Crosspicking Method: Beaumont Rag

Details

Description

CROSSPICKING METHOD

This video shows you the method I use when crosspicking. Crosspicking is a guitar technique used to imitate a fiddle technique called ''The Georgia Shuffle''. This is a three quaver note sequence played over and over in a music form that is divided into two groups of four notes. I've chosen the tune ''Beaumont Rag'' to illustrate this technique. As with so many facets of flatpicking we can trace this back to the father of flatpick guitar Doc Watson, who first recorded this tune on his ''Doc Watson and Son'' LP from 1965, with his son Merle. He played it on a 12 string guitar, an instrument that is rarely used for playing what might generally be termed fiddle tunes. This tune is a two part tune divided into two 16 bar parts, and the crosspicking starts on the first bar of the second part. The first part of tune, played slowly, sounds like this.............

As you can see I'm using a standard alternate picking pattern, D.U.D.U.D.U.D.U. You play a Down pick ''On'' the beat and an Up pick ''Off'' the beat, so in some parts of this tune I will be picking Up on consecutive notes where those notes occur ''Off'' the beat. The slightly misnamed ''Alternate Picking'' comes about because the vast majority of fiddle tunes have eight quavers per bar and where that occurs you will have DUDUDUDU, or alternate picking. It's when you have a touch of syncopation or a crotchet or two appearing that you have consecutive D or U strokes, and that occurs occassionally in this tune.

The crosspicking part in this tune, in Part B, crosses three strings, with a G and A note used on the third of those strings. The first two bars of crosspicking consist of an arpeggio of a G chord, using the B note on string 5, the open D string 4, and either the open G or A note on string three, like this...........

The next two bars use the C note on string 5, the E note on string 4, and the G and A notes on string 3, like this.........

And putting the whole of the second part together sounds like this.....

The ''trick'' to achieving this crosspicking sound is to maintain a D.U.D.U.D.U.D.U pattern over a three note pattern. In other words maintain your ''normal'' picking pattern. Incidentally, the Glenn Miller song ''In The Mood'', when played on guitar, is more or less a brief example of crosspicking.

Now I'll play the whole tune at a slow tempo, once through so you can hear everything in context..........

I've included a recording of Beaumont Rag I made for my CD ''I Pick..... Therefore I Am'' which includes crosspicking in the B Part of the tune. Just remember to play D.U.D.U.D.U.D.U. no matter what the melody is doing.
This CD, and my other CDs are available at https://tonyorourke.bandcamp.com

You can access notation and chord diagrams for this tune by going to: https://irishguitarpod.com
and looking under the Workshops tab for: Crosspicking Method(Beaumont Rag). No registration/login is required.