Miniseries #004, Take this Hammer + 7th Chords and Backup Discussions VIII

Hi Everybody,

Lets start to discuss a little bit about backup in these next videos. As you already know, if you went through the vamping series.....that was one way....a very important way to play basic backup through the use of the closed chords. What we are going to do now is, take those same chords and play picking patterns with them to create another way to backup up other musicians.

You can look to the tablature as well as the video to learn these picking patterns. I use these patterns a lot in traditional bluegrass. They come from the styling of Scruggs, who is brilliant in his compliment of the others. I can say as well that these patterns can be used in many songs and tunes in bluegrass, not just take this hammer.

There are many ways to transition this pattern from one chord to another. In the first example of this video, we are going to play a slide starting on the count of 4 within the pattern. As we pick the note on the count of 4, we slide the note all the way up to our next chord in the fourth string position. You can hear and see how this is taking place in the video. We can do our transitioning in any direction.. that being sliding up the neck, or sliding down the neck. It may take a little time to get these slides to come together with the pattern, but it will with a little practice.

Roll Away

David