Traditional - Railroad Bill Guitar Lesson

Chapter 1: (16:10) Railroad Bill Scene 1
Orville introduces the song Railroad Bill and talks about the use of an alternating bass line with your thumb while playing melody with your index and middle fingers. He likens this separation of parts to the way piano players split the bass and treble parts between their left and right hands. Playing your guitar this way gives a piano-like quality to the sound and creates interesting interplay and counterpoint between the two parts.

Like many folk-blues tunes, Railroad Bill is based on a real person's story. He was never conclusively identified but detectives from the L&N Railroad in southern Alabama claimed he was a man named Morris Slater aka Bill McCoy. He rode the rails from town to town and was implicated in the murder of a deputy sheriff. After escaping the lawmen he robbed trains and supposedly distributed his profits to the poor Robin Hood-style. As his legend grew, supernatural shape shifting abilities and magic powers were said to have helped him elude the authorities.

Thru ballads, songs, and stories the outlaw's legacy has been passed along thru generations. One of the earliest recordings of the story was in 1924 by country singers Gid Tanner and Riley Puckett. Many fingerstyle blues guitarists including John Jackson, Mississippi John Hurt, and Etta Baker have recorded this traditional tune.

Scene 2
Orville describes the chords we'll need to know for this lesson. C, E, F, and G7. He then plays the tune all the way thru at tempo with a few variations that he doesn't break down in the lesson. After you learn the tutorial version come back to this scene and see if you can pick out a few of the variations for yourself. Once you've learned the prescribed version it'll be easy for you to see the moves that Orville adds in performance.

Scene 3
Orville shows you the alternating bass lines that your thumb will be playing. While on the C chord your right thumb will be playing a pattern of 5th string-4th string-6th string-4th string. Your left hand holds a C chord and your left ring finger alternates between 5th string 3rd fret-6th string 3rd fret in concert with your picking thumb. When you change to the E chord you'll pick 6th string-4th string-5th string-4th string. On the F chord you'll just move between the 6th string-4th string. As you play the G7 you'll alternate 6-4-5-4 with your thumb. The C chord is the only one you'll need to be fretting different bass notes with your left hand rather than just holding the chord down.

Scene 4
Orville demonstrates the bass line while singing the melody notes that he will later play with his fingers. Singing the melody to any song, lick, or passage that you're learning is very helpful. It enables you to internalize and memorize things more easily. Even if you don't consider yourself to be a singer, being able to sing melody lines is important to your development as a musician. Its not something you have to do on stage if that's not your calling, but doing it in your practice room to help your learning process will make you a better player.

Scene 5
Orville picks out the basic melody notes. Most of the notes are on the first string with a couple on the second and only one melody note on the third string. After calling out the individual notes he points out that some of the melody notes are picked at the same time as a thumb note while some fall in between the alternating bass notes. The in between notes are said to be syncopated. If you refer to the music/tab you can easily see which notes are which.

Scene 6
Orville shows a variation that he uses on the C to E change at the beginning of the piece. This is based on a version of the tune by the great fingerstyle guitarist Etta Baker. It uses a ringing dissonance between the fretted Eb on the second string against the open E natural as you play the C chord. Orville changes his fingering of the C chord to enable his little finger to hold the Eb with the C and then slide down one fret to D as he fingers the E chord to make a rich E7 chord.This kind of tension-resolution adds a pungent flavor to the tune.

Scene 7
Orville plays the tune at tempo with the the dissonant variation added the second time through. Once you've mastered this go back to scene 2 and try to pick out some of the other subtle variations Orville throws in. Have fun!

Notes: Artists who play this style that you need to check out- Etta Baker, Mississippi John Hurt, Rev. Gary Davis, and John Jackson. There are many more but these are a good start and all have many accessible recordings.

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