Creating Killer Bluegrass Solos- Combining Influences From Your Favorite Flatpickers

1, 2, 3, 4.

Hey there, it's Aaron Jaxon coming to you today with a little lesson here on how to combine influences from different players that you like to kind of start to develop your own bluegrass improvisational style. Um, and really I just wanted to share with you the way that I like to kind of combine influences and kind of pick and choose from some of my favorite players and kind of improvise through like a really classic bluegrass tune here. So, um, as always with my lessons, I got the tabs for you down in the video description and in the top pinned comment. So let me— I just want to elaborate just a little bit more here, um, on what I want to show you in this lesson. Um, so the, the tune that I'm playing, and you may have recognized it at the beginning of the video. This is an old Ralph Stanley classic banjo tune called Clinch Mountain Backstep. It's one of the best-known, you know, banjo tunes ever. You know, it's a, you know, probably, you know, close to as well-known as Foggy Mountain Breakdown. And if you go to pretty much any bluegrass jam in the world, people will probably know this. But real quick, just in case Just in case you're not familiar with this tune, real quick I want to play you just a real simple, just bare-bones version of the melody here, and I'll play it at a much slower tempo than I played, um, the version at the beginning of the video. So that's going to sound like this: 1, 2, 3, 4. Okay, so I've also got links down in the video description, um, a couple of classic recordings of this tune. So here, here is what I like to do, um, is I like to— whenever I'm, you know, improvising over a tune like this or, or combining influences for coming up with a solo Whenever I'm creating something in the context of this tune, I like to just— I like to pull from different players that I like. And the way that I like to do it is I like to, um, I like to have a couple of bars where I'm playing like the melody of the tune, or, you know, a version of the melody of the tune. And then I like to take a couple of bars where I kind of deviate from it and dance around it and pull some licks from some of my, you know, influences, and then go back to the melody. And when kind of doing that back and forth. It's really cool, it's really exciting, and you're also, you know, you're still staying in context of the tune. You're not just completely and utterly abandoning the melody of this tune, but you're, you're, you're playing the melody but then just kind of dancing around with it a little bit. And I like to do that by combining influences. So let me show you what I'm gonna do here. Okay, so to start off with, I'm taking the melody and I'm if you will, I'm Tony Rice-ing up the melody just a little bit. I'm going, you know, and, and that might also be Clarence Whiting up the melody just a little bit.

Okay.

So, so there I'm hanging out with the melody again. It's the—

I'm just kind of—

okay, so I've, I've taken, you know, a bar or two there and I've played the melody. Now I'm going to deviate from that a little bit and I'm going to throw in this lick. Whoops. Okay, and that comes from Billy Strings' solo to Cabin Song. He plays that lick in there. Okay, so, so far— which, by the way, if you want to get a couple of different lesson videos where I break down some of these licks, check this video out right here. This is like 10 classic bluegrass licks. I think I cover all of the licks I'm gonna play in this in this video. Um, so, so far I'm starting off with the melody and then Billy string click. Okay, so Okay, so again, we're playing the tune, but we're dancing around with it just a little bit. Now I'm going to go back to my little kind of Tony Rice, um, flavored version of the melody here. And now I'm going to throw in this, and that lick right there is from Cody Kilby's solo to Going Back to Old Kentucky, the original studio recording that Ricky Skaggs did in his tribute to the father of bluegrass. Okay, so, so I'm pulling a little bit from Billy, a little bit from Cody, but I'm playing the melody in between that too.

So we've got Billy strings, back to the melody. Cody.

Cool. Do you see how that works? We're not, we're not abandoning the melody. We're still very much playing the tune, but we're having a little bit of fun from it. And I'm pulling a little bit from some of my different influences. And by doing this, by doing this, it helps me kind of create, you know, my own little improvisational style. So we're not done yet though. Let's keep going. So I'm gonna try to stick to what I played at the beginning as best as I can, but there might be— sometimes it's difficult to remember exactly what you play. But now we kind of need to go to, if you will, it's almost like the B part of this tune. And that's— so coming out of that Cody Kilby lick, okay, and then we're gonna do So again, just hanging out with the melody there. And you know, if I was to go back to the bare bones version of the melody, okay, so but I'm changing Okay, and now I— after that, I'm going to throw in this little— and that little lick right there, okay, that is— and I'm not even sure if I've done, uh, like a lesson tutorial on this one. I'm borrowing that lick from Kenny Smith. He plays that lick in Studebaker, and it's kind of play that again here. And I really like that lick because it's meant to be played over like a G, over a 1 chord, but that, that gives you like that 5 minor thing, so it gives you a little tension. And then we're, you know, making deliberate use of open strings. Which is, you know, kind of what we do with some of these floating licks. Okay, something like that. So again, kind of in the B part of it.

Okay.

And then we're going to go back into the B part again, and I'm going to end it with this kind of classic Tony Rice sounding lick. We're going to do So, um, on the B part here. Let me do the B part again there. I'll play it a little slower, and then I'll just kind of call out, you know, where I'm doing the melody and then where I'm doing the lick. So, um, so B part, we'll start with the melody, Kenny Smith lick. Melody.

Tony Rice.

Okay, so let me go through the whole thing again here. I'll play it nice and slow, and again, I just want to illustrate the way that I like to think about it. I like to do the melody for a little bit and then I like to take a lick from one of my influences and, um, and then just kind of combine all that together. Okay, so let me go through this whole thing again here, and I'll just— I'll kind of call out where I'm playing the melody and where I'm deviating and kind of pulling a lick here. So let's start off with the melody. The Clinch Mountain Backstep will do. Billy Strings lick.

Back to the melody.

Cody Kilby lick.

B part melody.

Kenny Smith lick.

Melody. Tony Rice.

Okay, so there it is. And just real quick here, let me go ahead and play it one more time. With the backing track up to tempo.

2, 3, 4.

Okay, so I really just wanted to make this video just to kind of show you the way that I like to think about improvising, you know, over a tune, you know, like Clinch Mountain Backstep, because I get a lot of people asking me about, about bluegrass improv. And I know for me, and I think this is the case with like a lot of other players too, the thing about bluegrass improv is you've got to have a couple of like a couple of different layers of foundation built before you can really kind of develop a, like, a really good bluegrass improvisational style. And those layers being, you know, number one, you need to have your technique down. You need to have your alternate picking. If you're still having to think about pick strokes and stuff like that, that's definitely something that you want to get ironed out. And then on top of that, You want to have your vocabulary and your repertoire really developed. And what I mean by that is, you know, when it comes to vocabulary— licks, phrases, solos, those kinds of things, you know, bluegrass licks, phrases, and solos. And then with the repertoire, um, you know, your, your tunes, you know, you, you, you've got to like really know these tunes in order to be able to improvise around them. So like all of those things, like your your technique, your vocabulary, and your repertoire. That stuff needs to be— and I'm mostly just, you know, sharing with you what works for me— but that stuff needs to be at a level of unconscious competence. Like, you shouldn't still be having to think about it. But once you've got all of that stuff down, or at least to a, you know, to a pretty solid degree, then, you know, you've got things that you can pull from when you're wanting improvise over tunes like this. Anyway, that's just a way that I like to think about it. You know, I'll play the melody a little bit and then I'll deviate from it and I'll pull a lick from one of my influences. And I like to do— I like to use at least a handful of influences because if you only kind of have one or two, you end up just kind of sounding like a clone of that person. And if that's, you know, if that's all you want to do, you know, I've come across a lot, a lot of amazing guitar players players who are just straight-up Tony Rice clones. Just straight up. I mean, they try to play exactly like Tony Rice. And you know, that's cool because Tony Rice is probably the most influential player in this. But I know for me, and it seems like it's the case with, you know, a lot of other players, is I like to take at least a handful of different influences and use those in my playing. And I find that when I do that, I kind of start to come up with my own thing, and I really think that you will as well. So again, hit the links down below to get the tabs for this. I've got the tabs for you for the basic, just real simple melody here, and, um, and I've got it for the more advanced version where I'm, you know, combining influences on that. And then also, um, uh, down I've got links to recordings of Clinch Mountain Backstep, and I've got a link to, um, a couple of the other videos where I teach some of the licks that I used in this lesson. So, all right, so this was a fun one, and I really hope this gives you some ideas on, you know, how you can, uh, you know, pull from different influences and kind of start to come up with your own improvisational style. So as always, thanks for hanging out, and I will see you next time.