Bluegrass Guitar: UNLOCK G-D Rhythm! (Licks & Ideas YOU NEED)

Hey there, it is Aaron Jaxon coming to you today with some G to D rhythm licks to spice up your bluegrass rhythm playing and make you the hero of your local jam session. Hey, so welcome back, and I wanted to go ahead and say this: this lesson is kind of a part 2 to this one, which I will link to down in the video description. And what these are are just some simple yet tasteful bass note runs, licks, and chord substitutions that you can throw into your bluegrass rhythm playing. So before I jump in and show you like the licks and the runs that we're gonna learn today, let's establish a default strumming pattern. And this is the same one that I showed in the previous lesson, but I want to go ahead and do it again here this one. Okay, so our default strumming pattern will be this. Okay, and what we're doing there, um, I'm just on my G here.

We're going to do boom, chucka, boom, chucka, boom, chucka, boom, chucka.

Gives your rhythm playing a really nice drive and a nice bounce to it. Okay, so again, what I see a lot of bluegrass players doing when they're playing rhythm is they just kind of default to this this G right here with the open B string, and they go to like a basic boom-chuck rhythm. And again, unless you were deliberately going for a first-generation, you know, Flatt and Scruggs, early Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys sound, I don't recommend playing rhythm like that. I recommend doing this G, just like the old Clarence White G. Uh, Tony Rice used this all the time. And then using this strumming pattern, boom-chuck, boom-chuck. Okay, there we go. So now I want to give you some ideas to get from G to D. So here's the first one, and it'll go like this. Okay, the lick that we're doing on this one is pretty simple, but the timing of it can be a little tricky.

So we're on our G, we're going to do boom, chucka boom, a chucka boom, chucka boom. Boom-a-chucka boom-chucka boom-a-chucka. Okay, so again, boom-chucka boom-a-chucka boom-chucka boom. Boom-a-chucka boom-chucka boom-a-chucka.

Okay, so you, you have to watch.

So boom-chucka boom-a-chucka boom-chucka boom.

So we'll do— so we've got a real quick— we'll kind of just come down and hit the 6th string, and then, and then jump up to this 3rd fret of the 4th string. And I like to do that down-up slide.

Okay, so boom, chucka, boom, chucka, boom, chucka.

Okay, so that's a subtle little bass note run there, but it's very effective. So there's the first idea there. Let's do another one here, and, um, we're gonna do kind of a variation on that. We're gonna make it a little more involved, and this one's gonna go like this.

We're gonna do—

okay, so with this one on our strumming pattern, boom, chucka, boom, chucka, boom, chucka.

I'll do that again.

Boom, chucka, boom, chucka, boom, chucka. So boom, chucka, boom, chucka, boom, chucka, and then we've got this little lick here, we'll go—

and that's what gets us from our G shape to our D shape. And that's just— and then we get right into D right there. So one more time on the second idea here.

Boom, chucka, boom, chucka, boom, chucka.

So one more time here. All right, so these first two G to D rhythm ideas will do. So with those two ideas, you'll hear, um, you'll hear Tim Stafford use those a lot in his playing. Um, you know, probably definitely one of, if not my favorite all-time bluegrass band, is Blue Highway. And so, you know, I've just listened to all of their records, you know, ever since I was, you know, probably 16, 17 years old. I've just been a huge fan, and you'll hear him use those kind of rhythm licks all the time. Okay, 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 1 year than they have in the past 10, that kind of improvement— they have 2 things. They have a consistent, focused practice routine, and they have a path to follow. Once they have those 2 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 Flatpicking 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 1 year than you have in the past 5, 10, or even 20 years. Hit the link below down in the video description to learn more and to join up. You can even grab a VIP ticket and come an hour early before the main sessions each day and get one-on-one group coaching with me. You can ask me any of your questions. You can even bring your guitar with you and we can do like a live mini lesson and workshop on the call. It's going to be so much fun. I'm so excited to be doing this, and when you leave from this challenge, you're going to have path to follow, you're gonna have a practice routine, you're gonna know how to make it a habit, and you're gonna have rock-solid confidence knowing that if you will stick to that, you will make more progress in 1 year on the guitar than you have the past 5, 10, or even 20. Hit the link down in the video description to learn more and join the Flatpicking Path Challenge. So let's keep going here, and we're gonna do another G to D idea. It's gonna go like this.

Okay, I'll do Do it again.

Okay, so this is, you know, you hear Tony Rice use this a lot. I think you would hear Jimmy Martin use this one a lot too.

Okay, so boom, chucka boom, chucka boom.

Do that again. 1, 2, 3, 4.

Again. Okay, one more time here.

We'll do Okay, so there we have it. And again, remember, with your strumming pattern, boom, chugga boom, chugga boom. So there's 3, you know, really cool little bass note runs and licks to get you from G to D. Let's do another one here, and this one is going to kind of be a variation on the first 2 that we did.

It's going to go like this.

Okay, so in the context of the strumming pattern there, we'll do boom, chucka boom, chucka boom, boom, chucka boom, chucka boom. So we end up starting this lick off in the same place that we started off the first lick.

Boom, chucka, boom, chucka, boom.

All right, so we've got that little— we hit the 6th string and then go right into that note. And I think those are both like 16th notes, which is a little challenging to get. Remember, when, when you're playing rhythm with this stuff, Accuracy and playing clean is still important, but it's not as important as it is when we're playing lead. The most important thing to remember whenever you're playing rhythm is just that— it's rhythm, it's bounce, it's timing, it's feel, that kind of thing. So sometimes whenever you're doing these little bass note runs, if it's not like crystal clean like you would want it to be if you're playing a lead break, that's okay as long as the rhythm, the feel is still there. So again, we'll do So we're kind of just doing a little chromatic walk down, but you want to hold this first note out. I think it's like a dotted eighth note.

Boom chaka, let's see, boom chaka, boom chaka. So 1 and a 2 and a 3 and a 4 and a—

okay, so we'll do 1 and a 2 and a 3 and a 4, e and a 1. So, um, 1 e and a 2 e and a 3 e and a. So we're holding that up for e and a, which would be like a dotted 8. Okay, so love that little lick there. Uh, okay, one more here, and this last idea will go like This. Okay, so this is a lick, uh, rhythm lick that I got from Kenny Smith. I think he plays this on, um, it's, it's the second track off of Studebaker. I don't remember what the name of the song is. It's a— now lay me to rest on some mountaintop. Um, really cool little driving tune. It's the second track on Studebaker, and he plays this rhythm lick in there, but we're gonna do boom, chucka boom, chucka boom, chucka. Okay, so let's do that again. So let's break down this lick just a little bit here.

So we're gonna do boom, chucka, boom, chucka, boom, chucka.

Okay, so we'll do— and then we'll do this little slide and then come over to D now. And what we're gonna do is make your D shape here and do an up strum. Now keep your fingers where they are, but lift them up just enough to deaden the strings. And we're going to do— we're going to bring our pinky finger down to the 3rd fret of the 1st string, and we're going to do an up strum and then lift it up and do 2 dead strums. Okay, so we're going to do— so we'll do So we do an up strum followed by 3 dead strums, pinky finger down on the 3rd fret, up strum followed by 2 dead strums. So, okay, so, okay, so we'll do And that's very common in rhythm guitar, you know, you know, where you'll strum and then mute it, you know, with a couple of up strums, you know, very common in like funk rhythm too, which is a lot of fun to play, you know. Throwing in just a little bit of that into our bluegrass playing. Okay, so that last idea there.

Okay, so there we go.

There's 5 rhythm ideas there. Now I want to go through each one of them, play them nice and slow here for you, and then I'll play it up to tempo, um, with a backing track. So we'll go 1, 2 3, idea 1.

Idea 1 again.

Idea 2.

Idea 3. Idea 4. Idea 5. Okay.

So now let me play those up to tempo and with a backing track. 5 bluegrass rhythm ideas that you can use anytime you're going from a G to a D. Now, I'm not gonna go through and plug these into a bunch of classic bluegrass tunes, but I'll show you how you can do it. So a while back, I shared this lesson right here, and I showed you how you could take one lick and you could plug it into— I think in that video I said 15 different bluegrass tunes. I drastically underestimated how many tunes you you can use that in. It's closer to 35. But the thing about it is, is not only does the lick work over the chords, it also works over the melody. Long story short, remember when we're playing bluegrass rhythm, especially on vocal tunes, primarily on vocal tunes, um, you know, most of those vocal tunes, the, the verses are 8 bars, and we, we almost— they're almost always 8 bars. There's a few 12-bar ones, and there's maybe a few that are like, like 10 bars, but the vast majority are 8 bars. And what I was showing you in that video was, um, how on bars 3 and 4, like halfway through the verse, we'll get like 1 bar of G to 1 bar of D. Okay, and then that idea that I showed you in that lesson not only works over the chords, but it also works over the melody. But in this lesson, we're not talking about the melody, we're just talking about the chords. And so that 1 bar of G to 1 bar of D on bars 3 and 4, which is, which is what this is, that's what this is we're doing one bar of G to one bar of D. You could probably plug that into— at least there's probably like 50 different bluegrass tunes that you can plug that into there. I'll link down to the playlist that I had shared for the lead lesson that I had shared on this, but just remember, all of those tunes, you can plug all of these rhythm licks into that as well. These ideas are infinitely usable in traditional bluegrass music, but but I don't want to just hold your hand and spoon-feed you all the time. You got to get creative with this stuff. You've got to use your ear, and you've got to take these ideas and apply them in these tunes yourself. Download the tabs for these rhythm licks down in the video description and in the top pinned comment. Remember, you can download the tabs for these rhythm licks down in the video description and in the top pinned comment. I really hope the ideas in this lesson will help you spice up your bluegrass lead playing, and I hope you'll start turning some heads at your next jam session. As always, I want to thank you for hanging out, and I will see you next time.