Endless Bluegrass Guitar Licks- Learn 10 Classic Bluegrass Lead Ideas Through GCD

Hey y'all, it's Aaron Jaxon coming to you today, and I want to welcome you to a really cool lesson here that I enjoy teaching to my students that come to me and they're kind of new to bluegrass. They've maybe got into it, you know, through somebody like Billy Strings or Molly Tuttle, and they're going down the rabbit hole and they're discovering, you know, the great players of this style like Tony Rice, Doc Watson, and David Greer, and Brian Sutton. And this is something that I like to show them here. It's just 5 bluegrass lead ideas through a G, C, and D chord progression to just kind of get you familiar with some of the licks and the passages that we like to play in this style and how we kind of target the chord changes in bluegrass. Because it's, it's a little bit similar to, say, the way a jazz player would play through chord changes, but we've got our own kind of vocabulary around this stuff. So that's just what I want to show you here. And if you would like to get the tabs and a backing track for this lesson, I've linked down to that into the description of the video, and I've also put that in the top pinned comment down below. So hit that up if you'd like to get the tabs and a backing track for this lesson. So let's jump into it here. All right, so this first idea is a pretty familiar sounding bluegrass idea, and I'll, I'll go through it here. So it's just And then over to C, to D, and then back to G. Okay, so as you can see, we're really just taking that G run there, you know, like you'd hear it to the beginning of Uncle Pen. You know, we hear that a lot in bluegrass. We're taking that idea from G, then we're going through C and going through D. Real quick though, um, let's talk about the pick strokes on this.

So this main idea here, we're going to do down, up, down, up, down, pull-off, down. Okay, down, up, down, up, down, pull-off, down.

And we're just repeating that idea, so that technique will stay the same throughout this whole entire little, uh, solo, if you will. So same thing on C: down, up, down, up, down, pull-off, down. And we just play that twice, and then we'll go to D: down, up, down, up, down, pull-off, down.

Down, up, down, up, down, pull off, and then back to G.

Okay, so pretty familiar idea there. So this next one, we're gonna kind of do the same idea, but we're gonna expand on that just a little bit.

So we're gonna do—

okay, so on that one, down, up, down, up, down, pull-off, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, pull-off, down. Okay, so again, down, up, down, up, down, pull-off, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, pull-off.

So the only place where we have 2 downstrokes in a row is at the end when we're doing that, um, we're doing that pull-off. Okay. So, and again, that technique will stay consistent when we go over to C, and then we'll go over to D. Same, same deal.

Down, up, down, up, down, pull-off, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, pull-off, down.

And then we'll go back to G.

Down, up, down, up, down, pull-off, down, up, up, down, up, down, pull-off.

Off.

Okay, so let's keep going here. All right, so that was 2 ideas. Let's jump into the 3rd one, and it's gonna go like this.

We're gonna do—

so this is the beginning of the 3rd idea here.

So again, all right, so let's, let's talk about the technique on down, up, down, up, down, pull-off, down, up, slide, up, down, up, down, hammer-on, down.

Alright, so again, down, up—

I'm sorry, down, up, down, up, down, pull-off, down, up, slide, up, down, up, down, hammer-on, down.

Okay, so you can see we're most— it's mostly alternate picking here, but there's some phrases, um, that just are a little easier to play if we deliberately use 2 downstrokes or 2 upstrokes. And one other thing I'll say here, this is just the way that's the easiest for me to execute these ideas. You may want to go through and learn them the way that I'm doing it, but then decide that maybe you want to change up the pick strokes on that just a little bit, which is totally okay. I've just found in a long period of playing these ideas and teaching them, that's just the— it's the easiest way or the most economical way for me to execute those. But anyway, one more time at the beginning of idea 3: down, up, down, up, down, pull-off, down, up, slide, up, down, up, down, hammer-on, down. And then we'll go to C. And the idea is going to change up just a little bit.

We're going to do—

so that's down, up, down, up, down, pull-off, down, up, slide, up, down, up, down, up, down.

So for some reason, I'm afraid fan of starting the slide with an upstroke and then hitting the next note also with an upstroke. I'm not really sure why that is. I think it's because my pick feels a little less trapped when I go into that next phrase. Up, slide, up, down, up, down, up, down. That's just for me. You can try it that way and, you know, maybe come up with another way of doing that on your own if you find that a little awkward. But I— for me, that's just— and I think, like I was saying a second ago, I think It just, it keeps my pick from feeling trapped in between the strings. So now let's go over to D here. This is the third idea.

We'll do—

so again, with the technique: down, up, down, up, down, pull-off, down, up, slide, up, down, up, down, pull-off.

Hammer-on down. So really the same idea as the first one, and then back home to G. Okay, so let me go through that again. This is the third of our 5 bluegrass lead ideas through G, C, and D.

And we'll do down, up, down, up, down, pull-off, down, up, slide, up, down, up, down, hammer-on, down.

And then over to C.

Down, up, down, up, down, pull-off, down, up, slide, up, down, up, down, up, down, and then down, up, down, up, down, pull-off, down, up, slide, up, down, up, down, hammer-on, down, and then back to the first idea.

There you go.

So if you want to be a real nerd, try to sing your pick strokes if you really want to be a nerd here.

So like, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, slide up, down, up, down, hammer on down.

Oh my God, I'm gonna try it again.

Down, up, down, up, down, pull off down, up, slide up, down, up, down, hammer on down.

That is some serious serious next-level nerd shit right there. So there's that. Um, so that's the third idea here. Now, um, these next two are going to get a little bit more challenging here. And I meant to say this at the beginning of the video, but I forgot. For this video, for this one, these ideas are really kind of like intermediate to advanced. Um, if you would like one that's a little bit more beginner here, check this video out. I just show you four Bluegrass Lead Ideas Through G, C, and D with some really basic picking patterns. Um, so that's one to jump into if you're wanting something that's a little bit more kind of at level 1 with this stuff. But this video is a little more, um, intermediate to advanced. So anyway, that was the first 3. Let's jump into idea number 4 here. So we're gonna do Okay, so I'm sure a lot of y'all recognize this first, like Tony Rice, Red Haired Boy.

So I'm pulling straight from that.

And as far as the technique on that, down, up, down, up, down, pull off, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, pull off, down, down, up, down, up, down, pull off, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, pull off, down.

Okay, and so that's over a G. Now over the C here, we've got this this little— I just love this little idea. And so what I'm doing there, so, so, down, hammer, down, pull-off. So again, first fret of the second string, pick that, hammer. So that's down, hammer, down, first string open, and then we'll come back, pull-off from 3 to 1. And that—

so that's down, hammer, down, up, pull off.

All right, so we'll try that again.

Down, hammer, down, up, pull off, pull off.

Okay, that's one of those where I like to play, but when I try to spell everything out, it gets a little confusing. So one more time there.

So we're doing a hammer, first string open, upstroke, pull-off, upstroke, up, down, up, down, up, pull-off, up, down.

Okay, so again, you can reference the tabs in this. But that one actually has a lot of upstrokes in a row.

Down, hammer, down, up, pull-off, up, pull-off, up, down, up, down, up, pull-off, up, down.

But that's a great run to use over a C shape. Okay, and then we're gonna do Just a really nice little Tony Rice sounding over D. And we'll do— so that's all picks.

Down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, pull-off. Up, slide, up, down, pull-off, down.

So again, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, down, up, down, up, down, up, down.

Up, pull off, up, slide, up, down, pull off, down.

So a couple of different upstrokes and downstrokes in a row on that. Again, you can slow this video down and also reference the tabs there for all of that good stuff. And then we go back to— okay, so again, the 4th time through here, we'll do Okay, one more, one more. Okay, so this first idea here on this— this is the 5th time through G, C, and D, and we're gonna do— all of that is picked.

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

Okay, and now we're gonna do this little over C. So similar to the idea that we were doing a minute ago over C, but it's, it's, it's, it kind of moves up to this position up here.

So that down up, pull off, down, up, pull off, up, down, up, pull off, down, up, down, up, down, up, pull off.

And then up, pull off, Up, down, up, pull off, up, down. Okay, so down, up, pull off, up, down, up, pull off, up, pull off, up, down, up, pull off.

Up, down. Okay, and then the last lick here over D, we're gonna do— and all of that is just alternate pick there. And then we'll come back to that first idea. Okay, so as you can see, some of this stuff is straight alternate picking. With some of these, especially the ideas that involve a lot of hammer-ons and pull-offs, we'll end up doing multiple downstrokes and multiple upstrokes in a row there. So let me go through this fifth one one more time here. We'll do Okay, and then one other thing that I wanted to mention here, because again you can get tabs and a backing track for this video. Again, a link is down in, in the description and also in the top to the top pinned comment. Tongue twister. These ideas here do not start right on the downbeat, so I'm playing these and I have them written out as 16th notes. 1-e-and-a, 2-e-and-a, 3-e-and-a, 4-e-and-a, 1-e-and-a, 2-e-and-a. 4 notes per beat, okay? Because the bass is dun dun dun dun dun dun, the mandolin is hitting on the upbeats dun dun dun dun dun dun, And then the banjo rolls and the lead ideas are usually played as 16th notes. These ideas come in on the and of beat 4, like 1-e-and-a, 2-e-and-a, 3-e-and-a, 4-e-and-a, 1.

And a 1-e-and-a, 1-e-and-a.

Just, I want you to remember that whenever you're practicing these along with the backing track, because if you try these ideas starting right on the downbeat, it's not going to work, okay? And a 2 and a 3 and a 4 and a 1. Or for idea 4 here, 1 and a 2 and a 3 and a 4 and a 1.

1 and a 2 and a 3 and a 4 and a 1.

Same thing with the last idea, 1 and a 2 and a 3 and a 4 and a 1. Anyway, that's just something to remember whenever you're learning these. So, all right, I know this is a pretty dense lesson here, but I wanted to share this with you. So just one more time, let's hear how these ideas sound in context, played with the backing track. So I want to thank you so much for, um, hanging out with me today and for supporting my channel. If you haven't had the chance to, please like the video and subscribe. I know you hear YouTubers saying that ad infinitum, but it really does help us out. So again, thank you so much for hanging out. Again, get the tabs and a backing track for this lesson in the link and in the top pinned comment. Again, I really appreciate you hanging out today, and I will see you next time. So anyway, these ideas are going to be pretty advanced here, but, um, I, I wanted to say one thing before I jump into the lesson here. The, 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, 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. 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 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.

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, 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 this. And if you would like to get the 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 C, 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 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 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 gonna do is we're gonna 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 going to 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 going to 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 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 in 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 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. It's just 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 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 the 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 to a great bluegrass lead idea that you can use through that chord progression. And 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 can do that with the open strings too. But you can move that around and play that anywhere. And again, that's just straight alternate picking through that. All right, one more here, one more. And so that's— we're gonna come way up here to the 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 G. This is— 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, he'll— or like in Dust in a Baggie, 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 gonna put your hand in the right position to play the rest of that lick.

And we're gonna 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. 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 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.