Once you’ve got a handful of three-chord songs under your belt, this is where things open up. The songs here still sit in friendly keys, but they ask a little more — quicker chord changes, the occasional minor or seventh, a bass run or two, maybe a G-run at the end of a line. Some are classic Carter Family material like Wildwood Flower and Foggy Mountain Top. Others come from Bill Monroe, Merle Haggard, John Prine, and the Grateful Dead. They all turn up at jams, which is the real point of learning them.

Work through the easier ones first — Wildwood Flower, Wagon Wheel, I Am a Pilgrim — and use them to clean up your timing and your changes before tackling something like 1952 Vincent Black Lightning or Midnight Moonlight. Each song’s page on Picker’s Guide has chord charts, lyrics, recordings to play along with, and a bit of song history so you know where the tune came from.