Cannonball Rag - Merle Travis Cover and Tutorial (with tabs)

**tabs PDF and backing track to follow** This is a tutorial for Merle Travis’s popular guitar instrumental the Cannonball rag. This is a tutorial for the live version he did on the Porter Wagner show on his Gibson super 400. This song is in the key of G and has three verses around the same chord progression. The progression starts on E and moves through the circle of fourths until it reaches the tonic G: (E,A7,D7,G). It then alternates between the dominant seventh and tonic twice:(D7,G,D7,G). Finally, it ends on a turnaround, resolving on G: (C-Gdim-D7-A-E9-D9-G). The first verse uses just the Travis picking style around a very basic syncopated melody. the second verse incorporates the banjo roll techniques using ninth and sixth voicings. The third and last verse utilizes a rapid eight note flat picking riff, and a walking bass-line. I’m using a Line 6 UX with Pod farm and Ableton live to record the audio.