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Ten Different Ways to Play the Bluegrass “G Run”

Lesson ID: A0170

The classic “G run” is the most important part of bluegrass guitar. Learning different variations of the G run will improve your soloing and backup rhythm guitar. In this guitar lesson, we’ll work through ten different examples of how to play the standard bluegrass G run on guitar. All of the bluegrass G run examples in this lesson come with tablature. The first G run we’ll cover is the most common G run that guitar players use at bluegrass jams. We’ll also look at different signature G runs used by the great bluegrass pickers over the years — Del McCoury, Tony Rice, Norman Blake, and Doc Watson. Later in this bluegrass guitar lesson, we’ll get some practice using G runs with the chord progression to “Will the Circle be Unbroken” .

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Alton
Alton(@alton)
4 years ago

Very useful!

Jocelyn
Jocelyn(@jocelyn)
4 years ago

Quality teaching….thanks Devin!

Clay
Clay(@clay)
4 years ago

I really like your style of teaching. Thanks!

drewlorentzen
drewlorentzen(@drewlorentzengmail-com)
3 years ago

Holy cow it seems no matter what lesson or what I try I can not seem to pick the right string without literally staring at my right hand. It sometimes makes me want to smash things. What lesson do you suggest I begin with? I do like this lesson, but man it gets aggravating missing even the fifth string and hitting the sixth all the time.

George Ovitt
George Ovitt(@nmgo)
1 year ago
Reply to  drewlorentzen

I had the same problem. Try this: Write out the numbers 1-6 randomly, filling a whole page of a notebook. 1 is your low E, 6 your high. Then practice (no looking), a down and up pick on each number–you will hear whether or not you are correct. It takes, honestly, only about a week of practicing in this way to solve the problem. Good luck.

Paul Supplee
Paul Supplee(@67543eddy)
1 year ago

Do you have the tablature in a print out form for the using G runs with ‘circle be unbroken’ ?