Time of your life, is it really a begginer's song?

Crosspicking, put into the simplest terms (and there's more to it, I know so please feel free to add to the details) is playing arpeggios with a pick, or (if you prefer) strumming one note at a time in a particular pattern.

For Good Riddance, the essential pattern is:

Beat 1: Pick down on the bass note (depending on the chord, it will be on either the low E (sixth string), A or D string.

Beat 2: Pick down on the D string (G string if you're playing the D chord) and then up on the B string (which is where your ring finger is on the third fret throughout the chord changes)

Beat 3: First half (where you'd normally do a down) you let the previous note from "Beat 2" ring out. Second half you come up on the G string.

Beat 4: Down on the D string and up on the G string.

I know it's probably much too long to wait, but I've just written a piece on this that will be in Acoustic Guitar Magazine in early December (I think). But if you take your time with the pattern, you will be amazed at how quickly you can get it into your hands.

FInally, and this is (pardon the pun) just a note of interest - after listening to this song more times than is probably healthy, I've come to the conclusion that the guitarist never hits the high E (first) string once in this song. Even when he's strumming away like mad. So my thoughts are that (a) it's tuned down to D, making the picking pattern foolproof) (b) he's an exceptionally careful guitarist (c) he broke the string and decided he didn't need it to play this song... :wink:

Hope this helps.

Peace

Yes david , billie joe armstrong is a really good guitarist , and he is GOD :twisted: :wink:


|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|----------3--------------------3------------------3-------------------3------------|
|-------------0----0---------------0-----0------------0-----0------2-----2-----0-----|
|------0--------0---------0-----------0----------2-------2------0----------0-------|
|----------------------------------------------3-------------------------------------|
|--3-------------------3-------------------------------------------------------------|


EDIT: Sorry about the code, this is my first time coding, it looked right in preview. I will try to fix it when I get time.

This is how I play the G, C, D picking. The Em is picked with the same pattern as the G. Hope this helps.