(Clones, kindly delete my previous 2 messages - please and thanks.)no prob.


Well Rick, regarding Merle, let's use his Canonball Rag as an example. Assuming people are already familiar with the tune and here for the sake of argument we'll say the tune is in the key of G, and beginning with the E7 chord (1st position C7 moved up to the fifth fret) there is a little section towards the end of end of the song (before the part where the D7 chord is hit following the famous bass note runs) he does the roll you describe back and forth over the D and G chords. The roll is thumb downstoke over the bass strings (6th & 5th), followed by another thumb downstroke (5th & 4th) and then an upstroke ("pinch") over the higher strings with the index finger. And just repeat this pattern and you get the idea. Difficult to master.

Think of Lester Flatt's rhythm playing with an extra downstroke added. :-)