Guitar Tab Freight Train - Intermediate

In this lesson of Guitar Tabs from Ultimate Guitar OnLine we will show you great solid intermediate fingerstyle version of the classic Elizabeth Cotton song Freight Train. Chet Atkins also made a great arrangement of Freight Train that you should have in your collection. This was one of my very first fingerstyle guitar tunes that I learned. The version here is a very basic version of the way that I play this song, but it still sounds great and you can use this song as a foundation to build your fingerstyle picking.

As time permits I will publish additional arrangements of this tune, just to show you what you can do with it, by changing octaves, changing keys and moving in and out of flatpick to fingerstyle arrangements.

Also, I have highlighted this piece as a lesson series on how to arrange fingerstyle guitar songs. I never had the benefit of this kind of information as no guitar players played fingerstyle in midwest where I grew up. I picked up everything that I could from what meager tab and notation was available at the time and gluing myself to a phonograph record. Then I would play the tracks over and over and make my best guess as to what was going on.

You can skip all the guesswork as I have laid everything out for you in the Fingerstyle Arrangement section for this song.

All of these files were authored in eMedia's Guitar-Pro. This is the favorite tab and notation authoring software for us here at Ultimate Guitar OnLine. It is filled with features and is simple to use - even without a manual. It is compatible with PC and Mac. We use it on the Mac here and it is a pleasure to use. To see a full review click HERE. Otherwise if you would like to try a free copy of it, you can download the demo HERE and use it for 15 days.

If you are not familiar with reading Guitar Tab, click HERE for a quick tutorial. If you are not familiar with reading notation click HERE for some online lesson material we have put together. Otherwise will be give you hints along the way by hovering your mouse over certain keywords in this text.

Having trouble with Fingerpicking technique? We have some great articles on fingerstyle guitar in our Fingerstyle Guitar Lessons Section. We will constantly adding content to that section, so check back often.

The biggest challenge of this version of Freight Train is the syncopation throughout most of the song. Although it may not first appear to be syncopated because the syncopation is all done within the constraints of eighth notes, you will soon find in playing through this melody, that a times you will loose your way.

Do not become discouraged by this in the least bit as the driving element of this song is still the alternating bass. All of the lead notes and thirds are played "around" this alternating bass. Make sure you practice the intermediate version first to drive this into you head. This way you can concentrate more on the syncopation. Look at the alternating bass and notice how the notes are played ON this beat, in other words on the counts of 1 - 2 - 3 - 4. Most of the syncopation is on the upbeat or offbeat of each note.

If you really want to see how this song arrangement was put together, see our lesson on Fingerstyle Guitar Arrangements. We will take you through the Alternating Bass Arrangement, Rhythm Arrangement, Lead Guitar Arrangement and finally the Accompaniment Arrangement for Freight Train. These lessons will show you in detail just how to arrange a typical fingerstyle song such as this.

Once you have this song practiced to a point where you can play it smoothly without any breaks in rhythm, try to what I call, humanize it a bit by varying the syncopation just a bit and removing the strict timing that the Guitar Pro file exhibits. (note that you can select the humanize tool in Guitar Pro to do this as well).

Guitar Pro has a really cool feature called speed trainer. you can set a loop of accompaniment chords to be played and after each loop the speed increased by a percent that you specify. I love this feature and it gives you milestone very clearly as to you speed conditioning.

Each quarter note = one beat in the measure so there are 4 quarter notes in just about every measure.

Make sure to memorize your songs. What is the easiest way to do this? Unless you have perfect pitch, you will have to learn one section or measure at a time. Once you can play flawlessly move on to the next measure and add it to what you have memorized. Continue this and make sure you can play the first half of the song, including the second ending.

Once you have the first half memorized, move on to the second half, doing the same thing with the second half of the song.