Flatpicking Johnny Cash! "I Walk The Line"

Today I'm going to be showing you a really killer arrangement of a classic Johnny Cash tune for solo flatpicking guitar. All right, stick around. Hey there, it is Aaron Jaxon coming to you today. So when we're doing bluegrass guitar, we spend a lot of time focusing on just developing amazing chops, having an endless array of licks and improvisational ideas, learning a bunch of fiddle tunes, learning a bunch of solos, all of this amazing stuff. But I hear from a lot of my students, either in YouTube comments or in my online courses or in my Pickers Insider Circle community or even through email, that are like, Aaron, we love all that stuff, like, number one, as much as we love all of the hot licks and the flash, sometimes it's good to have something that's a lot more simple and melodic that sounds good when we're playing alone. And then that brings them to the second point that they make, which is that they only play alone. They actually don't even play in jams, and they certainly don't go out and perform anywhere. So that's what I wanted to give you today. I'm gonna give you a really cool arrangement of Johnny Cash's classic tune I Walk the Line. I'm gonna be playing it out of E, and what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna give you two different ways to play this. I'm gonna give you a Carter-style way to play this. That's just where we hit the melody note and then strum the chords around it, and then that fills up space on the guitar, kind of similar to the way a piano player might do it. But then after that, I'm gonna give you a crosspicking arrangement here where again we're gonna play the melody notes, but we're gonna crosspick around the melody notes similar to the way that a banjo player might do it. So learning these arrangements is not only gonna give you a really cool tune that you can play by yourself, it's also gonna be something that you can play for people. Like, if your friends, your family, your loved ones are like, hey, you've been spending all this time holed up in your room practicing this bluegrass guitar stuff, why don't you come play something for us? So this is perfect for that. But in addition to that, this is also really going to help you develop your sense of melody, your sense of timing, and your technique. So as always is the case with these lessons, you can get the tabs down in the video description and in the top pinned comment. And in the email with the tabs, I'm also going to send you a link to a backing track that I like to use for this tune. Okay, so I want to start off with the Carter version of I Walk the Line here, okay? And before I teach it to you, let me play it for you one more time up to tempo and with that backing track. Okay, so now that you've heard me play it up to tempo with a backing track here, what I want to do is I'm just going to go through the whole tune here. I'll play it nice and slow, and then we'll go dissect a couple of parts here.

All right, so we'll go 1, 2, 3.

Okay, so all we're doing there is we're taking that melody.

I keep a close watch on this heart of mine. I keep my eyes wide open all the time. I keep my hands out for the tie that binds because you're mine, I'm on the line.

So I think on the original Johnny recording, he goes through and plays it in like a bunch of different keys, and he gets like really low in certain places. For this arrangement, I'm just going to stay in E for right now here. But, um, all we're doing is we're taking that melody, I keep her close, and so the chords go to B or B7 right there. So I'm going to play that melody, but then I'm going to have the rest of my hand form into this kind of A chord, and we're just gonna—

okay, and then we go back to E. So we want to do— okay, and then we just repeat that phrase again.

Okay, so one more time. There you go.

So much fun. And then we'll go to kind of the second half of this, and then—

okay, so what we're doing there, the melody—

I keep the ends out for the tie that binds.

So since our melody is right here, I'm gonna put my ring finger on the second fret of the second string. It goes to an A chord right there, but again, where the melody is right here, we're gonna kind of just do an A E triad, and I want to hit the melody note right here and then just strum the 2nd and 3rd strings. Okay, classic Carter style.

All right, and then we'll go back to our E.

I'm gonna bring my pinky to reach around here, 4th fret of the 4th string. Nice little, uh, kind of sus2 sounding thing. And then we're gonna come back over here. Okay, so that phrase again. And then right here, we're going to go into the— because you're mine, I walk the line—

and we'll do—

and now we're going to grab our B7 chord there, and we're going to do to E.

We'll repeat that.

So that's what we're doing.

We're targeting the melody note and then we're strumming around the melody note with the chord that we're on, but we're doing it in kind of a strategic way. That way it makes the melody notes pop out, but it also fills up space. One more time, let me just kind of go through the whole thing nice and slow here for you.

1 and 2 and 3.

There we go. All right, play it one more time, a little more up to tempo, and I'll play it with a backing track here. Okay, so that was like the Carter-style version of playing this, but what I want to show you now here is I want to show you a cross-picking version of this. Let me play that up to tempo with a backing track. That'll sound like this. Okay, cool. So let me slow it down here for you, and that's going to go like this. Okay, so we'll go 1, 2 3. Okay, so targeting the melody, but then this time instead of just strumming the chords around it, We are taking the not-so-easy path and we're cross-picking around that. So, and again, hands going into that kind of A-shape B chord, but we're doing— it's easy to get those fingers, um, it's easy to get one of those strings not ringing out as cleanly as it needs to. Okay, and then we're gonna do Now our hand's gonna go back into an E chord. On our picking hand, we'll do—

so that's 4, 3, 2, 1, 5, 4, 3, 2, 6. Okay, and then we just repeat that phrase.

All right, cool stuff there. Great cross-picking exercise.

And then again, going to our little A triad here, but we're gonna do— okay, so again, on our picking hand here, 3, 2, 1, 3, 2, 1, 3, 2.

Okay.

And then, and then when we get right here, the tie that binds, we'll do— okay, so that's 3, 2, 1, 2, 4, 3, 2, 1.

And when I say 4, I mean the 4th string, but also your pinky is going to come up and grab the 4th fret, and then we'll come down here. All right, so Okay, and now from here we'll go back down to the, uh, because you're mine. And what I'm going to do for this part, I'm still going to strum it, but when I get here, we're going to do this cross-picking pattern that we did on the first half.

Let's do 4, 3, 2, 1, 5, 4, 3, 2, 6. Okay, and then we'll do that twice. Okay, one more time, let me go all the way through the crosspicking version.

Okay, so great crosspicking work out there, in addition to, you know, just a beautiful melody in the context of a classic tune. So one more time, let me play that one a little up to tempo with a backing track here. Okay, so I want to thank you so much for hanging out today. I really hope this arrangement that I'm showing you here today will give you something that's fun to play by yourself, a great thing to play for other people, but that also really helps you develop your sense of melody, timing, and technique. Remember, you can get the tabs and a backing track for this down in the video description and in the top pinned comment. Check out some of these other lessons that I've done for some great solo flatpicking arrangements and some great ideas around crosspicking as well. As always, thank you for hanging out, and I will see you next time.