of playing demonstrated in the video below? If so, then what I would add is it is 99% of the time played out of a C or G position (like much of bluegrass in general). I think playing out of C is the best starting point, though the video below shows a nice melody out of G.

When you get comfortable with the basics, then you can sometimes throw in bluegrassy single note runs and licks when there is a pause in the melody instead of just strumming through the melodic pauses. But you always have to have a good balance of light strumming to keep the sound full. And as Jean-Michel notes, the strumming in this style is built on the “boom-chuck” pattern. Alternating bass notes with strums. And the bass notes themselves usually alternate between the root and the five.

If you haven’t already, you should check out Norman Blake. His style is kind of a turbo charged version of all of the above. He is one of the titans of flatpicking.

Good luck with it!

[Jean-Michel G]

Yep, cowboy chords! The Carter used to play “Will The Circle Be Unbroken” in D.

For the sake of completeness: Maybelle Carter used to use a thumb pick and one fingerpick on her pointing finger. But there are many people who do all the work with a normal pick.

[David R]

Hi John, I found this helpful.
Hope it helps

[Author]

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