Flatpicking Guitar Magazine

Free Monthly Newsletter Lesson

March 2020

“Wildwood Flower”

Arranged by Mickey Abraham

Download PDF | Download mp3

Hello and welcome once again to Flatpicking Guitar Magazine’s free lesson portion of our monthly newsletter. So much has changed in the world since last month. Everyone has been affected in some way. This includes musicians. With live music canceled for at the next few months we are now enjoying all music lessons and performances on-line. I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy.

I’m available for Skype lessons should any of my readers want to “meet” online! I’d love to hear from you guys ( [email protected]). This month I offer you two versions of “Wildwood Flower” a very classic happy guitar tune. I hope you enjoy picking this tune while staying at home with your loved ones.

“Wildwood Flower” is often interpreted as a chord melody song. Chord melody is basically the idea of holding chord shapes while picking the melody notes of the song. Some folks find this type of playing tricky. For this reason the first version of my arrangement is only the melody! I think it’s important to be able to leave out all of the chord melody fills and runs and play the straight melody. If you learn it this way you will be able to come up with your own fancy arrangements much easier. If you only learn complex arrangements it will be more difficult to figure out what exactly is the melody and what are the added chord fills and runs.

For the second pass I’ve included some of the cross picking and chord fills that are often associated with “Wildwood Flower.” The trick to making this part sound correct is not playing every note with he same volume. I try to pick the melody notes louder than the chord fills to give them the attention they deserve. Make sure to click on the included lesson mp3 to hear both versions in action.

One interesting aspect to “Wildwood Flower” is it’s crooked form. The A section seems to have an extra measure! I feel this extra measure makes the most sense when singing “Wildwood Flower.” The crooked form can be tricky to “solo” over. Most folks stick to some version of the melody rather than filling up “Wildwood Flower” with a bunch of random licks the way players do with tunes like “Big Mon” or “Alabama Jubilee.”

I hope you enjoy adding this classic flatpicking tune to your list. As always should you have any questions or comments on this lesson or would like information on my Skype lessons just drop me a line at [email protected].