Till now in this series, we’ve learned the 5th position scales in the key of G that are used to create country and bluegrass style fills. We combined all these scales into one “hybrid” scale and applied it to different chord progressions. Most of the riffs we studied were played with eighth notes and sixteenth notes.
In this lesson, we’re going to add a bit more rhythm variety to our country and bluegrass fills with triplets. I’ll give a brief overview of triplets in the first video below. If you’d like to read more about triplets, you can head over to our triplets music theory page. In the second video of this post, I’ll teach you six nice triplet style chord embellishments that you can play over the G, C, and D chords. In the third video, we’ll run through a chord progression example you can use for practice.
| Video Start Time | Lesson Topic |
|---|---|
| 00:00 min | Lesson Overview |
| 03:14 min | What’s a triplet? |
| 06:09 min | Using Triplets with Country and Bluegrass |
| Video Start Time | Lesson Topic |
|---|---|
| 00:00 min | Overview |
| 00:28 min | Sixteenth Note Country & Bluegrass Rhythm |
| 01:51 min | Syncopated Rhythm Breakdown |
| 05:29 min | G Chord Embellishments with Triplets |
| 10:39 min | C Chord Embellishments with Triplets |
| 15:45 min | D Chord Embellishments with Triplets |
| 18:40 min | Practice with a Chord Progression |
| Video Start Time | Lesson Topic |
|---|---|
| 00:00 min | Progression – Rhythm Only |
| 00:58 min | Progression with the Chord Embellishments |
| 04:00 min | Practice Along with Me |
Exactly what I was searching for! You have a really nice teaching style. Great help, thanks a lot.
Thanks again Devin. Really nice lesson here.
Very good teaching. This made a lot of sense. Keep up the great work!
Excellent lesson
alright, made it all the way thru this course, now to start over with all the tabs and get everything down
Nice! You’re making quick work of everything. I’ll be adding more to this course soon…not enough hours in the day! Planning to travel the neck a bit with other scale positions..also change keys to work on the scale positions in the key of D, A, C, and E down near the nut. Pretty cool stuff on the way.
cool, I was watching the first video and was wondering about the up the neck stuff.
ok, now explain dotted eighths in this way that makes everything click, please and thank you
and the caged system/method thing
Cool, good lesson ideas. I’ll add them to the list…had somebody recently request the Nashville Number System also. Going to get the hybrid picking lesson series started first and then try to post a bit more on this music theory stuff…
Hey Devin, really enjoying this series. Completing the advanced riff for Lesson 8 was a particularly proud moment for me! Thanks again for putting together such an awesome lesson series!
Just wanted to ask you a little tech stuff. What action on a guitar do you personally like for playing bluegrass – lower, higher or somewhere in between? Also, what gauge and brand of strings do you go for?
Thanks!
Hey Wayne, Awesome you got down the advanced section of Lesson 8! That’s a tricky piece right there. It took some practice for me to get that part clean. For my action, I like to keep it on the lower side, but just high enough where I can pick notes pretty hard during a solo break and it won’t buzz much. I wish I had string height measurements but I just lowered the action myself..kind of eyeballed it. For strings I like Elixer Nanoweb phosphor bronze mediums. They’re really soft to press down and they sound great…big fan of those… Read more »
Thanks, Devin. That’s a great help. I’ll give those strings a try. You’ve a great tone going – no doubt in large part to do with the Martin! My main guitar is a Fender PM1 – one of their new all solid mahogany range. Mahogany’s great, I think, for the real old school, woody, bluegrass vibe. Kinda going for the Gillian Welch vibe. Really stripped back sound. I just bought a new guitar as back-up. It’s a Vintage folk guitar, again mahogany. This one’s a budget guitar and the action’s a little iffy. Think I’ll get it taken down a… Read more »
I love it that is why i download it ’cause i don’t wanna loose it. I wish I could spend my life with only my guitar.
After not playing for quite a while, I decided it was time to get back to something I used to really enjoy. Went ahead and invested in a bucket-list guitar and am loving these lessons! Awesome instruction.