Alan Jackson – The Old Rugged Cross Guitar Lesson Info
Learn how to play Alan Jackson – The Old Rugged Cross note-for-note on guitar with our detailed step-by-step guitar lesson.
This lesson teaches the acoustic guitar part to The Old Rugged Cross as recorded by Alan Jackson. Although the piano is the dominant instrument in the accompaniment on the recording, there is a beautifully understated guitar part running throughout, and that is the part taught in this lesson.
The arrangement is fingerpicked throughout, using smooth, flowing arpeggios with a handful of tasteful melodic embellishments that add colour and movement to the accompaniment. At first listen, the song can seem like a simple three- or four-chord piece, but there is actually more harmonic interest and subtle movement going on than might initially appear.
There are no barre chords and no thumb-over chords, making the left-hand side of the arrangement very approachable. The challenge lies more in developing an even, relaxed picking motion and bringing out the melody notes and embellishments that give the guitar part its character.
This is a fine example of how an apparently simple accompaniment can become rich and expressive through careful note choices and sensitive fingerpicking. Whether you’re looking to play the song as a solo accompaniment or simply enjoy learning a tasteful country fingerpicking arrangement, this is a rewarding piece to have in your repertoire.
The download includes the full video lesson, a play-through performance, and detailed tab and chords so you can learn the arrangement exactly as demonstrated.
- Difficulty level: Easy
- Barre chords: No
- Thumb over chords: No
- Playing Style: Fingerpicked
- Tuning: Standard
- Separate Solo: No
- Separate Bass Part: No
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Alan Jackson – The Old Rugged Cross Download Details
The complete lesson contains a lesson video and a performance-standard play-thru video. It also contains the guitar tabs as PDF files and a songsheet with the chords and the lyrics of the lesson (if applicable), also as PDF files.
The videos are MP4 format and will play on PC’s, Macs and most mobile devices.
You’ll receive an email with a Zip file containing a total of 5 files as follows:
- Part 1: Guitar Video Lesson – Intro & Verse
- Part 2: Guitar Video Lesson – Chorus & Outro
- Part 3: Performance-standard Playthru Video
- Part 4: Songsheet with tabs & lyrics
- Part 5: Guitar Tab
Total Download size: 276.2 Mb
You’ll need to extract the MP4 and PDF files from the Zip file/s to be able to use them and you’ll need software to do so. If you don’t have a Zip program on your PC you’ll need to install one to open the file. I use Peazip which you can get free, here.
If you want to download to an iPad or iPhone you’ll need an app to do so, please read here to know more about it.
Alan Jackson – The Old Rugged CrossLesson Previews
Playthru & Intro
Tab Preview
Chords & Songsheet Preview
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