During my Christmas of 2014 break, I drove up into the elevations of the Rocky mountains. While this location is undisclosed, I am told it has the highest percentage of ex-US Special Forces operators living in the town’s population. I don’t know if that is true or not, but it makes this story sound better, so I’m gonna keep it in here. The temperature happened to be freezing cold and it was snowing. CDOT is on the spot and the roads were generally clear until I turned off the highway.
I had made my way into the high country for a reason; To talk to championship bluegrass guitar flat picker Mike Maddux. I’ve know Mike for a few years now. He was kind enough to have me up to his house and let me pick his brain for awhile about some of the finer details of flatpicking guitar. Oh yeah, and he makes some damn good chili too.
Mike Maddux flatpicking guitar.
Over the course of about six hours Mike demonstrated many musical points that he had gleaned from a lifetime of playing music. He also been a longstanding author and featured columnist of Flatpicking Guitar Magazine and touched base on some of those articles as well. A range of topics was covered and included, an in-depth look at right hand guitar (picking) technique, repertoire, left handed guitar techniques (when to use and when not to use them), and many others. There was also no shortages of opinions topics such as, reading music, why Tony Rice is one of the best living guitarists today, and improvisation.
Mike Maddux demonstrates how to flatpick John Hardy on the guitar.
My aim for this blog is to break down the information that I took away from the session and organize it into something coherent. I can tell you this, as I write this about six weeks after the meeting, my right handed guitar technique has shown marked improvement. A few of the points I’ll go into will be ‘Crosspicking’, and How to play the ‘G-Run’ correctly.
In the meantime, check out the video above and visit Mike’s website at MadduxBand.com.