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Common Types of Country & Bluegrass Guitar Solos

Lesson 6 – Bluegrass Guitar Solo Improvising Course
Lesson ID: A0159

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. Also check out our collection of bluegrass guitar licks for some more lead guitar improvising ideas.

Overview

Types of Solos

Playthrough with Tablature

Video 1 – Basic Melody Solo Playthrough with Tablature

Try to use this video to do some ear training…play the video, look away from the screen, and see if you can pick out the melody on your guitar. Don’t worry about learning the basic melody exactly as I play it — as long as you’re close, you’ll be ready to learn more improvising tips under the “Extra Improvising Tips” lesson tab just above this video.

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Video 2 – Fancier Melody Solo Playthrough with Tablature

In this video, we’re going to make the basic solo melody sound a little fancier by adding extra melody notes and by adding a couple of tasteful bluegrass guitar licks. Under the “Extra Improvising Tips” lesson tab, we’ll discuss the fancier melody solo in more detail.

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Extra Improvising Tips

Extra Improvising Tips

In this video, we’ll talk about some different ways you can transform a basic melody into an interesting country & bluegrass guitar solo. We’ll also talk about how to use bluegrass guitar licks in a solo. After you watch this video, try using some of the bluegrass licks in our Bluegrass Lick Library to improvise guitar solos over our bluegrass backing track for “Will the Circle Be Unbroken”.

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Backing Track

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Jocelyn Beauregard
Jocelyn Beauregard(@jocelyn)
6 years ago

Thanks for the explanations it really helps me!

Jocelyn Beauregard
Jocelyn Beauregard(@jocelyn)
6 years ago

This lesson light up my musician lamp….

Alton
Alton(@alton)
6 years ago

Great lesson Devin! Your explanations are always spot on. Looking forward to more!!

Justin
Justin(@infoyounggloves-co-uk)
6 years ago

Good lesson, good explanation into a few questions I had so it’s good timing. I was wanting to ask about performing a solo and when to use each scale. Really looking forward to may be improving my improvisation skills.
Thanks very much

cassarta11
cassarta11(@cassarta11gmail-com)
6 years ago
Reply to  Devin

new licks coming straight from texas !

Justin
Justin(@infoyounggloves-co-uk)
6 years ago
Reply to  Devin

Thanks Devin looking forward to it

Jocelyn Beauregard
Jocelyn Beauregard(@jocelyn)
6 years ago

Thé lesson and the backing are very helpful…thanks again Devin!

pauld
pauld(@pauldconwaynh-org)
5 years ago

Hi Devin,
do you play licks based on the G cord for Em and C chord licks for Am?

Thanks Paul D

pauld
pauld(@pauldconwaynh-org)
5 years ago
Reply to  Devin

Thank you

C White
C White(@g)
4 years ago

great lesson. Really looking forward to building up my mental library of licks. Thanks for breaking this down Devin.

duane hoagland
duane hoagland(@duanehoaglandyahoo-com)
4 years ago

in the tab for circle the notes and the tab are different Is there a reason?

Helmut
Helmut(@helmut)
3 years ago

Auch wieder klasse!!!