I thought I had the main riff to this song but the more I play it the less sure I become. Could someone just confirm the order of play on the 3 bass strings, I'm playing:
6th open, 4th 2nd fret, 5th open,
with shuffle, then repeat.
Should there be another bass note dropped in quick somewhere?
Thanks.
Here it is: 
Could you put that in music?
There are a bunch of good versions of it on youtube, James Burton, Scotty Moore, Pat Kirtley and a host non famous people.
So does the bass part follow a 4/4 swing? I'm having a little trouble squeezing in the little A/C# part!
Here's Scotty playing it with some other guitar player.
Oh my word it just dropped in!! If you don't sweat the little G to G# hammer on it just happens! I don't think Scotty is doing the hammer on in that vid is he Whofan? Does that make it too busy?
Thanks
Nope, ignore that, I've got it with the hammer on too now! Great stuff. This is one of licks that just seems so difficult till you get the shuffle sorted.
Thanks for the help guys.
He drops the hammer a couple times, but these days he keeps it a little more simple. As long as you get that rolling rhythm going there's lots of room for adding color.
If you are interested in playing Scotty Moore with Elvis stuff, Hal Leonard's "Signature Licks, the Guitars of Elvis" by Wolf Marshall and Hal Leonards "Elvis Presley, the King of Rock n Roll" are good investments. The former includes an instructional CD, written introductions to all the songs, lots of hints on how to play them etc. The downside of Signature Licks is that it doesn't include entire songs, and some I'm pretty sure are wrong. The latter is just lots of sheet music and tabs. I think in general it's more correct but harder to play, e.g., the Mystery Train solo kills me. Scotty probably never played it the same way twice anyway.
Here's a nice instructional vid of Mystery Train done in a Chet Atkins style:
i do hammer this too and it took me like 10 minutes to get it down but.... i had a teacher near me who teached me this.
firstmake sure your in Em then hit the open E then pull 3 strings the D(thumb) G(Middlefinger) B(ring finger) at the same time then hammer your Point finger directly on the G# so your in E chord now then turn to A chord barred with your middel finger at the same time hit the open E again with your thumb then pull the G(Middlefinger) B(ring finger) again then hit the D string with your thumb reapeat this and your got it.
firts few times it looks like shit but you will get faster and it sound good
maybe there are ither how to's but this is how i play mystery trian and i like it.
grtz , wes
Scotty plays this staccato, from what I can tell, and it sounds great with the echo. How can you play the open B on the second downbeat staccato? Muting it with the side of my palm doesn't seem feasible. Do you folks just let it ring? I'm not doing the hammer one, so I really want that E chord to end abruptly.
@ Fredo i pull Both Open G(Middlefinger) B(ring finger) at the same time then let it ring till i switch from A chord to E chord then it ends auto.
or do you mean a other B :)
If you're going to play it like Scotty Moore, there is no hammer-on on the G string. The only hammer-on in this song is on the first note, from A to B on the fifth string. This occours once again just out of the solo. The hammer-on from G to G# lick sounds like what's being played, and the lick is similar, but it's not mystrey train, at least the way Scotty Moore played it. Also the thumb alternates between the open E on 6, and E on the D string.
