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Bluegrass Standards

Build-a-Break Flatpicking Guitar Licks for Cripple Creek

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Lesson 9 – Bluegrass Guitar Solo Improvising Course
Lesson ID: A0163

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.

Overview

Using the Licks

Flatpicking Licks

Video Start Time Lesson Topic
00:00 min Bluegrass Lick 1
03:08 min Practice Lick 1 with “Cripple Creek”
06:19 min Bluegrass Lick 2
09:11 min Practice Lick 2 with “Cripple Creek”
10:53 min Bluegrass Lick 3
13:12 min Practice Lick 3 with “Cripple Creek”
14:35 min Bluegrass Lick 4
16:57 min Practice Lick 4 with “Cripple Creek”
17:48 min Bluegrass Lick 5
20:11 min Practice Lick 5 with “Cripple Creek”
20:53 min Bluegrass Lick 6
24:23 min Bluegrass Lick 7
28:37 min Bluegrass Lick 8
30:57 min Extra Tips for Using Bluegrass Licks

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Cripple Creek Traditional Guitar Breaks

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Lesson 8 – Bluegrass Guitar Solo Improvising Course
Lesson ID: A0162

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.

Overview

Melody 1

Video 1 – Playthrough with Tablature

Video 2 – Full Breakdown

Video Start Time Lesson Topic
00:00 min Breakdown – Measures 1 through 5
05:35 min Breakdown – Measures 6 through 9
07:31 min Recap – A Part
08:12 min Breakdown – Measures 10 through 13
11:09 min Breakdown – Measures 14 through 17
12:05 min Practice the Entire Break with Me
13:46 min Your Homework

Melody 2

Video 1 – Playthrough with Tablature

Video 2 – Full Breakdown

Video Start Time Lesson Topic
00:00 min Listen to the Entire Break
00:50 min Breakdown – Measures 1 through 5
05:30 min Breakdown – Measures 6 through 9
08:02 min Breakdown – Measures 10 through 13
10:44 min Breakdown – Measures 14 through 17
12:44 min Practice the Entire Break with Me
14:53 min Backing Track Practice Tip

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Brown’s Ferry Blues

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Lesson ID: A0161

“Brown’s Ferry Blues” was originally written in the early 1900s by The Delmore Brothers. Over the course of their careers, the Delmores wrote more than one thousand songs, including “Brown’s Ferry Blues”, “Gonna Lay Down My Old Guitar”, and “Fifteen Miles from Birmingham”. The Delmore Brothers grew up in a musical home as their mother, Mollie Delmore, wrote and sang gospel songs for their church. The Brothers blended gospel-style harmonies with the faster paced guitar parts of traditional folk music and blues to help create the still-emerging country genre.

In this guitar lesson, you’ll learn a guitar arrangement in the style of “Brown’s Ferry Blues” by The Delmore Brothers. This particular arrangement is also inspired by Doc Watson and Billy Strings. We’ll cover an intermediate guitar break, an easier guitar break for the beginner country & bluegrass pickers, and the rhythm guitar progression. After you master the guitar arrangements, practice your picking over the backing track in the key of G.

Overview

Intermediate Break

Video 1 – Intermediate Break Playthrough with Tablature

Video 2 – Intermediate Break Full Breakdown

Easy Break

Video 1 – Easy Break Playthrough with Tablature

Video 2 – Easy Break Full Breakdown

Rhythm Breakdown

Video Start Time Lesson Topic
00:00 min Chord Progression Overview
00:56 min Instrumental Break Chord Progression
02:27 min Chord Progression to Backup Vocals
05:09 min Chords and Lyrics Example
12:23 min Strumming Pattern 1
14:57 min Strumming Pattern 2
17:44 min Chord Transition Bass Line Walk 1
21:09 min Chord Transition Bass Line Walk 2
23:36 min Chord Transition Bass Line Walk 3
26:23 min “Brown’s Ferry Blues” Song Structure

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Using Country & Bluegrass Licks to Build a Solo

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Lesson 7 – Bluegrass Guitar Solo Improvising Course
Lesson ID: A0160

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 Bluegrass 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.

Overview

Playthrough with Tablature

Guitar Solo & Improvising Tips

Backing Track

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