Bluegrass Improvising Guitar Course

Course Outline

Building Powerful Bluegrass Guitar Solos

Your Course Progress

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Lesson 1

Basic Bluegrass Licks and Guitar Scales

In this guitar lesson, I’ll teach you some basic bluegrass licks in the key of G that will get you started improvising bluegrass lead guitar. We’ll also talk about the guitar scales that you need to learn for improvising bluegrass solos. After you master the guitar licks, practice the arranged solo and your bluegrass improvising skills with the jam along video!

Lesson 2

More Bluegrass Licks and Guitar Scale Theory

In this guitar lesson, I’ll teach you four more bluegrass licks that are great for improvising in the key of G. We’ll also talk about the guitar scale theory behind each of the bluegrass licks. After you master the guitar licks, practice the arranged solo and your bluegrass improvising skills with the jam track!

Lesson 3

Intermediate Stock Bluegrass Licks

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!

Lesson 4

Bluegrass Guitar Solo over Song by The Grascals

In this guitar lesson, you’ll learn two full-length guitar solos over a common bluegrass chord progression. The first guitar solo is a basic solo with a nice melody that will push your pick control to the next level. The second guitar solo is slightly more advanced and loaded with some awesome bluegrass licks. Throughout the lesson, we’ll also talk about how guitar scales are used to create each of these solos. After you master the solos, practice them over the instrumental break in the song “Where I Come From” by the Grascals.

Lesson 5

Hot Bluegrass Guitar Licks & Improvising Tips

In this guitar lesson, you’ll learn several barn-burning bluegrass guitar licks that’ll turn some heads at your next bluegrass jam. We’ll also talk some more about how to use bluegrass licks, how bluegrass licks are structured around common bluegrass chord progressions, and how you can combine bluegrass licks to create catchy bluegrass guitar solos. By the end of this guitar lesson, you should be able to play a nice bluegrass guitar solo break over the bluegrass standard “Wreck of the Old ’97”.

Lesson 6

Common Types of Country & Bluegrass Guitar Solos

In this guitar lesson, you’ll learn some of the most common ways to play country and bluegrass lead guitar solos. First, I’ll show you five of the best ways to create a guitar solo and we’ll talk about different techniques you can use to improvise better lead guitar solos. Next, we’ll get some ear training practice while we learn the basic guitar melody for “Will the Circle Be Unbroken”. Finally, I’ll show you some nice ways to transform a basic guitar solo melody into a fancier country and bluegrass solo — these techniques will work for soloing over just about every country and bluegrass song. After you master the solos, practice your lead guitar improvising over our “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” backing track in the key of G.

Lesson 7

Using Country & Bluegrass Licks to Build a Solo

In the previous guitar lesson in this course, I showed you five of the most common ways to build a guitar solo and we talked about several techniques that will help you improvise better guitar solos. We also discussed the first type of solo in detail — the melodic guitar solo.

In this guitar lesson, you’ll learn about the second type of guitar solo where we’ll play stock country & bluegrass licks over the top of a standard chord progression. First, I’ll teach you four stock country and bluegrass guitar licks. We’ll talk about how to use these licks to play a hard-driving guitar solo in a country and bluegrass style. Then, I’ll show you some more of my favorite lead guitar improvising techniques. As you’re studying the concepts in this lesson, be sure to also check out the Lick Library and Guitar Scale Charts that we have available at Country Guitar Online. After you complete this lesson, practice your country & bluegrass improvising over the backing track to “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” in the key of G. Lesson tablature is available for download below the video.

Lesson 8

Cripple Creek Traditional Melody on Guitar

This is Part One of a two-part lesson series where we’ll work on lead guitar improvising in a country & bluegrass style. In this guitar lesson, you’ll learn how to play two guitar breaks for “Cripple Creek” using the song’s traditional melody.

Then, in the Part Two of this “Cripple Creek” lesson series (coming soon), I’ll show you several different ways that you can use bluegrass guitar licks and crosspicking to modify the traditional melody to make your guitar solo breaks sound more interesting. Both of the guitar lessons in this two-part series will help you add that hard-driving bluegrass sound to your bluegrass guitar breaks.

Lesson 9

Build-a-Break Flatpicking Guitar Licks for Cripple Creek

This is part two of a mini lesson series on playing lead guitar in a country and bluegrass style. In part one, you learned how to play two guitar breaks for “Cripple Creek” using the song’s traditional melody. In this guitar lesson, you’ll learn eight extremely useful flatpicking guitar licks and I’ll show you three easy ways to use these flatpicking licks to spice up your country and bluegrass guitar solos. The concepts in this lead guitar lesson will help you improvise a hard-driving bluegrass guitar break over “Cripple Creek” and these concepts can also be applied to a ton of other country and bluegrass songs.

Lesson 10

Coming Soon!