Blazing Bluegrass Guitar Tunes!-Learn 4 Flatpicking Instrumentals By The Best Players In Bluegrass

Hey there, it's Aaron Jaxon coming to you, and what I've got for you today is a compilation of 4 different lesson videos that I have done on this channel, breaking down and teaching 4 of the very best flatpicking guitar tunes ever recorded, in my opinion. So when I say flatpicking guitar tunes, these are original tunes written by some of the very best players to have ever played this style. So specifically, we're going to be covering Decision at Glady Fork by Brian Sutton. We'll do Impulsive by David Greer. We'll do Pyramid Country by Billy Strings, and we'll do Studebaker by Kenny Smith. So I wanted to put all of these together in one place. That way you don't have to go searching all over my channel to try to find these. You've got all of these in one place. I've got tabs for you down in the video description as well for each of the tunes. All right, let's jump into it. All right, so let's go ahead and jump into this Brian Sutton classic. So what I want to do is I want to make sure that I let you know what I'm referencing, because a lot of times there's different recordings of these tunes and there's live recordings. I am referencing the original studio recording from Brian's first solo album called Ready to Go, and this is like the first solo that he plays on this tune. I've got it linked down in the video description. And, and one other thing I always like to throw out there, this is me using my ear to the best of my ability to get as close to what he's playing as I can. There may be a few notes that I didn't quite get, but I did my best here. So anyway, let's jump into the A part here. Let's kind of jump into the head, and, uh, that's gonna go like this. We're gonna do Okay, so, um, a lot of really cool things, a lot of great phrases. Um, you know, obviously Brian has a devastatingly amazing picking hand, but he uses a lot of hammer-ons and pull-offs in his playing, as is clearly evidenced by this tune here. So, um, you guys have heard me talk about this before, about, um, or at least I've done several lessons on this channel talking about alternate picking and how we typically like to do downstrokes on, um, the 1 and the and, and do upstrokes on the e and the uh when we are counting these as 16th notes. Um, you know, I've done several lessons on that. Um, So when you're going through, that's where the pick strokes will fall. Now, all that being said, sometimes that's a little difficult to grasp, so I do have the pick strokes written out on the tabs for this. So let me go through the head one more time, and I'll play it really slow, and I'll do my best to call out the pick strokes. Okay, some like major Zen training here. So we'll do like down, up, down, Down, down, down, up, up, down, down, up, down, down, down, down, down, up, down, down, down, up, down, down, down.

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

Okay, so it gets, it gets a little tricky there when I'm calling them out. But again, I've got the pick strokes written out for you. And remember, when we're— when we're doing the— almost all bluegrass is played— bluegrass lead is played as 16th notes. You've got the bass, you know, you've got the bass spelling out your quarter notes. You know, those are your quarter notes. That's where our beats fall in the measure. And then the mandolin is chopping on the upbeats. 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2 and. And then usually our lead instruments are banjo, fiddle, um, the, you know, the mandolin when it's taking a break or the lead guitar are usually playing 16th notes. Like if it's a banjo, you know, that's a 1-e-and-a, 2-e-and-a, 3-e-and-a, 4-e-and-a. Or on guitar, you know, so rhythmically that is almost always where bluegrass lead guitar ideas fall, is at 16th notes. However, a lot of times when people are tabbing this stuff out, they write them out as eighth notes because it's easier to see. A lot of times when you're doing a bunch of sixteenth notes, you get a bunch of notes jumbled up into a measure. So a lot of times people will write these out as eighth notes because it's just easier to see. And if we're doing eighth notes, you want your downstrokes falling on downbeats and upstrokes falling on upbeats. Okay, anyway, I hope that's not too confusing there, but there really is a method to the madness. And if you can practice this stuff you'll get it down over time. But I wanted to just kind of address that here for a little bit. But one more time, let's go through the whole head of like the A part of Decision at Glady Fork here. So we'll do Okay, and then when we transition from the A part to the B part, there's a, there's a measure of 3/4. 1, 2, 3, and then we go into the B section of that. So that's just something to look, um, to to be aware of when you're playing this tune. All right, so let's jump into the B part of, uh, Decision at Glady Fork here. So that's going to go like this. Let me just go through and play it really nice and slow here for you, and then I'll go back into it and kind of break it down and analyze it a little bit. So B part of Glady Fork here, we'll do Okay, so some really cool phrases in there. So this little— this first little phrase here, um, okay, so one more time. Okay, so some good hammer-ons and pull-offs there. All right, and then we'll jump in and we'll do So that kind of second little passage for it. Okay, and then we're going to do this kind of little chromatic run where we'll do So one more time, we'll do— and then from there, this last little phrase, we'll do And then it goes back into, uh, the A part. So there's a lot there in the B section, but again, I kind of divide it up into like 4 different sections there, and then just practice those, and then you can kind of put it all together. So one more time, let me go all the way through the B part of Glady Fork. Here we'll do And then we go back into the A part. We'll do All right, so let me go through the whole thing, uh, one more time here. I'll play it nice and slow. And remember, the format to this is A-A-B-A. So here we go, all the way through, um, Decision at Gladi IV. Here we go. To the beat part. Okay, so there we go. I love this tune. It's a lot of fun. It's challenging. But don't think that you have to, you know, come out of the gate and be able to play this as fast and as powerful as Brian plays. You can practice this as slow as you need to. These licks and phrases sound great at any tempo. But one more time, let's hear how this sounds up to tempo and with a backing track. All right, so remember, you got the tabs for this down in the video description. So let's jump into the next tune here. Hey there, it's Aaron Jaxon coming to you today with a really cool lesson that I'm very excited to share with you. So I'm going to be showing you how to play David Greer's original bluegrass flatpicking tune called Impulsive. Now, I have been playing this style for a long time. I've learned a lot of tunes, I've learned a lot of solos, and straight up This is one of the trippiest freaking tunes I have ever learned, but I love it. I love the melody to it. I love the way it sounds. I've always loved this tune. And what's really cool about this tune though is it takes a lot of these elements, or most of these elements, that David Greer is known for in his playing, which are like slides, crosspicking, hammer-ons and pull-offs, just all of that really cool classic David Greer stuff. And it's all like jam-packed into this tune here. So that's why I wanted to show this with you. Also, I mean, this tune is challenging for sure, but what I've got for you down in the video description and in the top pinned comment, you can get the tabs for this, uh, with the pick strokes written out and all that good stuff. And I've also got a link to a custom backing track that I made for this tune inside of the Strum Machine app. And what you can do, um, you'll get the tabs and the link to my custom backing track in the Strum Machine You just hit that link, it will open it up in the Strum Machine app, and you can practice this tune at any tempo that you want. You can practice it at 30 beats a minute or 130 beats a minute if you want to. And if you're a guitar player who's either learning this style or who has been playing it for a long time and is just trying to get better, you should absolutely have a subscription to the Strum Machine. They don't sponsor any of my videos, but it's just an amazing resource. 14-day free trial, and then after that it's like $5 or $6 bucks a month, which is a total freaking steal. So make sure that you get a subscription to the Strum Machine app. And again, you can get the tabs and a custom backing track for this and practice this tune at whatever tempo that you want. Okay, let's jump into the lesson. Okay, so this song follows a traditional AA BB fiddle tune format. And so real quick, let me just go through the A part here of Impulsive. So it's gonna go like this. We're gonna do Okay, so that is all the way through the A part, um, that he plays. And again, um, on this, I want to make sure, uh, that I cite my sources. I'm, I'm going off of the original recording. I think the original album is called Panorama. I've got it linked down in the video description if you want to check that out. I think there's a bunch of recordings on YouTube as of him playing this live where he, you know, deviates from it a little bit, but I'm referencing the original recording, the first solo that he plays on the original recording. So that was the A part. What you wanna do with this tune is get that first phrase of the A part down. If you can get that first phrase, you've pretty much got the A part. He just goes through that first phrase 4 times, and he just kind of embellishes on it the 3rd and 4th times. But if you can get that first phrase down, you've basically got that. And that's gonna go like this. So that first phrase, we're gonna do Okay, so a lot of slides and a lot of like pull-offs and hammer-ons. Now I want to go through that again, and I'm going to call out the pick strokes. Again, on the tabs I've got all the pick strokes written out there for you, so if you want to, you can, you know, get those tabs, pull those up and follow along with what I'm about to do here. But again, I'm going to play that phrase, I'm going to call out the pick strokes as I'm playing it. So it's going to go like this. We're going to do— ah, we'll do down, hammer, down, up, slide, up, down, up, slide, up, down, hammer, down, Up, down, up, hammer, up, pull-off, up, down, down, pull-off, down, pull-off, down, slide, down. Okay, playing and calling out pick strokes with a bunch of slides and hammer-ons and pull-offs requires a lot of zen-like focused attention. Let's try it again. All right, so again, just the first phrase of this A part. Remember what I was saying, if you can kind of get this first phrase down, you've, you've really got the A part of this tune down because he just plays that 4 times, and on the 3rd and 4th time he just embellishes on just a little bit. So just get this first phrase down here. And one more time, I'm going to play it again, but I'm going to call out these pick strokes. Okay, so we're going to do down, hammer, down, up, slide, up, down, up, slide, up, down, pull-off, down, up, down, up, hammer, up, pull-off, up, down, down, pull-off, down, pull-off, down, slide, down. So that's the key, is just getting that first little phrase. And play that as slow as you need to. Again, I'm gonna give you the link to my custom backing track for this tune in the Strum Machine app, and you can play this as slow as you need to. It's just Okay, just get that again as slow as you need to. Now he plays that phrase right there exactly like I showed you twice in a row. He does, you know, Okay, he plays that twice, and then when he jumps into it the third time, uh, so all of that is exactly the same as we played the first and second time through. Through. He's just gonna— he's just gonna change up this last little phrase just a little bit. Instead of doing— he's gonna do—

that's it.

And I think all of that is picked except for that slide at the end. Just down, up, down, up, down, up, down, slide up. Okay, and then he's gonna play one more time, and then again he's going to kind kind of embellish just a little bit on this. We're going to do— so it's just this phrase right here though. Instead of, um, he'll do— so that's the A part there. Okay, one more time, let me go through this whole A part here and, um, I'll play it nice and slow here for you and we'll do Play that same phrase again. Same phrase, but we'll embellish the last part.

Right here. Last time. Change it.

Okay, so there we go. Again, just a couple little embellishments on the third and fourth times through this, but it's mostly just that main little phrase there. Let me do that one more time. It's the main phrase of the A part of Impulsive here, and I'll call out those, those dreaded pick strokes again. So we'll do down, hammer, down, up, slide, up, down, up, slide, up, down, pull-off, down, up, down, up, hammer, up, pull-off, up, down, down, pull-off, down, pull-off, down, slide. Okay, and then just again practice that main phrase as slow as you need to. Even slow, it's, it's, it's trippy, but it's just got some great little passages and phrases. And again, just so many elements that David is so well known for— slides and hammer-ons and pull-offs and crosspicking and all that cool stuff. But again, that's kind of step 1 right there. Just get that main phrase down, get it as slow as you need to. And again, And again, you've got the tabs for this lesson and you've got the link to my custom backing track in the Strum Machine. You can practice this at whatever frickin' tempo that you want to. I'd recommend starting slow. Okay, so that's the A part to Impulsive. Okay, so now let's jump into the B part of Impulsive. It'll go like this. We'll do— We'll just play that again. Okay, so, um, really what it is is there's one kind of big phrase and he just plays it twice on the B part, and we're gonna do Okay, so, um, he's throwing a lot of cross picking in here. But again, we've got a lot of slides and other cool ideas there. So this first part— and I like to do that with my ring and pinky finger on my left hand. You know, you can do it, but I like to use that because— so after we We're gonna do— and I'm gonna speak relative to the capo here, so that's hammer-on from 1st fret to the 2nd fret. Okay, and then he throws in some cross-picking after that, so we'll do— okay, so that's kind kind of a good place to stop before we go on. So again, we've got— all right, one more time. And then we're gonna do Okay, again, I like to use my ring, middle and ring fingers right there because he does, and then we do a slide. Okay, so let's just kind of go back and just add that, that new part to the rest of it here. So we'll do One more time, we'll do— and then we're going to end it with— okay, and that's just Okay, so that's, that's kind of like the first passage of this B part here.

We're doing—

okay, okay, so that's kind of the first passage of this B part here. Let's keep going. So we're— when we're coming out of— we'll go back to— okay, so we've got And then that's basically it for the B part. He just repeats that passage from there. So again, let me kind of make— play the main passage that you need to know for the B part here, and then just remember that you'll just repeat this. You'll just play it twice, and then that's the B part of this. We'll do And then we just play that again. And there we have it. So there's the B part of Impulsive real quick. So real quick, um, let me go through all the A part and all of the B part here. I'll do it nice and slow for you. So we'll go 1 1, 2, 3, 4, go.

Play that again. Again, change this part. Here we go.

Into the B part, we'll do And there we have it. So one more time, let me go ahead and play it up to tempo with a backing track. So like I was saying at the beginning of this video, this is a trippy freaking tune. These are, um, these passages are not— you know, even if you've played a lot of bluegrass and you've, you know, played like a lot of Tony Rice and Doc Watson stuff, this stuff is just— it's, it's very, it's very David. Um, it's, it's slippery, it's, it's, you know, slidey, it's all over the place. Um, so, so these passages will feel, um, you know, um, different from some of the other traditional bluegrass stuff that you been playing, or at least it does for me. But again, I've got the tabs for you with all the pick strokes out. You can reference this lesson obviously as many times as you want. You can slow this video down. And also I've got the link for you, um, in the Strum Machine app for the custom backing track that I made for this tune. So you can practice this at any tempo that you'd like, no matter how slow, no matter how fast. You can practice this at whatever tempo that you want. So anyway, this is a fun yet very, very challenging tune. But again, all of those elements that David Greer is known for— the slides, crosspicking— it's all kind of jam-packed into this little tune here. So anyway, check out the video description to get the tabs and the backing track. And also I've got the original recording linked down below, which that whole album Panorama is just an amazing, you know, instrumental bluegrass record from David Greer. So as always, thank you for hanging out, and I will see you next time. Hey there, it's Aaron Jaxon coming to you today with a really, really cool lesson here. So I'm going to be breaking down and showing you how to play Pyramid Country by Billie Strings. Now this is one that I think, you know, he plays this one live all the time. So the version that I'm going to be showing you today is from the original studio recording I just know that there's a ton of live recordings of him playing this because he does it at almost all of his live shows, and he usually plays it— or at least the second solo, he plays it a little bit different than what he plays on the original recording. I'm going to be referencing the original recording here. So this tune is pretty interesting because the kind of the head, the main melody of this tune, is fairly simple to play for like a bluegrass flatpicking tune. But then the second solo that he plays on this is an absolute beast, and I challenge any of you Billy Strings haters out there to learn this solo, learn the second solo in the song, learn it note for note, and then work on it until you can play it at about the same tempo that he does, and get back to me and tell me if you still think he sucks. I've learned a lot of bluegrass solos from almost all of the greatest players and this is one of the most challenging that I have ever learned. So anyway, there's a word to all the haters out there, um, but I'm gonna break it down here for you, show it to you note for note, and you can get the tabs for this tune down in the video description. So let's go ahead and start with the main melody, kind of the head of this tune here. That's— it's fairly simple. Now you've probably been able to see I've got my capo on the 2nd fret and I'm in drop. If we didn't have the capo on, that would be D, but since we have the capo on the 2nd fret, this is in drop E. That's very important. So, okay, so technically this tune is in the key of E, although we're playing it out of a D shape. And again, we've got that 6th string tuned down to match our 4th string. Okay, so let's start with kind of the A part of the, of the main head, the main melody of this tune, and it's gonna go like this. We're gonna do Okay, and then we just play that twice. So this is cool, it's fun to play. There's a bunch of pull-offs here to the open strings. And again, just this, this main head here. And then we just play that twice, and that is the A part to Pyramid Country. Just a couple of little technique things on that, um, on that part right there. So do a hammer-on with your index finger, but then when you get over here to this second fret of the— and again, I'm speaking relative to the capo here— the 2nd fret of the 4th string for this slide. I like to do that with the ring finger. Okay, so that may take a little bit of practice because it's a little trippy there, but then it puts you in the position. Okay, so, so really cool-sounding phrase there. So one more time on the, uh, A part. Okay, play that twice, and that is the A part to Pyramid Country. Now let's go into the B part here, and what we're gonna do is— so normally we play G like this, but as you can see, that sounds terrible because we're in drop E. So you're gonna make your G like this: ring finger up here on the 5th fret, again speaking relative to the capo, and then Okay, so we'll hit that and then we'll do— let's see here, I'll do it again.

And then We'll play that again.

And that's the B part. Okay, so, okay. So that's the A and the B part. That's the main head of this tune. So a really cool sounding melody. It's really fun to play on the guitar because you've got a bunch of like pull-offs to the open strings. One more time, let me do just the, just the main melody, the head to the A part and the B part of Pyramid Country. Here we go. Play the A part again. B part. Okay, there we go. So again, really cool and really fun to play on that main melody of the tune. So, um, let's, let's jump in to— again, this is the second solo that Billy plays on the original studio recording. So one more time, I know I played it at the beginning of the lesson video, but real quick, let me go ahead and do a performance video of the second solo to Pyramid Country. Okay, so as you can see, there's a lot to this one here, but I've, I've been teaching this one to my students for a while now, so I've got a pretty good grip on it. And again, I always try to just kind of preface this stuff with, you know, I'm using my ear to decipher this stuff, and this is kind of as close as I could get to the original recording, but it's pretty dang close here. But anyway, let's jump into it here, and I want to do this first phrase on, again, the second solo of the original studio recording to Pyramid Country, and it's going to go like this. We're going to do Okay, so that's kind of the first little phrase that he plays on this. And that's just a really great little lick to play out of a D shape. You can play that anywhere. Okay, one more time. All right, and then he's gonna come up to kind of the next phrase of this tune, which is really cool. I haven't really heard a lot a lot of bluegrass players play ideas like this, but I think it's cool and it goes like this.

Um, okay, so again, all right, so what he's going to do right there—

and again, I'm speaking relative to the capo here— this is 5th fret on the 5th string. And then he's kind of doing like a 5th, but then he's picking all of that. So that's 5th fret on the 5th string, 7th fret of the 4th, and then open 4th. And then he does that 4 times right here. He does And then we're gonna go from 5th again, speaking relative to the capo here, 5th up to— I guess this would be like the 8th. Does it twice right there, and then down here to the 3rd. Okay, so again, that whole passage right there, we'll do 4 times right here, twice up here, twice down down here. Okay, so again, and then, um, and that's kind of how he ends that, or at least that, that's kind of how I think of that. It's kind of like the second phrase to this solo. So Okay, so I guess before I jump into the next part, let's just kind of put everything together that we've done so far on the second solo. So we'll do Okay, so the next part here, here's what he's going to do. He's going to do, um, All right, um, okay, and that idea is fairly simple there. So, so after that we're gonna do, um, so that little part right there, I'm picking a down pick on that first fret of the second string so pick a down pick on that, pull off, down on the 2nd fret of the 3rd string, up on the 3rd string open. Okay, so right there you're going to do that 5 times. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Okay, 5 times on that. All right, and then all you're gonna do is just slide on your left hand everything up 2 frets, and we're gonna do that exact same thing 3 times. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 1, 2, 3. Okay, so it's the exact same that we did down here, but you'll just move everything up a fret, do it 3 times. Or at least that's how I like to think about it. So, um, 1, 2— let me do it a little slower here—

1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 1, 2, 3.

All right, and then after that, we're going to come up to this little kind of first inversion again, technically an A triad, but it would be like a G shape. And we're gonna do— all right, which is like kind of straight out of one of my cross picking exercises, like— but, um, so that's down, up, down, up, down, up, down. Okay, so again, that phrase right there, we'll do 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 2, 3. Okay, so again, let's just— let's add that to what we've got so far, or what we've done so far on the second solo. So we'll do Okay, so after we've got there, we're gonna do Okay, so coming out of Okay, and now we're gonna go into probably the most challenging part of this whole solo. I know you may have been, you know, getting through it this far, be like, what? Yeah, so this next part is, um, it does like a crazy little cross-picking thing that just sounds so cool here. And I'll do my best to just kind of slow it down and break it down for you here. But again, coming out of So this next part is going to go like this.

We're going to do—

oh my gosh, let me do it again here. Um, so, um, Okay, and I think he— that's kind of— I mean, it's just, it's something a banjo player would play, but we're just doing it with a flat pick, which is a lot of what cross picking is. And you can hear that, you know, in a lot of different places in Billy's playing. But this particular passage is kind of crazy. But again, Okay, okay, let me play it one more time. I'll play it really, really slow here.

We'll do one more time.

Okay, so yeah, any of y'all out there that are hating on Billy Strings, learn this, learn this, and, and practice it to where you play it at the tempo that he does. Crazy stuff. That's also like the ultimate cross cross-picking exercise. I love it. All right, and then we're gonna do— so after we come out of that, we're gonna do— all right, so just 2 notes there. And then we're gonna do this. And so what that is You know, just a kind of a very Tony Rice sounding thing. But this right here, we're gonna do that 5 times. So we're gonna do— so coming out of— so 5 times on that.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

Yes, we'll do it 5 times on that, that little lick there, and then we'll do again very Tony Rice sounding. So again, coming out of that little crazy crosspicking part Okay, and then, so let's, let's do this. Let me take it from that really crazy crosspicking part through that lick right there. So we'll do— let me do it again. Okay, and then to end it off, we're gonna do Okay, so that last part, when you're like listening to him do it, it sounds crazy, and it is crazy, and it's challenging to execute, but the idea is fairly simple. We're gonna— okay, and then come down here to the 3rd fret, and we're gonna do some cross picking here. We're gonna pick down on the 4th string, up on the 3rd, down on the 2nd, and then come down to— and then come down to the 2nd fret of the 4th string, down to the 1st fret of the 4th string, and then 4th string open. Okay, and then the way that you'll pick that— down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up. And then we're going to go to the third fret of the fifth string. And it's kind of the same idea here. Pick down on the fifth, up on the fourth, down on the third, down to the second fret of the fifth. Up, down, up. Okay, so let's do down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up. And then come up to the third fret of the fifth string, Pick the fifth string. And then third string open. Fourth fret of the fifth string, third string open. And then we'll end with. And there we go. So that last little phrase. All right, so man, what a beast. Of a bluegrass solo. Again, anybody hating on Billy Strings, come learn this solo, work on it, play it, practice it, and get it up to the tempo that he plays it at, and then tell me he sucks. I mean, I'm sorry, this is a— it's an amazing solo. Let me go through the whole thing one more time. I'll go through it all, the whole second solo, nice and slow here. So we'll do How about that? But I love that solo. There's some really cool ideas. There's some, you know, cool, you know, kind of classic bluegrass sounding licks like he plays at the very beginning. You know, and then there's some of these other ideas that are really— he's the only person I've ever heard really kind of use these. You know, you'll hear Tony Rice use ideas like, you know, or You know, you'll hear a lot of bluegrass players use those ideas that use a lot of hammer-ons, which I love those. But this one's cool because it's like fifths. Those other ones were thirds, or, you know, Tony Rice did that all the time. But this one, with it being fifths and he's picking everything, it's cool.

It's cool.

He's the only person I've ever heard do that. And then, um, you know, a bunch of great crosspicking ideas in here that you can use you know, as licks in your playing. You can use, you know, to build your vocabulary and are also great for just like exercises like this. That's a great little— or even this, like Just sit around and play that like a bunch of times a day. It will massively improve your picking technique. So a bunch of cool ideas in that second solo. So it's— yeah, it's an ambitious undertaking, but again, you know, I hope this video has helped. And remember, you can slow this video down so you can slow down the slowdown sections, and I've also got the tabs for you down down in the video description. But there's one more thing that we gotta learn because he plays a really gnarly— so he, he plays the, the first solo, which is like the main melody of the tune. He plays the second one. He does a third one, but he just plays the main melody again, and him and the banjo player are, um, playing that in unison. But then he ends it with a really cool, you know, gnarly sounding little bluegrass lick, and that goes like this. That's a All right, so that's just, that's just a classic Billy lick, and it's going to go like this. One more time. So the main thing to watch out for is at the end. Normally when, you know, we would— but we're in drop E, so we've got a— there's a bit of a stretch there. So one more time, and there we All right, so, um, so anyway, um, some really cool and fairly simple ideas in the main melody of this tune, a freaking beast of a second solo, and then a really cool lick at the end there. Okay, so one more time, let me go back and I'm gonna play the first solo, the second solo, and the outro lick one more time up to tempo here. All right, so thank you for hanging out with me today. I've been wanting to do this lesson for a long time because there's a lot to this tune. But, you know, don't think that you have to kind of eat the elephant all in one bite here. If you want, just get that kind of main melody section down Work on that for a little bit. It's really fun to play. It's fairly simple. And then, you know, when you're ready, you know, jump into that second solo. There's just a bunch of great phrases again that you can use for building your vocabulary and that you can also use as picking exercises for building technique. I'm gonna be incorporating a bunch of those kind of into my practice routine after, you know, kind of going through and, you know, really analyzing this stuff for this lesson. Lesson video. So remember, get the tabs down in the video description and in the top pinned comment. As always, thank you so much for hanging out, and I will see you next time. And remember, you can get the tabs down in the video description and in the top pinned comment. So let's jump into it here. And I think what I want to do before I start showing you how to play the melody to this, let me give you the chords for the A part of Studebaker, uh, just to give you a little backdrop and a little context for how this is going to sound. So, um, for the A part on Studebaker, and again capo on the 4th fret, and I'll be playing this out of a G shape, technically a B chord, but I'm gonna go 1, 2, 2, 3, da da da da da. To F, back to G, 2, 3. Now we'll go to C, 2, 3, 4. G, 2, 3, 4. G, 2, F, 2. G, 2, 3, 4.

C, 2.

D, 2. E, 2. Okay, so that's the chords to the A part. And this tune is in the Strum Machine. You can just— if you've got the Strum Machine app, which if you're learning bluegrass guitar, you absolutely should have a subscription to the Strum Machine— but Studebaker is in that. You can just go type in Studebaker by Kenny Smith and it'll pop up in the original key, everything. It's awesome. So that's the chords to the A part of Studebaker. Let's jump into the main melody here. And so this kind of first phrase that you want to get down is going to go like this. We'll do— okay, that's kind of the main melody, the main head to this song. So again, Okay, so at the beginning here, pretty straightforward, but we want to— let's start with a hammer from that open 4th to the 2nd fret. Same thing on the 3rd string, but let's pick both of them, and then we'll do— and then So that's our first little lick here. And then we're gonna jump up here, and I'm speaking relative to the capo. We'll take our middle finger, slide from the 5th up to the 6th fret, and we'll do— okay, so we'll do A little pull-off right there, and then we'll come over here to our 3rd string. And again, speaking relative to the capo, like 7th to the 5th fret pull-off on the 3rd string. And let's bring our pinky up. We'll do a little bit of a stretch here to this, uh, this relative to the capo stuff throws me for a loop. Uh, so, um, let's see here, 7 to 5. So 9th fret, it's technically the 11th, but okay, so we'll do and then end with that 3rd string open. So let me play that first phrase again here for you. So we'll do Okay, so that's where you want to start with this. I would recommend just getting that down first before you move on. Practice it along with the strum machine, maybe practice it along with like a drum track or a metronome, but that's like the main phrase to this tune that you want to get down. Speaking of practice, I need to—

okay, and then you can slow it down.

Okay, so now let's keep going, and we're gonna do— so that's open 4th string to the 3rd fret of the 4th string. And then we'll do so, pull off right here, and then we'll do Okay, so that last little phrase. Okay, so kind of like the second half of the A part to Studebaker. Okay, and then it just plays that twice. You just repeat that whole phrase 2 times for the A part to Studebaker. So again, it's gonna go like this. We'll do And then you just play that twice, and that's, that's the A part to Studebaker. I love this tune. I love the little cool. So A part to Stu DeBaker. Okay, so now we're going We're gonna go into the B part here, and there's some really cool ideas in here, a couple of challenging things, but let me just kind of go into it here, and I'll play all the way through the B part here for you nice and slow. So this is the B part to Studebaker. We'll do— And then it goes back into the A part after that. Okay, so again, on this B part— and I meant to do this before I played the melody— let me play the chords here real quick. So the chords for the B part of Studebaker: 1, 2, 3, 2, 3, 4, D, 2, 3, 4 to C, 1, 2, 3, E minor, back to C. We'll do D, 2, 3, 4, 2, 2, 3, go to C, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4. And then it goes back into the A part. And again, I've got the chords written out for you on the tab tabs, and also check— make sure you check this tune out in the Strum Machine. Okay, so, um, back to the melody of Studebaker, or the B part of Studebaker.

Here we'll do—

I'd recommend starting with that. So this one has like a little bit of syncopated rhythm to it, um, and it's almost— it's, it's almost like he's he's doing with a flat pick what a banjo player would do with 3 picks. Okay, so, so that's the first little phrase to get. And so this next one we're gonna do— whoops. Okay, okay, so this next phrase we'll do All right, so, okay, so, and then we're gonna go into into this little— it's almost like an E minor add 9. And we've got some cross picking right there, so that's down on the 6th, up on the 5th, down on the 4th, up on the 3rd.

Um, okay.

And then we're gonna do— whoops, okay, so that's just a hammer-on from the 2nd fret to the 3rd fret, middle index to middle finger, and then 3rd string open, which sounds really cool, especially those 2 phrases back to back. Okay, so it's a great accuracy exercise as well. And then we'll do— okay, so again, like the first half of the B part of Studebaker, we'll do Okay, so again, um, one— let's see here. All right, and then we'll go into like the, uh, the kind of the second half of the B part here. We'll do so similar to the first phrase but just a little different. Um, um. And then we'll keep going. Okay, and then after that we just go right back into the A part again. Okay, so one more time, let me go all the way through the B part of Studebaker here. So we'll do And then we go back into the A part after that. Okay, so let me do this here, um, let's go through and I'm just gonna do the whole thing nice and slow for you. So I'll do the A part. So really the format of this tune, it's like A, A, B, A. Okay, so do the A part twice, we do the B part, and then we'll do the— and then we'll do the A part one more time after that. All right, so let's start from the beginning. We'll go on to A part. A part again.

B part.

All right, so there we go. And again, you got the tabs for this down in the video description and in the top pinned comment. I've got the chords written out there for you. And also, um, check out this tune in the Strum Machine. You can practice this at any tempo that you want. Um, but one more time, let's kind of hear how this sounds up to tempo and with the backing track. Okay, so I just, I love this tune. Kenny has always been one of my absolute favorite guitar players in this style, um, and if you haven't checked out Kenny's playing and you're into this kind of guitar playing, you are really missing out. Um, I, he, I think originally came onto the scene with the Lonesome River Band back in the '90s. He's on Um, there's two albums. I think one of them is Talking to Myself, and I think the other one's called One Step Forward. Um, just great, great, great hard-driving bluegrass music, and he plays a bunch of amazing lead guitar on there. His solo albums are great, and of course all the stuff he's done with the Kenny and Amanda Smith Band is just freaking awesome. So I want to thank you for hanging out, and, um, you know, one of the reasons why I like to teach, you know, tunes like this from Kenny Smith, or like Decision at Glady Fork from Brian Sutton, or Impulsive from David Greer, or Pyramid Country from Billy Stringer is, you know, a lot of these types of tunes, you know, they're almost— I'm not sure exactly what the phrase is that I'm looking for here, but it's almost like, you know, guitar players when they go out and they do solo records, they'll have like a tune or two that's kind of— it's almost like their statement, okay? You know, and I definitely think this tune is kind of that for Kenny Smith. A tune like Impulsive is like that for David Greer. I think Decision at Glady Fork is— it's just you learn a lot about a player's style and about the way they think by learning tunes like this. I don't, I don't teach you this just so you can become an automaton and a copycat, but if you can learn a couple of these from a few different players, you can really start to get a feel for how they process ideas, and you can start to borrow from different players and kind of come up with your own thing. So that's why I like to teach these, not just to be a copycat, but to kind of really dig in and see how the greats of this style come up with ideas, come up with melodies, how they play around chord changes. And it's just really cool. And again, and if you'll do this with a couple of different players, you can start to pull, you know, from different people and really kind of come up with your own thing. So anyway, love this tune. I'll also link to the original recording down in the video description because that's what I've based this lesson off of, is just exactly what he plays off of the original studio recording from this tune. So as always, thank you for hanging out and I will see you next time.