Text by Jerry Snyder | Video by Doug Young — Excerpted from Ragtime Guitar Essentials.
The roots of ragtime music come from gospel, banjo, and African American folk music traditions, as well as 19th-century European composers. From the late 1890s until around 1917, ragtime music was primarily arranged for the piano. In the mid-’20s and ’30s, fingerpickers like Big Bill Broonzy, Blind Blake, Mississippi John Hurt, and the Reverend Gary Davis began to surface, all of them known for playing bluesy ragtime music on the guitar. These guitarists were able to imitate the sound of the ragtime piano, with the thumb of the picking hand functioning like a piano player’s left hand and the fingers playing the melody. In this lesson, I’ll show how to develop this technique, giving you important tips to help you get started with ragtime guitar.
The Thumb: Ragtime’s Heartbeat
As is common in most fingerpicking styles, ragtime players use the thumb of their picking hand to play a steady bass pattern, usually alternating between notes of a chord. To begin, play a repeated note on the open fifth string (Example 1).Use free strokeswith the thumb; that is, the thumb plucks the string and moves over and above the adjacent, higher-sounding fourth string. Next, start to alternate your thumb between the open bass strings (Example 2). Play this exercise a few times, keeping a steady beat. This kind of repeating figure is like the heartbeat of ragtime guitar.
You can also include the fretting hand to expand on this same idea. While holding a C chord with your fretting hand, play the bass pattern in Example 3. You will need to move the third finger of the fretting hand between the fifth and sixth strings at the third fret. If this is too difficult, go back and drill Exs. 1 and 2. You will know your thumb is grooving when you can hold a conversation while keeping the beat.
Strike Up a Melody
The picking-hand fingers play the melody on the treble strings (typically the three highest strings). Try the basic melodic idea in Example 4, using just your middle and index fingers to pick the strings as directed. Advanced ragtime players will occasionally get their ring finger into the mix as well, but for this lesson, stick to the middle and index. Now play that melody while maintaining the alternating bass part from Ex. 3 (Example 5).This will probably feel unnatural at first—like learning to tap your head and rub your stomach at the same time—but with practice, that feeling will drop away. You can simplify the exercise by keeping the thumb on the fifth string. Next, you could alternate the thumb between just the fifth and fourth stings. By taking it one step at a time (a technique I think of as “divide and conquer”), you can gradually build the technique you need to play these patterns.
Expand Your Bag of Tricks
So far, everything you’ve played has been in the first position—the area down by the nut where a lot of open strings are used. In Example 6, you need to move your hand up to third position (where your index finger is stationed on the third fret). This chord shape is the same as the more familiar C7 shape from first position, but here, it has been moved up to the third position, making it a D7. Asbefore, the picking-hand fingers should pluck the treble strings while the thumb alternates between bass notes on the fourth and fifth strings. Notice that the bass notes are getting pretty high here! If even higher notes are necessary to fill out the bass part, the thumb can also pick notes on the third string, as in Example 7.
Ragtime bass lines don’t always bounce back and forth across strings. They often move stepwise, like the walking bass lines that are often found in jazz. Example 8 drills this technique. Use your thumb and fingers to pinch the string simultaneously.
These last few examples will help get you ready to play “Peaceful Feeling Rag,” an original ragtime tune (TAB and notation only available in complete Ragtime Guitar Essentials book). Try working out this tune one measure at a time. As you feel comfortable with each new section, start piecing them together so you can play through each at a steady beat. Remember, ragtime music does not have to be played at a fast tempo!
Visit the Acoustic Guitar Store to pick up your copy of Ragtime Guitar Essentials. You’ll get the full TAB and notation for “Peaceful Feeling Rag,” plus 13 other songs:
DAVIS STREET RAG Mary Flower
LIBERAL RAG Mary Flower
JITTERS Mary Flower
ST. LOUIS TICKLE arr. Dave Van Ronk
THE HARLEM RAG Tom Turpin
PETE’S BARRELHOUSE RAG Pete Madsen
AN OPERATIC RAG Pietro Frosini
MAPLE LEAF RAG Scott Joplin
THE ENTERTAINER Scott Joplin, arr. Dave Van Ronk
THE PEARLS Jelly Roll Morton, arr. Dave Van Ronk
DILL PICKLE RAG arr. Eric Schoenberg
WEST COAST BLUES Blind Blake
RABBIT FOOT RAG Dom Flemons
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