The Picking Room

In the Long Run

The Staves · Dead & Born & Grown (2012)

Advanced4/4Capo 3

Gnext C/G

Strings 1–3 are plain steel, 4–6 bronze-wound. Tap any string to hear it under the current chord. space plays and stops.

Tempo116 bpm ♩

Tablature · looping “Verse”

C/G

0h1

C/G

0h1

Verse

4 bars · G – C/G – G – C/G

Two chords rocking back and forth — G, then C over a G bass — while the pinky drone rings on top. The right hand never changes; only two left-hand fingers move. In the C/G bars the B-string note is 0h1: pick the open string, hammer the 1st fret. Loop until the hammer stops feeling like an event.

About the song

The Staves · Dead & Born & Grown (2012)

Travis picking as The Staves use it on “In the Long Run” (one guitar does all of this on the record, capo 3). The verse rocks between G and C/G — a C chord over a G bass — while the pinky holds string 1 at the 3rd fret so the same high note drones over every chord.

How it works

Fret G with fingers 3–4–5, not the usual 2–3–4 — the pinky must own string 1 and never leave it.
Thumb alternates strings 6 and 4; beat 1 is a pinch with m on string 2.
a rings the drone note after beats 1 and 3; i slips in on string 3 at the end of the bar.
In the C/G bars, the B-string notes are 0h1: pick the open string, then hammer a fretting finger onto the 1st fret without re-picking — the second note blooms out of the first.

Practice notes

The drone is the point: because it never changes, the chords underneath feel like they're moving around it.
The C/G bar is the same right hand as the G bar — only the left hand moves. Feel how little changes.
The chorus abandons the seesaw: D7 bars ride a steady thumb on the D string, and the C → G push changes chords mid-bar. Read from the isolated guitar — see the chorus and bridge parts.