HOW TO PLAY THIS MONTH’S SONGS

By Jimmy Brown

“CLOSER TO THE HEART”

Rush

THIS EARLY RUSH classic begins gently and sweetly, with guitarist Alex Lifeson flatpicking, on a 12-string acoustic, a beautiful sequence of ringing 16thnote arpeggios across the top three or four strings. Throughout the first seven bars, the guitarist frets a series of chord shapes while employing a technique borrowed from bluegrass guitar and mandolin playing known as crosspicking, mostly picking one note per string in a syncopated melodic contour.

Akin to a stock fingerpicked “banjo roll,” the melodic picking pattern for the Aadd2 chord in each of the first four bars may be thought of and counted as “1 2 3, 1 2 3, 1 2 3, 1 2 3, 1 2 3 4.” The difference here is that, instead of ascending across the strings with each accented grouping, as you would typically hear a bluegrass banjo, guitar or mandolin player do, Lifeson starts on the highest note of the chord shape and descends, beginning with an upstroke. We’ve included the specific pick strokes he uses, as well as accent markings above bars 1 and 2 to guide you through this challenging sequence.