Album Notes

Bluegrass Guitar Instrumentals

About the Artist

I started playing guitar in 1958, at the age of 10, having listened to mostly classical music, and having played piano for three years. It was Grady Martin’s lead guitar work on “El Paso” (the 1959 hit by Marty Robbins) that first turned my attention to country picking.

I knew I wanted to play bluegrass in 1963, when I heard “Flint Hill Special” (by Flatt and Scruggs). I took up bluegrass banjo, guitar, and fiddle, and have been a bluegrass guitar picker ever since.

The Arrangements

For these arrangements I wrote out the bass parts and chords using music notation software. I then exported the parts in MIDI format, and imported them into music sequencing software, where I overdubbed the rhythm and lead guitar parts.

The Recordings

I played my Gibson J-200 on all the guitar tracks. I used medium gauge strings and hard flatpicks. Most tunes are 120 bpm (beats per minute), with a few being 132 bpm.

David Elson, June 2009



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