Freight Train (Elizabeth Cotten) - Trying to Learn Fingerstyle!

hikaru

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Aloha!

Here's me trying to play some fingerstyles on Freight Train. Please forgive my poor camera and sound quality.

What I learned from this song (Hope that I will achieve one day):
1. Specific Travis picking patterns
2. Thumb-picking the bass line with a steady beat
3. Picking out the melody notes clearly
4. Some left-hand string muting when strumming

Any advice/comments/complaints are all welcomed! Thanks!

https://youtu.be/4tpCkvlu3wM

 
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Dang that was really well done. You are doing right by taking it slow, ensuring your picking and notes are right. Speed comes with repetitive practice.
 
Hi, hikaru!

Very nice arrange and good play. I have never expected that someone play this very famous Travis picking song on ukulele.

I just want to ask about bass notes on your arrangement. In Travis picking and arpeggio, we normally take bass notes (not bass line), when change chords. I indicate them red circles in the figure below. I think it was very difficult to arrange all of the bass notes on our ukulele. If key is C (see the figure below), we need C, G, E, F as bass notes. How do you arrange them?



Thank you for showing us this great arrangement and play.
 
Dang that was really well done. You are doing right by taking it slow, ensuring your picking and notes are right. Speed comes with repetitive practice.

Thanks!

Though I could somehow play faster under the metronome, my fingers just naturally slow it down when I'm not using it. Probably this is the speed I'm most comfortable at. Guess, right now for me, clarity first, speed later :)
 
Hi, hikaru!

Very nice arrange and good play. I have never expected that someone play this very famous Travis picking song on ukulele.

I just want to ask about bass notes on your arrangement. In Travis picking and arpeggio, we normally take bass notes (not bass line), when change chords. I indicate them red circles in the figure below. I think it was very difficult to arrange all of the bass notes on our ukulele. If key is C (see the figure below), we need C, G, E, F as bass notes. How do you arrange them?

...


Sorry for not being clear. I didn't arrange it. This is from the famous Dav and Arnaud D. tab website. And the tab I used is here.

From the tab, the bass line uses the G and C string at each chord, which may not be the same as the original.
 
Aloha!

Here's me trying to play some fingerstyles on Freight Train. Please forgive my poor camera and sound quality.

What I learned from this song (Hope that I will achieve one day):
1. Specific Travis picking patterns
2. Thumb-picking the bass line with a steady beat
3. Picking out the melody notes clearly
4. Some left-hand string muting when strumming

Any advice/comments/complaints are all welcomed! Thanks!

https://youtu.be/4tpCkvlu3wM



Lovely work here Hikaru, very clean & clear picking. This tune also works very well in Low G tuning, it helps accentuate the bass notes and round out the overall sound really nicely. I generally play this tune with "Buckdancer's Choice" it's a traditional tune which has a similar alternating bass feel to it. If you'd like a tab, just drop me a PM.
 
Lovely work here Hikaru, very clean & clear picking. This tune also works very well in Low G tuning, it helps accentuate the bass notes and round out the overall sound really nicely. I generally play this tune with "Buckdancer's Choice" it's a traditional tune which has a similar alternating bass feel to it. If you'd like a tab, just drop me a PM.

Hi Camsuke,

Thank you very much for the advice! I never thought about play it on low-G before, definitely will try it on the alternative tuning later once I figure out how to change the set-up from High-G to Low-G. Maybe it will sound more like the original piece because of the tuning!
 
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