Billy Strings' "Cabin Song" Solo Is One Of His Best- Learn It Note For Note

Hey y'all, Aaron Jaxon coming to you today again here, and I'm super excited to share this lesson on Billie Strings' song solo to Cabin Song. So this is a song that I think is featured in The Hunger Games or was written for The Hunger Games. I don't really know, I don't really watch The Hunger Games a whole lot, but I had a student of mine send me this and he had wanted to learn the solo to this song. And I listened to it and I was just like, I just fell in love with it. I mean, Billy plays some really, really cool ideas in the context of a really traditional sounding bluegrass song here, but he, um, but, but he throws some really some, some cool twists and turns in this solo, um, that was fun to learn and figure out. And that's why I want to share this here with you today. Um, so as always, um, if you'd like to get the tabs for this lesson, I've linked to that down below, and I've also got that in the top pinned comment. So hit that link if you want to get the tabs for this lesson, and let's jump into, uh, the solo to Cabin Song. So, um, Real quick, the chords on this tune, and this is what he solos over, so it's like 1, 2, 3, take me back to that wood where she left me. And then G, G, F, F, G. Then we go to C, 1, 2, 3, to D.

And then we do F, C, G. Okay, pretty simple.

Standard bluegrass chord progression there. So what we're going to do at the beginning with the first lick, it's a— and a 2 and a 3 and a 4 and a 1. Okay, so that's kind of the first lick, and I guess it's 1 and a 2 and a 3, e and a 4, e and a 1, e and a 2, e and a 3, e and a. So it comes in on the and of beat 3.

1 and a 2, e and a 3, e and a 4, e and a.

All right, so one more time there.

Down, up, down, up, down, up, hammer, down, down, down, down, down, down, down.

So we got a lot of down. And then that last note, that 3rd fret on that 3rd string, if you can give that just a little bit of a bend. All right, and then from there we're gonna do— okay, so now we've got some pull-offs. So that's pull-off. Okay, so let's stop right there and just get that first phrase again.

So, and the vines have covered up our cabin.

1 and a 2 and a 3 and a 4. Okay, a little more up to tempo.

Whoops.

So that's the first phrase in this solo there, and that's a really good little lead-in lick with some nice, you know, pretty standard sounding bluegrass ideas. Okay, good stuff. And then this next passage is one of my favorite in this solo, and it's going to go like this. We're going to do Okay. All right, so up here, and that is— so we'll do the open 6. 6th fret of the 1st to a pull-off back to the open, and then 6th fret of the 2nd string with an upstroke, 1st string open, 6th fret of the 2nd. So, which gives it some really cool dissonance. It just kind of makes your ear perk up a little bit. Okay, so one more time, and then we're gonna come down here and do— okay, so we'll do— so let's combine those two together. We'll do Okay, so what I like about that passage is this up here, you get some, you get some, some tension and some dissonance because we're— all right, which is kind of, you know, in— we're around G there. I think that's the chord we're playing over Right there.

Yeah, it is.

So, so you're kind of getting that flat 7 and that 6, but then we're also— so again, it just, it just adds a little bit of, um, just a little bit of tension there. But then we come down here and resolve it, okay, with some kind of standard bluegrass sounding runs again there. So one more time. All right, and then as far as the left hand down here, I like to, um, use my ring finger up there and then middle finger right here for this slide. It's just what I like to do. You can come up with your own version of that, but— and then after that we'll do So that last little bit there. Okay, so let's do that whole passage there. We'll do—

okay, again.

So again, we've got some nice tension, something that just makes your ear perk up for a little bit. And then we end that with a pretty standard sounding bluegrass fade phrase right there. So one more time, before we go on there, let's take it from the beginning here and go all the way up to that point.

So Okay, I'm gonna do that one more time a little slower.

Um, 1 and 2 and 3 All right, so got some really cool stuff happening there at the beginning, but now we're not done. So One more time. All right, and then we're going to add— okay, just real simple. And now for this next part, really all you need to know is this: if you can do— and that's just open, first fret, second fret, third fret of the sixth 5th, 4th, 3rd, and 2nd string.

Just—

okay, um, and what he's gonna do is he's gonna go through that, but there's a couple of places where he'll play one of those lines twice and then back up. Let me go through it really slowly here. So again, coming out of— and then we're gonna do Okay, so we're gonna do On the 6th, on the 5th, on the 4th, and we're going to repeat what we did on the 4th. We're going to do— and then we're going to go back to the 5th, 5th, 5th, 4th, 3rd, and then we'll go back to the 4th. That last little phrase there.

So again, um, so, um, repeat that on the 4th, back to the 5th, back to the 4th.

Okay, okay, so there we go. So that is— that's Billy Strings's solo to Cabin Song. And again, I meant to say this at at the beginning of the video, guys. Whenever I'm doing these, um, these like note-for-note solos here, I'm using my ear on this stuff. Sometimes I can find a live recording, but a lot of times on the live recordings they'll play them a little bit differently. Anyway, I'm using my ear, doing the best that I can with that. There might be a couple of, you know, phrases or notes here and there that I didn't exactly get, but I'm doing my best to get as close to the original recording. And that's another thing I wanted to say too, is I'm referencing not none of the live versions, but just the original studio recording with this solo. But let's Because here's, here's where, you know, learning these solos note for note gets, um, where this gets interesting is because, um, you want to take some of these ideas and use them to build your vocabulary. You've heard me say in previous lessons, your toolkit, your canvas, your bag of tricks, whatever you want to call it there. But, um, for sure, this phrase right here, no blue bluegrass guitar player needs to be without that. That is a great, great sounding bluegrass lick that has just a little bit of tension and then resolves itself after that. I mean, there are so many tunes, fiddle tunes, banjo tunes, bluegrass standards that you could, you know, kind of use your creativity and put that into. There's so many. Definitely add that one to your bag of tricks. Okay, and then this chromatic part is cool because it goes over that. That's kind of what he's playing over there, but he's not really going through and deliberately targeting those chord tones. I mean, he hits some of them in certain places, I think, just by happenstance, but like, you could use that in a lot of places. And not only that, not only is that a good, a cool musical idea that you could throw in again just to add some tension, because it's just, you know, it's— there's a lot of chromatics in there, so it just sounds different whenever you pull that out in like a, you know, in a in a bluegrass standard. But also too, that is a— that's a great picking exercise. Practice that along with a metronome, or I think you guys know that I'm a big fan of practicing along with train beats. That's a great thing to practice for your picking and for your fretting. So there's some really cool things to, um, it's a great solo to know It's a great solo to learn, um, but it's also got some great things that you can take. You can absorb that, use that to build your vocabulary, your canvas, your bag of tricks, and there's some good technical stuff in there to practice as well. So let's hear that one more time up to tempo with a backing track. All right, thank you so much for hanging out today. And remember, hit the, um, uh, the video description or the top pinned comment to get the tabs for this lesson. Always appreciate you hanging out, and I will see you next time.