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Pacing the Cage

by Bruce Cockburn • Lesson #587 • Apr 2, 2025

About This Lesson

In today’s lesson I’ll teach you to play Bruce Cockburn’s 1996 classic Pacing the Cage. This is an amazingly fun song to play, as the Travis-style fingerpicking arrangement is full of novel & unique quirks that pair amazingly well with his memorable songwriting. I’ll start simple and build up from there — giving you a few semi-simplified ways to put it all together should Cockburn’s “full” fingerpicking approach be too tricky. Let’s get into it!

Practice Notes 6 pages

It includes all of my notes for this lesson, allowing you to follow along at your own pace. You're free to download, print, and share the PDF across your devices.

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Here's a print-friendly PDF I made with all of my practice notes for this lesson. This lets you follow along with everything I show in video tutorial at your own pace.

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Bonus Videos

Here’s a few extra videos, made in thanks to those supporting me with Premium membership here on my Song Notes website. To those showing your support, you have my true thanks and appreciation — and I hope you find these additional videos helpful!

Exercise 1: Chords Only (Single Strum)

Here’s a playthrough of each section, using a single strum of each chord in the progression. Instead of strumming, I’m grabbing the bass string (of each chord) with my thumb, while my right index/middle/ring fingers play the thinnest three strings.

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Exercise 2: Chords with Alternating Bass Notes

Once you learn the chord progression, I recommend practicing the alternating bass notes — all of which are played with your right thumb. Mastering this is quite helpful, as things only get trickier when we add in the remaining fingerpicking notes.

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Exercise 3: Semi-Simplified Travis Picking

This is a halfway point between the previous exercise (chords with alternating bass notes) and the next exercise (the “full” travis picking).

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Exercise 4: “Full” Travis Picking

How Bruce Cockburn plays it on his album version! Note, this is the trickiest of all arrangements — so don’t feel bad if you can’t quite pull this off.

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My “Secret Stash” Fingerstyle Arrangement

This takes the “full” Bruce Cockburn arrangement I show in the previous video, but with some of my own tweaks to make things a bit easier to play — especially while singing. You don’t need to play things this way yourself — but if you want something slightly simplified to make this song more manageable, use this as inspiration.

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Full Song Playthrough

Finally, here’s me putting it all together. I use Bruck Cockburn’s “full” fingerpicking styling during the intro, and then switch to my “secret stash” arrangement during the verse / pre-chorus / chorus sections, to make singing along easier.

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Need Help with Travis-style Fingerpicking?

Travis Picking vs. "Normal" Fingerstyle

★ Instructional PDF

Travis Picking Patterns for Every Chord

★ Instructional PDF

Fingerstyle Chord Tip: F Major with Wrapped Thumb

★ Instructional PDF

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