Why Carter Style Is The Gateway Drug To Cross-Picking

Today we’ll be talking about what I consider the meat (or for the vegetarians, the kale, quinoa, tofu?) of creating a cross-picking arrangement. I’ll be showing how we take a previously arranged Carter Style song, and create a cross-picking version of it. So let’s get to it.

The first thing you need is a Carter Style arrangement of any song, or tune, that you would like to cross-pick. The reason for this is something that I talked about in a previous post. Remember, when working on any song the two main things you need to know are the melody, and the chords. And guess what? We have both of those in a Carter style arrangement. This is really important, because when we cross-pick we’re usually picking across the chord, and since we have that in the Carter Style arrangement it’s very easy to transition into a cross-picking version of it. In Carter Style we strum in between the melody notes. When we want to transform a Carter Style arrangement into a cross-picking one we pick across the chord instead of strumming it. It also means that we would change the picking rhythm into eight notes where it was previously quarter notes for the strum. The difficulty comes from drawing the melody notes out so that they stand out over the picked chord notes, or arpeggio.* If all the notes have the same volume the melody tends to get lost in the sound of the arpeggiated chord.

Let’s look at the first four measures of the Carter Style Red River Valley :

Now lets take those four measures, and apply cross-picking to it. We’ll start with the melody, and then pick across the chord from that note. In this example we’re using the forward roll. We use the forward roll anytime the melody is in the lower register. Then we start again on the melody note, and pick across the chord. Here’s the music :

Hopefully you noticed that the second note in the melody came in a half a beat earlier than in the Carter Style version. This happened because I put the melody note at the beginning of each of the rolls. It adds some flavor because it adds a little syncopation the the melody. There’s no exact way to do it, and I would recommend experimenting with it. The more ways you can think of, the better, as it will give endless variations. Always use your ear; if it sounds good it is good.

Ok, so if we take that process through the entire song, this is how it will end up :

Keep in mind as you’re working through the song that we want to accent, or play the melody note slightly louder. This may seem a little difficult at first, but with practice it will become second nature. I recommend memorizing the arrangement, and then using a metronome to practice it in time, and gradually increase the tempo. It’s very important to practice slowly with perfect technique, and then gradually increase the tempo as you’re comfortable with it,  without forsaking technique, timing, or tone.

Carter Style is the gateway drug to cross-picking, because it gives you all the elements you need to create a cross-picking arrangement, and it’s an easy way to get learn those elements. So stay tuned for our next session where I’ll cover the same process, but using the backward roll in Continuing the Cycle On the Not So Carter Carter Style.

*Arpeggio: n. a chord where the notes are played separately, or broken chord

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Happy Picking!