I chose to arrange “Red River Valley” in open C position. C position is considered the second most popular bluegrass position behind the G shape. Like most flatpickers I enjoy playing tunes and melodies out of C. It seems to just feel right and and fit the guitar well.

The first version presented here will be very easy for you to learn. Once you learn a simple melody like “Red River Valley” you can use a song like this as a springboard for adding various licks and phrases that will make the music come alive. For some students, trying to re-invent a song with embellishments can be challenging. Even after several decades of trying to do this I still find it a worthy challenge to try to add all the flatpicking flavor into my playing while keeping the melody of the song intact. In many ways I find it easier to improvise random licks over chords than soloing with a song’s actually melody.

All the great bluegrass flatpickers have a mastery of embellishing melodies. The second pass presented here includes several ideas I’ve picked up from listening to and learning flatpicking solos. First, we begin with a fiddle inspired lead in phrase. Next, we encounter some bluegrass inspired slides followed by some added eighth note runs. Finally. We throw in a mini cross picking part over the F chord and a fiddle tune style tag and we have a cool “Red River Valley” melodic solo. Make sure to click on the included lesson mp3 to hear both versions in action.

I hope you enjoy working on “Red River Valley” and adding to your list of great simple tunes to pick. This is a perfect song to break out when your friends and family ask to play something they will recognize. As always should you have any questions or comments on this lesson just drop me a line at [email protected]. I have been enjoying doing virtual private guitar lessons via Zoom, Skype, and FaceTime the past few months. Please send me an email if you’d like to sign up for private lessons!