1 BLUEGRASS LICK= 15 CLASSIC TUNES (Mind BLOWN)

Today I'm going to be showing you one killer bluegrass guitar phrase that you can plug into 15 classic bluegrass tunes. Hey there, it is Aaron Jaxon coming to you today. and I am so excited to be bringing this lesson to you. So before I jump in and give a bunch of context and talk a lot and, you know, explain the theory and all of that good stuff, let me just jump in and show you the phrase here, and that's going to go like this. Okay, so we're going to go 1 and 2 and 3 and 4. Let me play that again for you here. I'll play it even just a little slower here. 1 and 2 and 3 and 4.

Okay.

And so all this is, this is a phrase that we're going to play over 1 bar of G and 1 bar of D. Okay, and I will have tabs for this phrase for you down in the video description and in the top pinned comment. So now I want to talk a little bit about context, but hey, If you don't want to hear all this and you just want to go straight into how to plug this phrase into some classic tunes, I've got the video organized into chapters and timestamped down below, and you can just push ahead to the section you want to see. So for this phrase and for the 15 different tunes that you can plug this into, this is on the bluegrass vocal tune side of the traditional bluegrass repertoire. Bluegrass is such a cool and unique form of music that's been around for, you know, 80 years now, and so it has a rich history, but we we do have a vocal tune side of the traditional repertoire and an instrumental tune side of the traditional bluegrass repertoire. This phrase is going to be something you can plug into the traditional vocal tune side of the bluegrass repertoire. So a lot of these tunes have similar, if not identical, chord progressions, but one of the things that I was noticing is that they also have very similar, if not identical, melodies in key places. So one of the things to remember when soloing over these traditional bluegrass vocal tunes We almost always solo over the verse, and the verses are almost always 8 bars. So if you're watching this channel, you probably know what I mean when I say a verse is 8 bars. But just in case you don't, real quick, I just want to play the verse chords to like Little Cabin Home on the Hill, and I'll count it out so you'll see what I mean by an 8-bar phrase.

So 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 2, 2, 3, 4, 3, 2, 3, 4. 4, 2, 3, 4, 5, 2, 3, 4, 6, 2, 3, 4, 7, 2, 3, 4, 8, 2, 3, 4.

So that's an 8-bar phrase. Okay, so this phrase that I've just shown you here works over bars 3 and 4. So in Little Cabin Home on the Hill, We go from G.

It seems there's a longing for you still.

Okay, so bars 3 and 4, 1 bar of G, 1 bar of D. Here's the thing though, that phrase and what we're targeting here, it's not— it doesn't just work over the chords, it also works over the melody. Let me show you what I'm talking about here. The melody note, when it gets to that V chord on bar 4, almost always goes to this.

All right.

It's like the 5 of the 5 chord. In this case, we're playing D, um, but, but it repeats that in so many of these tunes here. It hits that note and it usually holds that note out for the duration of that measure. Here, here's, here's, here's a couple of examples here. All right, so I'll do a little Cabin Home on the Hill.

Tonight I'm alone without you, my dear.

Here we go.

It seems there's a longing for you still.

Okay.

So it goes to that. All right, let's keep going though here. Let's do another one. Let's do Old Home Place.

It's been 10 long years since I left my home in the holler where I was born.

All right, let's keep going here. How about, how about On and On, Bill Monroe classic here. Um, traveling down this long, long highway, I'm so long, so All right, once you see and hear this, you can't unsee and unhear it. All right, we're 3 for 3 right there. Let's keep going. Um, uh, I'm on my way back to the old home. 1, 2, 3, 4.

Back in the days of my childhood, in the evening when everything was still.

Okay, uh, what else? How about, you know, we're doing Bill Monroe classics here. My Rose of Old Kentucky.

She bloomed for me near a little village in a cabin on a hill.

Okay, I promise you I could keep going here. Um, Foggy Mountain Top.

If I would have listened to what Mama said, I wouldn't be here today.

My Little Georgia Rose. Now come and listen to my story, a story that I know it's true. Okay, so like I said, one phrase for 15 different tunes here. Again, that melody note almost always goes to this, all right? And it usually holds that out for the duration of that measure. And before that 5, there's a— there's one bar of a G right before that.

1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3, 4.

Okay, so even though I've already shown you this phrase, now with the context, let's revisit it here. Okay, okay, so what we're doing is we're coming in with like a 1-bar G phrase. Okay, and what that is, I mean, that kind of comes in with our G run there. We target Okay, which we can use in almost all of these tunes here. But then after that, we emphasize that note, we play it at the beginning, but then we play around it to fill up space, very similar to the way a banjo player would do. So, so we're targeting that melody note because that's the melody that is is sung on so many of these tunes here. So now with that context there, do you see how with one phrase you can plug it into a bunch of these different traditional classic bluegrass vocal tunes? Now I do have a playlist for you that I've made. I've linked to it down below in the video description that has 15 of these tunes again that you can use this phrase over. They are in different keys, but for all of these you can just put the capo on and you can play this out of your G, C, and D shapes. And so you can use this phrase in the exact same way that I've shown you here. Now that I've shown you this phrase and given you some context here, I want to use that phrase in 5 different traditional classic bluegrass vocal tunes, and that'll sound like this. One other lesson that I would highly recommend checking out that will complement this one is this lesson right here, and I will link to that down in the video description. In that lesson, I talk about a turnaround, and essentially what, what that is, it's the last 2 bars of our 8-bar phrase that we solo over that happens in a ton of different bluegrass tunes. I think there's— that I'm aware of, there's like 25 or 30. And it's just like the last 2 measures of that will go 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4. All of these tunes in this list for this phrase also have that turnaround. So if you will take the one phrase that I've shown you today and you will take one of those turnarounds again that I show in that Bluegrass Turnarounds class you have got like half of a solo to 15 different classic bluegrass vocal tunes. How awesome is that? So now I know a lot of people are going to be like, uh, Aaron, give us some more phrases, give us some more licks. And I will go ahead and do that for you. I'll give you 2 more here again that you can use, again, that work over this 1 bar of G, 1 bar of D, and emphasize this melody note. But, but before I do that, I would really recommend just getting that first phrase and just moving those around to some of these different tunes and just see how you can take one phrase and use it in a lot of different places. But if you're really wanting a few more phrases, here we go. Um, here's another one. We'll do, um, 1 and 2 and 3 and 4. Okay, okay, so really nice little phrase there. So we're doing a 1-bar G phrase, emphasizing that melody note because that's the melody that is sung on these tunes, and then throwing in a little Brian Sutton style. So that's another great phrase that you can use in the exact same place that you were using that first phrase that I taught you Here's another one. We'll move up on the neck a little bit here. Uh, 1 and 2 and 3 and 4.

Okay, let's do that again.

So again, you can use that in the exact same place, and we just kind of come up here and do this kind of, you know, major to minor blues scale thing, uh, emphasize our melody note, and then come up there with that little phrase out of our kind of D triad there. So that's 2 more phrases there, and you can plug that into the exact same place again, bars 3 and 4, where it goes from the 1 chord here to the 5 chord, and the melody almost always goes to this 5 of our D D shape or 5 chord right there. Okay, so again, I got the tabs for these phrases down in the video description. Also, make sure you check out the playlist that has 15 of these classic traditional bluegrass vocal tunes. Again, that not only do the same thing with the chords on measures 3 and 4 or bars 3 and 4, but it does the same thing with the melody. And you can literally use one phrase over all of these different tunes. And also, again, remember to check out this video right here where I show you some great phrases to play over this classic turnaround that happens in a ton of these bluegrass tunes. And this turnaround happens in all of these bluegrass tunes. So with just 2 phrases here, just 2, you can get like half of a solo to 15 of these classic bluegrass jam standards. So I really hope that this lesson helps you start to demystify some of the bluegrass repertoire here. I know a lot of people get really frustrated with this stuff because they're like, It's just 1-4-5 chords. They're fairly simple chords. I know there has to be some commonalities there, but I'm having trouble seeing the pattern. So I really do hope that this lesson will help you start to crack the code with some of these traditional bluegrass tunes. Thanks as always for hanging out, and I will see you next time.