Level: 3
Tuning: Standard

Learning to play Fast Fox Trot (Buck Rag) will take you a long way to understanding and playing Rev. Davis's key of C rags, sacred songs, and especially blues.

Part A is based on passing chords that like the first position C to the A form. The two notes of the first position C on the B and D strings are C and E, respectively, the I and the III. If you move these to the third fret, same strings, you have to middle of a G7 chord. Move up to the fourth fret same strings you have the (in C) flat IV and the flat III-the minor III. (The diminished.) Move up one more fret, the fifth, while barring the third fret, you have an A7 position C chord. Those two notes, fifth fret B and D strings, are G and E, the III and V of C. Now here's the key: these two notes, G and E, are the same, of course, as the first and third strings, open. Moving from the fourth fret to the open strings, completing the movement of the connecting chords from the C form C to the A form. This makes these kinds of runs effortless, as they fall so naturally to hand.

As Fast Fox Trot attests, there is a lot of music and harmony in these notes and Rev. Davis seems to find infinite ways to play them. For the B part, he continues to play separate lines up the neck to the G form C, again cleverly using open strings as he rolls the high runs down the first position runs. This is a difficult song to study and learn, but will reap many key of C rewards. Learn this and you have come into possession of an essential key to Rev. Davis playing.