3 Bluegrass Solos Every Picker Should Know

One of the things that I love about bluegrass music is that the same tune can grow with you as a player over the years. When you're first starting out, you might just learn a basic melody version, but as you stick with it, maybe you add some vocabulary and some variations.. And if you really stick with it, you can start to add some really advanced ideas into these tunes. So that's what I'm going to show you today. We are going to be diving into the bluegrass jam classic Blue Ridge Cabin Home, and I'm going to be showing you a basic melody version, a slightly more advanced version, and a significantly more advanced version. So no matter where you're at as a player, you'll have something you can use in the context of this classic tune. Okay, so let's go ahead and jump into it here. I would say a lot of y'all watching this already know Blue Ridge Cabin Home, but, uh, just in case you don't, uh, let me just go through just a real basic verse and a chorus. For me, I got the capo on the 4th fret. I'm going to play it out of B. You can slide it down to the 3rd fret and play it out of B-flat. 2nd fret, play it out of A. You can play it wherever you want to. But just real quick, verse and a chorus on this, and I'll throw the chords up on the screen. And remember, um, each chord gets 2 beats, and the chords are relative to the capo. So we'll go 1, 2, 3.

There's a well-beaten path on this old mountainside where I wandered when I was alive. There I I wander long to the place I call home in those Blue Ridge hills far away. Oh, I love those hills of old Virginia. From those Blue Ridge hills I hail home. When I die, won't you bury me on them? Far away, my Blue Ridge mountain home.

There we go.

Okay. So the chords are identical on both the verse and the chorus. The melody's just a little bit different, but very close. And when we're playing a solo or a break to this tune, we almost always solo over the verse. And I got the tabs for all 3 of these solos for you down in the video description and in the top pinned comment. Okay, so now we got the basic melody and we got the chords down. Let me go ahead and let's jump in and let me just kind of give you a pretty basic melody version of Blue Ridge Cabin Home.

Before I teach it to you, let's hear it up to tempo with a backing track.

So let's jump in and learn this basic melody break, or basic melody solo to Blue Ridge Cabin Home, and it's going to go like this.

1 and, uh, 2 and, uh, 3 and, uh.

Okay, so pretty simple there. We're staying true to the melody while playing around it just a little bit.

There's a well-maintained path on this old mountainside where I wandered when I was a lad.

And throw it in that to fill up a little space. And then we're basically doing, uh, the same thing on the second part.

Um, Where I wandered alone to the place I called home in those Blue Ridge Hills far away.

So, um, you know, I say this a lot, it's simple without being simplistic. I'm not just coming in and going Okay, simple without being simplistic. Okay, so let me run through this basic melody version one more time here for you. Remember that we'll come in on beat 4 on this.

Okay, so we'll go 1 and 2 and 3 and 4.

Okay, so one more time, let's do that up to tempo with a backing track.

Okay, so that's kind of our Level 1, our basic melody version to Blue Ridge Cabin Home. Let's go into the next one here, and what I'm going to do is I'm going to keep this pretty much the same on the first half, but then on the second half of this, I'm going to add in some vocabulary, some licks and phrases, and spice it up just a little bit. And that'll sound like this. Okay, so let's jump in and learn this one here. And again, um, on the first half it's pretty much the same as it was on the first break that we learn.

So we'll go 1, e and, uh, 2, e and, uh, 3, e and, uh.

Okay.

So the first half of that is actually identical, um, to the first half of the first break that we learned. It's melodic without being simplistic. Okay, but then on the second half here, we're going to spice it up a little bit. A pretty classic sounding Tony Rice phrase over to our C shape. Okay, outlining the chord tones.

All right, and then for D, we're—

okay, okay, so having a little bit of fun with it on the second half but keeping it pretty melodic on the first half. So let me go through, um, this second break to Blue Ridge Cabin Home.

That'll go 1 E and a 2, e and a 3, e and a 4.

Okay, so let's hear that one up tempo and with a backing track.

All right, so now for the third, significantly more, um, advanced version of this tune. And honestly, with this break, we're going to get a little silly here. All right, so, um, I am going to target the melody in certain places, but I'm going to kind of go all over the place in some others. So before I teach it to you, let's hear it up to tempo and with a backing track. All right, so let me slow it down here for you, and I'll go through the whole thing nice and slow here for you.

All right, so we'll go 1 and 2 and 3 and Okay, there is a lot happening in this solo here.

So at the beginning here, I'm kind of kicking off with this little Doc and Billy strings idea, and then, all right. Back over to our C shape. I'm throwing in that little chromatic run there. You'd hear Doc Watson use that a lot. You hear Brian Sutton use it all the time. And then from there, you know, where the chord change goes to, it's a D shape. It's technically an F# chord, this little Brian Sutton style phrase. And then back to our G. All right, and then we go into kind of the second half half of this break and we'll do— okay, it's just a monster little run right there. But what, um, okay, uh, very David Greer-inspired idea, which is just perfect from going to a G shape to a C shape because we're getting that little dominant 7 thing which, um, implies that the chord is about to switch to the 4. So, uh, and then now the chord change goes to our C shapes, technically an E chord, and we're going to do this. Okay, now this is a tricky little phrase and I would recommend using the exact left hand fingering that I'm using on this. So right here, and especially going from this, so, um, all right, so when you get up here use your, um, hammer-on from your middle to your ring finger and then slide your pointer finger down to this note right here. Okay, because I was trying to play that like, um, I was trying to slide into that with my pinky and it was just really difficult to make that phrase happen. But if you'll—

that makes it a lot easier.

And then your pinky is in the position to come over here because we're still on our C shape right there. Okay, so with that whole phrase there, so it's like a David Greer meets Kenny Smith kind of phrase. All right, and then the way we're going to end this, where the chord change goes to our 5 chord, D shape, F sharp chord, we're going to do— then it resolves back to our 1 chord, G shape, technically a B chord, but this little And then we'll end. So that's a little phrase I picked up from Brian Sutton. He plays it on, um, uh, the, the second break to Big Sandy River from the Bluegrass Guitar album. And it's just a great little passage, um, anytime you're playing over a D shape there, um, you know what I'm saying? If you don't want to just kind of get stuck down here a lot of times it's very easy to kind of get stuck down here, but this one—

and then we'll end.

Okay, so there's a lot happening in this one here, and honestly, I've packed so much into it that it's kind of silly. One more time, let me go through the whole thing here for you.

So we'll go 1 and 2 and 3 and Okay, so one more time, let's hear that one up to tempo and with a backing track.

There we have it, 3 different solos to Blue Ridge Cabin Home. We've got kind of a basic melody version of it there. Again, it's a simple melody without being simplistic. And then from there, we've got a slightly more advanced version where we keep it pretty melodic on the first half, but then take a little bit of liberty and add in some licks on the second half. And then we have a third one. It's very advanced and honestly kind of silly, but you're welcome to tackle it if you want to. And there's some great phrases in there that you can use in your own playing in this tune and in other tunes as well. I wanted to share this with you because I want you to have something you can use on this tune no matter where you're at as a player. This is such a fun tune to play. It's a bluegrass jam classic. You can go to pretty much any jam anywhere in the world and people will know this tune. I have been to bluegrass jams all over the world in Europe. I've been to multiple jams in Japan and people knew this tune and played it and sang it and love it. And so it's a great tune and I wanted to share this here with you. That way, no matter where you're at, you've got something you can use in the context of this classic tune. Remember, 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.