I was just talking to you about alternation of your pick and when you are playing an even flow of notes ,of even rhythmic value, that are fast 8th or 16th notes, you alternate down, up, down, up, down, up. Always starting on the down stroke but when the music is syncopated. Then you do not adhere to that strict pattern without getting too much into music theory.

What remains the same is that you are going down the down stroke on the strong part of the beat. So, say that we have eight notes, one and two and three, and I will always be hitting a down stroke on the strong part of the beat, so one and two, and three, and four, and so even, when something is syncopated, when the strong part of the B, that we are going to be hitting down.

I will not get more into that. I think you will be able to get the feel for this by just doing it and hearing it. There are couples of syncopated patterns I want to show you and then we will apply them to basic fettle tune or fettle instrumental, a traditional tune.

Here is one pattern and again we are departing from the down-up, strict down-up pattern and I will just show you this, say on the open A string, so it is down, down, down, down. I cannot say as fast as I can play so I will just play without saying it,

(Demo)

Want to hear it slower,

(Demo)

down, down, down, down.

For those who even who have heard traditional fettle music all tiny fettle or blue grass fettle that may sound familiar. That is a real common pattern from fettle music called a shuffle. If I have to fettle here, I could show you and then it will probably sound more familiar to you,

(Demo)

The point is we are not doing strict alternation of the pick. Meaning two down strokes in a row, down, down, down, down.

Now, you can reverse the syncopated pattern and you have this sound,

(Demo)

And I will call out the directions, down, up, down, down, up, down, down, up, down, down, up, down, speed its

(Demo)

And now we can apply the first pattern to a tune and the name of the tune is violin cabbage down. Key of A major, I think it got words like a lot of these old time mountain fettle tunes.

I am not going to sing it for you, I know you are going to be really disappointed but I will just try to play it in the really, really basic version of the melody is what I will show you first and then we will change things around a little bit.

Again, using that pattern at first pattern, it goes like this,

(Demo)

Okay, I will do it a little slower,

(Demo)

Okay now, what we can do, incidentally before I go on, you can get this tablature for everything I am playing for you today at musicstarproductions.com and will be made available to you.

Let us add a little something to this tune, that is not very interesting sound but it is a good exercise almost in getting your hand loose in doing that particular pattern with your pick and I want to reiterate the importance of this. Just try to stay loose with your right hand,

(Demo).