Carter Family picking

Carter Family picking, also known as "'thumb brush' technique or the 'Carter lick,' and also the 'church lick' and the 'Carter scratch'", is a style of fingerstyle guitar named after Maybelle Carter of the Carter Family's distinctive style of rhythm guitar in which the melody is played on the bass strings, usually low E, A, and D while rhythm strumming continues above, on the treble strings, G, B, and high E. This often occurs during the break. The style bears similarity to the frailing style of banjo playing and is the rhythm Bill Monroe adapted for bluegrass music two decades later.

With the technique Carter, who "was among the first" to use it as such, "helped to turn the guitar into a lead instrument". Maybelle, in turn, had first learned the technique from Lesley Riddle, an African-American guitarist who used to frequent the Carter family household.

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