When You and I Were Young, Maggie - Tutorial + Tab

 


This is my version of the traditional song 'When You and I Were Young, Maggie', or often just called 'Maggie'. The original folk song dates back as far as the mid 1800's and there have been umpteem versions of it made since then. The music is in 4/4 time, is played on a guitar in Open D Tuning, and is a fingerstyle piece.

Below are some tips to help you play this piece, and links to download the tab.

Maggie Downloadable Tab - Power Tab - PDF - TXT
 
  • Travis Picking - The music follows a standard travis picking pattern for most of it. The only exception is bar 23. In this bar you need to access an underlying E chord for the bass notes. The most efficient way to do this (and have access to the melody notes) is to play it on the 5th string 7th Fret. Thus, the travis picking pattern is replaced in this bar with the bass notes on a single string. Just be mindful of this change to the picking pattern because if you continue to play the travis picking pattern here, it will sound wrong.
  • The Big Barre - In bar 18 of the music you start the bridge section. In this section you have to barre over fret 5 and stretch all the way over to fret 9 on the highest string with your pinky. What makes this tricky is playing the travis picking pattern, meaning you have to cleanly fret strings 6 and 4 with the barre whilst doing the stretch to the meoldy notes. If you are having difficulty with this section, try just playing the bass notes on string 6 only (without the travis picking pattern). This means you dont need to make a barre and can stretch further with the pinky.
  • Triplet Feel - I play this piece without adding a triplet feel to the 1/8th notes. Most blues music does employ this triplet feel but I thought this piece sounded better without it. I felt it sounded too laid back with it added. However, it can be easily incorporated to give the music a slightly different sound and feel. If you don't know how to add a triplet feel here is a post explaing it - Triplet Feel

This is about all I need to say about this piece. It is quite a simple piece to play if you are comfortable with fingerstyle guitar and travis picking

Thanks for Reading,
Neil

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