For a sample, check out her gorgeous YouTube rendition of John Hartford’s “Gentle on My Mind.” Tuttle is also a clear and patient teacher, and she shared the following exercises to get started with crosspicking, and then a couple of simple arrangements for practicing the technique: “Wildwood Flower” and “Worried Man Blues.” Forget About FrettingĬlassic bluegrass crosspicking involves playing across a group of three adjacent strings, usually in a pattern of eighth notes. One young player with a fine, fluid crosspicking style is Molly Tuttle. The technique works well for accompaniment, as an elegant alternative to strumming, as well as chord-melody-style solos.
Pioneered by Stanley Brothers guitarist George Shuffler in the 1950s, and carried forward by such players as Doc Watson, Clarence White, and Tony Rice, crosspicking is essentially a guitar version of the fingerpicked banjo roll-you flatpick individual notes across the strings, creating rolling patterns that outline both the melody and the chords.
From the April 2017 issue of Acoustic Guitar magazine | BY JEFFREY PEPPER RODGERSĬrosspicking is an essential technique in the bluegrass guitar toolkit.
