3 Bluegrass Solos (Beginner to Advanced)

Today I am going to be showing you 3 different bluegrass guitar solos to the Bill Monroe classic I'm on My Way Back to the Old Home. You can think of these 3 solos like beginner, intermediate, advanced, or you can think of it as basic melody, slightly more advanced, and significantly more advanced. However you want to think about it, but there will be 3 solos at 3 different levels, and each level gets a little more complex and a little more dense. You can get the tabs for each of these solos down in the video description and in the top pinned comment. So I don't want to talk too much here, but I'm going to go ahead and jump into the basic melody version. Now if you're not familiar with this tune, I will link down to a couple of classic recordings of this down in the video description. But what I'm going to do now, again, I'll play the basic melody, I'll throw the chords up on the screen. Remember, the chords are relative to the capo. In this instance, I'm going to be playing this tune with the capo on the 3rd fret. We'll play it out of a G, C, and D shape, which are technically B-flat, E-flat, and F chords. So I'll play the basic melody, then we'll throw the chords up on the screen, and that will sound like this. All right, so let's jump in and learn this basic melody version to I'm on My Way Back to the Old Home, and that's going to go like this. 1 and 2 and 3 and Okay, that's pretty straightforward there. I'm basically just playing the melody, but I'm not playing just a simplistic melody there. So, you know, like I said, if you're not familiar with this tune and you're a bluegrass fan, you got to get familiar with it. So again, I've got some great recordings of this tune down in the video description. And, um, you know, the melody—

back in the days of my childhood In the evening when everything was still, I used to sit and listen to the foxhound with my dad in the old Kentucky hills.

Okay, so, um, I can remember being a much younger one. So right there, filling up just a little bit of space.

And then back to the melody.

All right, so just real simple, real melodic here. So one more time, one and 2 and 3 and a— Okay, so one more time, let me play that one a little more up to tempo with a backing track, and that'll sound like this. But hey, real quick, I want to ask you a question. Are you making the kind of progress and the kind of improvement that you want to be making on the guitar, or does it feel like you're stuck playing the same ideas that you've been playing for decades? I've had the privilege of working with thousands of students over the years, and here's what I see all of the time. The students who stay stuck playing the exact same ideas and licks and scales and tunes that they've been playing for decades with the same level of chops and technique, are distracted. They're being pulled around in a bunch of different directions. They're not focused. They don't have a focused practice routine that's getting them to where they want to go. But the students who I see who make radical transformation in their playing— I'm talking they make more progress in one year than they have in the past 10, that kind of improvement— They have two things: they have a consistent, focused practice routine, and they have a path to follow. Once they have those two things, they just stick to it for a year. That's it. That's it. I see this over and over and over and over again, and when students do that, they end up making more progress in one year on the guitar than they have in the past 10. And that's why I'm hosting my first ever online guitar coaching event called the Flat Picking Path Challenge. It is designed to give you that. We're going to give you a path to follow. We're going to give you a focused practice routine that you can stick to, and I'm going to show you how to make it a habit. And if you can make it a habit, you'll stick to it for a whole year, and you'll end up making more progress on the guitar in one year than you have in the past 5, 10, or even 20 years. Hit the link down in the video description to learn more and join the Flatpicking Path Challenge. Okay, so now I want to jump into the next version here. And again, you can think of this as, you know, um, like an intermediate version, or you can think of it as a slightly more advanced version. However you think of it, but we're going to take the complexity up a notch here. We're going to throw in a little bit more flash here, but we're still going to play around the melody. All right, so before I teach it to you, let's hear it up to tempo, and that will sound like this. Let's go ahead and learn this second version of I'm on my way back to the old home, and that'll go like this. 1, e and 2, e and 3, e and 4, e and. Okay, so with this version, we're coming in on the same place, but then So still playing around the melody but throwing it, you know, um, throwing in our little Tony Rice influence. It's very difficult to get away from the, um, the Tony Rice influence in bluegrass guitar.

All right, and then I'm going to throw in this little—

that's a very Billy Strings influenced idea. It's also a Doc Watson thing, but you know, Billy's really kind of brought it back and popularized it. And then ending right there to hit our melody note.

In the evening when everything was still—

which, by the way, if you want to check out another video where I really talk about how our melody so often ends on that and how you can take one phrase and apply it to a bunch of different bluegrass tunes check out this video right here, and I will link to it down in the video description. But what we're gonna do for now, um, and then that's what we'll do to fill up space. All right, and then after that, again, go into a classic Tony Rice phrase, and then I'm going to end with this little 1-5-1-1 turnaround.

And we're going to do—

that targets our 1-5, 1-5-1-1 turnaround at the end of the verse.

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

And again, that little phrase there. Okay, if you'd like to check out another lesson I've done on this channel talking about that turnaround and how it happens so frequently in these bluegrass vocal tunes and how to solo over it, check out this lesson right here, and I'll link to it down in the video description. One more time, the second solo to I'm on My Way Back to the Old Home.

1 and 2 and 3 and.

Okay, so let's hear that up to tempo one more time. All right, so third solo here, definitely an advanced version of this, uh, tune here. So we're gonna go 1 and 2 and 3 and All right, so there's a lot going on in this one, but, um, you know, I'm playing around the melody in key places but really filling it up with, you know, a bunch of stuff here. Okay, similar to what we did at the beginning of the second solo, but I'm just filling up more space. And then we're going to come in with this little Billy Strings thing again, ending with a little Brian Sutton style idea over our 5 chord. Okay, so the first half of this again. All right, and then we're going to go into some position shifting runs. So, so mostly, uh, minor blues scale ideas right there with a we go up to the, to the major third on that part.

And then now where the chord change goes to our 4 chord, we're gonna do—

okay. And then we're gonna do another one of those 1-5-1-1 turnarounds, but I'm going to take some very David Grier-inspired ideas.

And we're gonna do one more time there.

Okay, so one more time here. Let me go all the way through this third solo to I'm on my way back to the old home. One, e and a, two, e and a, three, e and a. Okay, so one more time. Let's hear it. Hear that one up to tempo and with a backing track. Okay, so there are 3 solos to the classic Bill Monroe bluegrass standard I'm on My Way Back to the Old Home This— you can go to pretty much any jam session anywhere where people are playing bluegrass music, and people usually know this tune here. So again, 3 different levels here: kind of a basic melody, a slightly more advanced, and a significantly more advanced version. So no matter where you're at and you're playing, I hope that you can take one of these solos, you can add it to your vocabulary and your repertoire, and use it the next time that you're playing this music with people. Remember that you can get the tabs for all 3 of these solos down in the video description and in the top pinned comment. As always, I want to thank you for hanging out, and I will see you next time.