Dusty Roads Two Step – A Fingerstyle Song by Peter Simms
Hello Guitar Noise fingerpickers!
I wrote this little ditty for those of you who are looking to expand beyond “background finger-picking.” The idea is to get you playing your single guitar like a small combo band, complete with a soloist for the melody, a bass for the bass lines (of course!) and someone to fill in the middle with chords and/or harmonies.
To be able to master this, you should already be familiar with your basic chords and comfortable to move fingers around to accommodate changes in their fingerings.
Take a look at the complete arrangement and listen to it on the midi file.
This song incorporates a mini melody, a basic bass line, and little harmony within it. I wrote it to only have one chord function per measure. This makes it easier to understand how it’s put together.
It also helps that this is basically in a twelve-bar blues format (you can find out more about that by reading the Guitar Noise lesson on Before You Accuse Me). So you can see that you’ll be using these chords in these measures:
Measures 1 through 4 – G
Measures 5 and 6 – C
Measures 7 and 8 – G
Measure 9 – D
Measure 10 – C
Measures 11 and 12 – G
A few notes on the Picking Hand:
The thumb handles the bass line. On any measures with “G” – you’ll pluck Strings 6 and 4. Measures 5 and 6 (with “C”) – you’ll pluck Strings 5, 4, 6 and then 4 again. The measure of D will be just the fourth string and Measure 10 (C again) will be just String 5.
Take a listen to the example without the melody and harmony.
View the pdf file of just the Bass part and then compare it to the arrangement.
By using your index and middle fingers, decide which ones will be most comfortable to pluck the notes for the harmony and melody. I would approach a measure at a time. I wrote it in this fashion. As you can tell with the midi file, there is a bit of a shuffle in the rhythmic structure. Add that after you are comfortable with each measure.
E-mail me and let me know if you would like a video of me playing this song.
My e-mail: [email protected]
Have Fun! … Peter