Lesson 3 – Bluegrass Guitar Solo Improvising Course
Lesson ID: A0114
In this bluegrass guitar lesson, we’ll increase the difficulty a bit! I’ll show you four more bluegrass guitar licks that will take your picking skills to the next level. I’ll also talk more about the guitar scales that we’re using to create these bluegrass licks. After you master the guitar licks, practice the arranged solo and your bluegrass improvising skills with the jam track!
Overview
Lick 1
| Video Start Time | Lesson Topic |
|---|---|
| 00:00 min | First Measure – Breakdown with Tablature |
| 01:40 min | Proper Pick Stroke Direction for Speed |
| 03:16 min | Second Measure – Breakdown with Tablature |
Lick 2
| Video Start Time | Lesson Topic |
|---|---|
| 00:00 min | Lick 1 Breakdown with Tablature |
| 02:11 min | Combine Lick 1 and Lick 2 |
Lick 3
| Video Start Time | Lesson Topic |
|---|---|
| 00:00 min | How Lick 3 is Formed Around the D Chord |
| 01:07 min | Lick 3 Breakdown with Tablature |
| 03:21 min | Combine Lick 1, Lick 2, and Lick 3 |
Lick 4
| Video Start Time | Lesson Topic |
|---|---|
| 00:00 min | Lick 4 Breakdown with Tablature |
| 01:53 min | How to Practice the Bluegrass Licks |
Scales Discussion
| Video Start Time | Lesson Topic |
|---|---|
| 00:00 min | Guitar Scales for Bluegrass Licks |
| 01:41 min | How to Visualize the Scales When You’re Improvising |
| 02:52 min | Bluegrass Guitar Licks Formed Around Open Chords |
| 06:21 min | Breaking out of the Pentatonic Scale Box When You’re Soloing |
| 09:49 min | Combining the Melody of Bluegrass Songs with Stock Bluegrass Licks |
Jam Track
| Video Start Time | Lesson Topic |
|---|---|
| 00:00 min | Overview |
| 00:29 min | Listen to All Four Bluegrass Licks Played in a Row |
| 01:10 min | Bluegrass Lick Example with the Jam Track |
Incredible lesson, Devin! A lot of fun to practice. Keep up the good work.
Awesome licks!! This is the sound I’m looking for, and you did a really nice job teaching.
Another very good lesson. Thanks a lot Devin.
I sure enjoy your lessons but am catching on!!
Thanks Randy! Good deal, glad you’re liking the lessons…and great profile picture by the way. I’d love to move a bit farther out one of these days and get a couple horses.
We’ll be posting Lesson 4 in the bluegrass guitar solo course tomorrow afternoon…going to teach two full-length bluegrass guitar solos over “Where I Come From” by the Grascals. Both solos are loaded with some awesome bluegrass licks. I’ve been getting a bunch of ideas from everyone for new lesson topics so thanks everybody for all the lesson requests. Next week might be a song lesson or might pick back up with the country strumming course. Anyways, hope y’all enjoy the rest of the weekend!
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I’m enjoying and learning a lot of bluegrass/country stuff from your lessons. This past summer I joined a bluegrass/country/gospel band (dobro/mandolin/standup bass/vocalist) in dire need of an acoustic guitar player. I had never played in a band before and had never played on stage. So the learning curve was steep and scary. I was okay, at that point, as a pick-and-strum rhythm player. But I need to add to my arsenal some fills and runs and that’s why I signed up for your courses. And so far, you’re lessons are providing that.
Olav
Hi Devin
I’m finding Myself naturally wanting to pick in the wrong direction sometimes. Is this OK or should I use the up/down pattern? Thanks in advance 🙂
Hey Joseph – I usually recommend the down up down up alternate picking in most cases but there are definitely times where I stray away from the down/up pattern if I think there’s a more efficient way to pick the notes. Tony Rice is one artist that comes to mind who uses some interesting pick stroke direction in his licks but he seems to work it out just fine. I’d say the majority of bluegrass pickers build the most speed with alternate picking.
Thanks Devin!
Hi Devin, New student here, loving your lessons! Is there anyway to slow down the mp3 jam track… can’t quite keep up yet.
Thanks
Thanks John! I’ll see if we can add this jam track to a video like we’ve been doing for the latest lessons…you can slow down the jam track videos using the playback speed controls, but there isn’t a way to slow down the MP3 tracks at this time. I’ll work on adding the track to a video after I finish recording the next guitar lesson that we’re posting to CGO later this week…
Thanks Devin!
I wish I could loop on this lesson
We recently moved to a more stable video player that doesn’t have the AB loop feature quite yet, but you can still slow down the video by clicking the “Gear” button lower right on the play bar. We’ll try to find an option to add the AB loop again at some point…
If you could get the ab looper back that would be great. I found it very helpful for learning the more complicated single note runs. Thanks!
I cant find the mp3 jam track
The jam tracks for this lesson are available in the video under the “Jam Track” tab. We decided to just use the video player instead because you can slow down the tracks that way.
I can play along with you at the slower speed, should practice more to play at full speed before I go to the next lesson
These lessons are the best. So clear, well taught – just what I was looking for! Many thanks!
Where is this MP3 you always talk about?
We removed the MP3 track since we switched over to using the video player for backing tracks… It looks like I didn’t add the new backing track video to this one yet. I’ll try to add that sometime in the next week. The videos seem to work better because you can adjust the speed and loop sections. Keep an eye out for the track sometime soon…
Devin, how do you get fast and clear. What are the steps? Sometimes I think that I’ll never be able to play that fast and clean and believe me I TRY.
Hey Tim – FYI, I recorded some new MP3 jam tracks and posted them to the first three videos in this course if you’re interested… Thanks!
where do we go to learn the pentatonic scales
Really enjoying the lessons, Devin. Sometimes it feels like the 8ths should swing. Other times if feels straight. Does bluegrass swing? Or maybe you should just play it so fast that it doesn’t matter!
Awesome, glad you’re liking the lessons! Sometimes I’ll add a swing feel and sometimes I’ll play it pretty straight… I guess it depends on what you’re going for but I usually prefer adding a little swing feel to give it a little bluesier sound. The straight rhythm might sound better for some of the more traditional “fiddle tune” arrangements. Doc Watson plays a lot of his stuff super fast and adds a swing.. pretty hard to do but it sounds really nice! I played a lot of blues before playing bluegrass so maybe that’s why I’m drawn to the swing… Read more »
I’m having trouble playing the jam tracks don’t know if it’s my internet or what . The video’s play fine
Genial!!! Das hätte ich gerne vor 40 Jahren gehabt!!!
A nice call-and-response pattern!
Your discussions around scales, and how you think about solos and integrating the blues and major scales is super interesting and helpful. “Random” talk is fascinating!