Do you want to gain practical ability with flat-picking? Then, look no further than the tune “Blackberry Blossom”

Taking any tune and playing at various locations on the neck is a fun way to continue to explore the fretboard and familiarize yourself with the guitar's scale patterns. But, taking a classic Bluegrass piece and working it up to fast picking speed is a fantastic way to really develop your playing.



Blackberry Blossom is an old traditional fiddle tune that has become a popular tune for bluegrass guitar flatpickers to play on acoustic guitar. In this lesson, we’ll break down this classic tune.

AUDIO: Here's how this piece sounds:




LESSON:
Section One: (Intro)
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 In the first line we introduce the main theme of the melody. Pick-up notes bring in our initial phrase and the next three measures form the structure of the theme of the tune.




Section Two: (Main Theme)
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 In the next section of the piece we operate within the main body of the song. The theme includes some cross picking technique, so go slowly through the parts and commit everything to memory prior to building the speed.




Section Three: (The Outro.)
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 The final section has a number of larger note duration's mixed against the busy 8th-note feel. Watch for each inflection and move across the parts with a nice even feel.