Advanced Bluegrass Flatpicking Guitar Licks Through GCD

Hey y'all, Aaron Jaxon coming to you today here, and I've got another lesson on these 5, or 5 more bluegrass lead ideas that you can play through G, C, and D. So just to kind of be forthright here, this is, this is, these ideas are pretty advanced here. And this is really the third video out of kind of a 3-part series that I've done. So if you'd like to check out a more beginner, kind of level 1 video lesson on some of these ideas, check this one out right here. And if you'd like to get another one that's kind of in between these two, in the more intermediate section there, check this one out. And so anyway, these ideas are going to be pretty advanced here, But I wanted to say one thing before I jump into the lesson here. The reason that I do these is because these past couple of years on here on YouTube and on social media, I get a lot of people asking me about getting into this style of guitar playing because, you know, I mean, honestly, I think the popularity of somebody like Billy Strings and Molly Tuttle has gotten a lot of people into this style, which I think is so cool. I'm so pumped that that has happened. Um, but I'll get a lot of guitar players coming to me, you know, maybe they've been playing for a while in other styles, but they, they, they come to me and they're wanting to know like what scales or what arpeggios or, you know, what's the way to hold the pick, or is it economy picking, is it alternate picking. And what they're— they're wanting a formula. It's like if you do these certain scales with these patterns and hold the pick this way and do 80% alternate, 20% economy picking, that's bluegrass. And I totally understand, um, you know, why somebody would want that, but you're not going to be able to boil this in this entire style of guitar playing down to a formula. So what I like to do with these ideas, these are just some ideas that I've developed over the years. I pull from a lot of different influences, a lot of Tony Rice, but there's some Doc Watson in here, there's some Billy Strings, there's some Brian Sutton, some David Greer. And I, I've come up with these, and I like to show these to my students because learning these ideas will help you develop your technique, but it will also help you start to build and develop this vocabulary, this kind of bluegrass lead guitar vocabulary. So I've put these together. It's just some of the best stuff that I've been able to come up with after, you know, playing this style, you know, pretty much my whole life. So that's the purpose of doing these. And if you would like to get the tabs tabs and a backing track for this stuff. I've linked to that in the description below this video, and it's also in the top pinned comment. So get that, you can get the tabs and a backing track totally for free. All right, enough jabbering, let's get into the lesson here. So this first idea that I played goes like this.

To D, back to G.

Okay, so that first idea there, I mean, that's, that's pretty standard Tony Rice.

And when I'm playing that, that was straight off alternate picking.

Just. Like I said in the last video I did on these, if you really want to nerd out on this stuff, sing your pick strokes. Sing your pick strokes. Okay, so there. And then this next idea over C. So that one is really cool. So this first part of it comes out of, which is kind of out of our little triad here, you know, or if you're doing the CAGED system. All right, but what we're going to do is we're going to take those notes and then right here, and this is important, I want you to put your pinky on this 5th fret, and we're gonna slide from 5 up to 8, and then 5th fret on the 2nd, 8th on the 3rd, slide down to 7, 5th on the 3rd, and then 7 on the 4th, 5 on the 4th, 5 on the 3rd. Okay, so we're going from like kind of down here but then we're sliding up to this kind of major pentatonic in C. All right, and then after that, for D, we're going to do— so let's try that again. Okay, so quite a bit of position shifting in that run. Now right here, you want to get down to this 4th fret with your pointer finger, slide to 2nd, and now you're in, um, and then we'll go back to that first idea out of G. Okay, so one more time.

C to D, back to G.

Okay, now this next one here, we're gonna do Okay, so again, I'm coming in there with a, you know, kind of a classic Tony Rice sounding thing, and that's just kind of out of our G minor pentatonic.

So we'll do—

okay, and then after that we're kind of coming up to— we're going to C, and this is kind of out of our C major pentatonic. That's just like a, like a blues scale, C major blues scale. And then for D, we're gonna do— okay, again, kind of out of that little triad shape and throwing some chromatics in there. But that's kind of out of our D major shape. But then we're gonna come up to this kind of D minor. So again, for D, we'll do major, minor. So again, major, minor, and then back to the original idea in G. Okay, so in, in the end, so for D there where we were doing this kind of So that brings up kind of one of, you know, you know, when people are searching for a formula, like I said, there's not really a hard and fast formula. It's just like, hey, do this and that's bluegrass. It just isn't. But one of the things you will hear a lot of the great players in this style doing, it's kind of like mixing major and minor pentatonics and blues scales. Like, you know, for G, we'll do that. So like major minor. All right, we'll do that a lot. We'll do that, or for an A, we'll do like, you know, the major, minor. So you will see that a lot in this style. Um, but one more time, let's go through this, um, uh, second lead idea here. We'll do to C to D. Okay, so now it brings us to the third idea here, um, which is to C D, back to G. Okay, and that ties right back into what I was saying a second ago with some of these lead ideas that will mix your major and minor blues scales and pentatonics, because here on G major slide down minor, which is major blues scale to minor blues scale. And then we do the same thing for C and D. So we come over to C and then up to D, same thing, major, minor, back to G major. Okay, so one more time.

To C, to D, and back to G. Okay.

So some great examples of, you know, mixing those major and minor blues scales through a G, C, and a D chord progression. Okay, there's a lot of that in bluegrass, or as Bill Monroe used to say, in bluegrass style of music. All right, so let's keep going here. So this next idea is great. We're just going to take the exact same idea, move it through G, C, and D.

So it's going to go like this.

Okay, so for G here, we'll do— so that's 3rd fret, 4th fret on the 3rd string to your 3rd fret on the 5th string. And then we're going to come back and kind of pedal those 2 notes. And then now we're on this 6th 6th fret of the 2nd string, 5th fret of the 2nd. Okay, and then we're just going to take that exact same idea, move it up here. And then move it up 2 more frets for D, and then move it down here. Okay, and that one's great because all of the notes are picked. That, that is straight alternate picking throughout that. And so that makes a really good picking exercise in addition into a great bluegrass lead idea that you can use through that chord progression. And where, where that doesn't involve any open strings right there, you could, you could use that over anything. You could do A, D, and E. You could even do that with the open strings too, but you can move that around and play that anywhere in Again, that's just straight alternate picking through that. All right, one more here, one more. And, um, so that's— we're gonna come way up here to the, um, 11th and 12th frets. And so for G, we're gonna do— for C, we'll do—

and then for D and then back to G. Okay, so one more time on D.

This is— ah, so if you remember some of the ideas we did out of, um, these little triad shapes in C and D earlier, it's the same thing with G right here. We're taking these little— so that's an idea that you'll hear Billy Strings play a lot of, you know. Or like in Dust in a Baggy, you'll hear him do that. So again, just, you know, deliberately using those kind of chromatic going in between that minor and major third. And again, straight alternate picking through that.

Down.

And now for C, we're going to come over here kind of starting in this sort of C major blues scale pentatonic, and then sliding right up to the C minor pentatonic. All right, and then for D, so we've got a slide right there from 7 to 10, and I want you to do it with your pinky finger because that's going to put your hand in the right position to play the rest of that lick.

And we're going to do—

so again, kind of out of our D major, and then back to G.

Okay.

So one more time, this last idea here to D, back to G. Okay, so there's 5 more bluegrass lead ideas through G, C, and D. And again, these are a lot more advanced, but if you'd like to get the tabs for this lesson and a backing track to practice with. I've got it linked down below in the video, and I've also got it linked in the top pinned comment there, so you can check that out. I wanted to show these because a lot of times when we're doing bluegrass, we're spending a lot of time down here on, on these frets, you know. So a lot of times when we're doing bluegrass leads, we— it's, it's easy to not venture above like the 5th fret. So I wanted to come up with some of these ideas. It's got you going all the way up to the 12th fret there. So again, a lot of material here, but I wanted to share this with you too. Again, these ideas will help you with your technique, and they will also, especially If you'll reference the other two videos that I was talking about, the kind of beginner bluegrass leads and the more kind of intermediate version, and get all of those down, you'll really, really, really start to get a grip on the vocabulary of this style, the technique of it, and just a lot of the ideas that we use and how we use these to play through a G, C, and a D, 1-4-5 chord change, which is the most common in traditional bluegrass music. It's not the only one by any stretch of the imagination, but we use it a lot. So one more time, let's hear how all of these ideas sound in context with a backing track. All right, so thanks so much again for hanging out today. Please like the video, subscribe to to the channel. It really does help me out. And remember, if you want the tabs and a backing track for this, I've got it linked in the video description and also in the top pinned comment. So again, appreciate you so much. Thanks for hanging out, and I'll see you next time.