In this instructional video Aaron Jaxon teaches how to play solid rhythm on fast‑tempo bluegrass tunes, using the classic JD Crowe banjo tune “Blackjack” as a case study. He explains the capo placement (4th‑fret for a B‑key version), introduces a simple yet effective “boom‑chuck‑chuck‑chuck” strumming pattern, and stresses a loose wrist motion to avoid tension at high speeds. Jaxon demonstrates Tony Rice‑style chord voicings for G, F, C, and D that keep strings muted where needed, making chord changes economical. He walks through the full chord progression of “Blackjack,” adding bass‑note runs to transition from G to D, and shows how to vary those runs for the third and fourth repeats. Throughout, he provides practical resources – downloadable tabs, a custom backing track with bass and mandolin chop, and a reference recording by Jim Mills – encouraging learners to practice at any tempo. The lesson blends technical detail with performance philosophy, emphasizing energy conservation, tradition versus modern voicings, and the importance of a relaxed wrist for fast rhythm playing.
Chapters
1, 2, 3, 4. Hey there, it's Aaron Jaxon coming to you today, and what I've got for you is a lesson on fast bluegrass rhythm. So specifically, this is the kind of rhythm that you would want to apply if you're playing, you know, a really fast bluegrass tune. Now, bluegrass is pretty fast music in general, but some of these tunes are played at faster tempos. Than others. And when I say that, you know, I'm thinking about tunes that are maybe 150 beats a minute and above, real fast, you know, like Train 45 or, you know, White House Blues, Rollin' My Sweet Baby's Arms. A lot of these tunes are supposed to be played at faster tempos. So the tune that I want to show you today is an old JD Crowe banjo tune called Blackjack. I'm going to show you this in the context of that tune. So I think the original J.D. Crowe recording of this tune actually was played out of C. I think like you would have played that, um, with a capo on the 5th fret out of a G shape. These days, um, this tune is almost always played out of B, so capo on the 4th fret out of this little G position here. So that's how I'm going to do it. And I've also got links down in the video description, my favorite recording of this tune, which is from Jim Mills. He recorded this on an album called My Dixie Home, and it's got I think it's got Dan Tominski playing rhythm guitar on it, which is awesome because he's, he's one of the best, um, at this style. So check that out. So down in the video description, I've got the tabs for you for this lesson, and I've also got a link to a custom backing track that I made in the Strum Machine app that just has the bass and the mandolin chop for this tune, so you can practice your rhythm guitar along with it. So let's jump into the lesson here. And so we want to start off with the basic strumming pattern, and that's going to go like this. Okay, so think of the strumming pattern like this. Think of it like boom, chucka, chucka, chuck, boom, chucka, chucka, chuck. I know that feels ridiculous whenever you're saying that out loud, but kind of say that while you're getting this strumming pattern down and it'll help you to internalize it.
So boom, chucka, chucka, chuck, boom, chucka, chucka, chuck. Okay.
And really what I'm doing on that, like for the boom, I'm really basically just hitting the 6th string. And then for the chucka chucka chuck, it's like the 4th, 3rd, 2nd, and 1st strings.
Chucka chucka chuck.
So that's like down on the 6th string, boom, and then chucka chucka chuck. Okay, so that's the basic strumming pattern there. So, um, but before we go on, I want to emphasize this, um, and that is that you've got to make sure whenever you're doing this that you're playing— the, the motion is coming from the wrist, okay? You don't want to be tensed up while you're doing this because if that, if that motion is like coming from the arm, it's just, it's, it's going to be bad. You're going to be tensed up, you're going to be really struggling to try to keep up with the rest of the band. Um, but again, it's just from that wrist. It needs to be really, really loose. I had— I heard somebody one time just, you know, it should be kind of like you're flinging out a dishrag, right? Okay, so think of the pattern like that. Now for, for Blackjack, the chords to this— and again, you can refer in the link description, I'll send you the tabs and I'll send you a link to a custom backing track— but the way the, the chords in this tune go, it's like a G, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, F, and then we'll go to C, 1, 2, 3, 4, G, 2, 3, 4, D, 2, 3, 4, G, 2.
So again, we'll do G, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, F, C, 2, 3, 4, G, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, E, 2, 3, 4.
Okay, and it just— I think it goes through that 4 times. Okay, so here, here is what I'm gonna do on this one here. I am going to use like the Tony Rice style chords through this, so that's going to be G right here. Okay, just that old Tony Rice G where I'm not really you know, doing anything on the 5th string. I'm just kind of keeping that string dead, which is just like, like root and 5 all the way through that. But I love the way that sounds, so we're gonna stay on that. And then we're gonna do F right here. The only thing that moves is that middle finger back to this 3rd fret— 3rd fret speaking relative to the capo on the 4th string. And we're gonna strum that from the 4th string down. And then I'm gonna come over here for C, okay? Which is just moving that middle finger over here to the 3rd fret of the 5th string. Everything else stays the same. Strum it from the 5th string. I'm kind of keeping the 4th string dead right there. And then we'll go back over here to G.
And for D, I'll just do a traditional D on that, and then we'll go back to G.
Okay, so that's gonna go I know there's some traditionalists that get all hot and bothered whenever you start using these like Tony Rice style Fs and Cs. Um, so if you want to use this bar chord for your F shape and this traditional C for C, that is all well and good. I like these, these Tony Rice style for two different reasons. Number one, it's just really easy to navigate, and when you're playing at faster tempos, you need to try to conserve as much energy as you can. And I also just happen to love the way they sound. I just, I love that G, I love that F, and I I love the way that sounds. So if it was good enough for the GOAT of this style of guitar playing, it's good enough for me. So anyway, that's, that's what I'm gonna be doing here. So let me go through here and apply this strumming pattern through this chord progression, and I'll throw in like a couple of little bass note runs in here. So let's start with G, and what we're gonna do, we're gonna do that boom-chucka-chucka-chuck rhythm, I think 4 times. No, we'll do it 3 times.
And then we're gonna come over here to our little Tony Rice looking F, and let's do boom, chucka, chucka, chuck. So do your boom on the 4th string, and then chucka, chucka, chuck. You can do that from the 4th, 3rd, 2nd, and 1st, just like we did on the G. Boom, chucka, chucka, chuck. Or instead, do the— just do that on the 3rd, 2nd, and 1st strings. That way we get a little little bit of separation between the low and the high notes on that. And then we're gonna go to C again, just moving right over here to the 5th string.
Same deal, boom, chucka, chucka, chuck.
Doing the boom this time from the 5th string.
Boom, chucka, chucka, chuck.
I think we'll do it twice. And then back to G, we'll do it twice on G.
So we've got, uh, boom, chucka chucka chuck, boom, chucka chucka chuck, boom, check to F one time, chucka chucka chuck, boom, chucka chuck, boom, chucka chucka chuck.
And then we'll go back to G, boom, chucka chucka chuck. And then here's what we're going to do, come back and do just hit the 6th string on the G, and then we're going to do a bass note run to go to D. We're gonna do— okay, real simple, just 2nd fret of the 5th, 3rd fret of the 5th, 4th fret of the 5th. And then we'll go to D.
We'll do boom, chucka chucka chuck, boom, chucka chucka chuck.
Okay, so we'll do that boom, chucka chucka chuck pattern. We'll do it twice on D. And then let's go back to G. I want you to just hit the 6th string and we'll do—
all right.
And I'm very deliberate with that, um, little version of the G run on that because that's just— that's a lot easier to play at faster tempos than if I tried to do like this. If I tried to do like the Uncle Pin's U, that's just going to be a lot harder to maneuver when you're playing really fast. So, and then after the— let's see here—
back to G, and we'll do chucka chucka chuck.
All right, so let me go through that here. We'll do to our Tony Rice F, boom, chucka, to our Tony Rice C, boom, chucka chucka Boom, chucka chucka chuck to G.
All right, let me go through that again. So we'll do boom. Okay, so that's what we'll do. You'll do 2 times through blackjack using exactly what I just showed you there. So, okay, so Um, like I was saying, um, kind of the, kind of the main melody of this tune, we'll go through that progression 4 times. And, um, so that's what you'll play for the first, the first 2 times through this. Now for the 3rd and 4th time, we'll basically do the same thing, but I want to change that bass note run-up just a little bit. Um, that way we're, um, you know, we just add a little bit of variety to it there. So here's what we'll do on the 3rd and 4th time through this.
We'll do the same deal, same deal.
So that's the only difference when we go from G to D. Just, you'll hold this note for a little bit and then you're into D after that.
Okay, so will do Boom chuck a chucka chuck Boom chuck a chuck Boom chuck a chuck Boom chuck a chuck a chuck Boom chuck a chuck Boom chuck Boom chuck chuck Chuck chucka chucka chuck okay, And then we'll do that for the third and fourth times through this tune here.
So pretty simple, pretty straightforward here, but this is really, really important. And it really— it— I was in the dark about this for a long time because sometimes it's difficult to hear rhythm parts on recordings because the rhythm is pushed back in the mix. But anyway, I'm getting a little ahead of myself here, so one more time. Let me just go through the whole thing, um, and I'll do it nice and slow, and then we'll listen to it again played, you know, at a very fast tempo along with the backing track. So let's real quick, so we'll go 1, 2, 3, 4.
Here we go, we'll do boom, chucka chucka chuck, boom, chucka chucka chuck, boom, chucka Chuck to F. Boom, chuck, C. Boom, chucka, chucka, chuck. Boom, chucka, chucka, chuck. Boom, chucka, chucka, chuck. Boom, bass note run to D. Boom, chucka, chucka, chuck. Boom, chucka, chucka, chuck. Boom, chucka, chuck.
Again.
Boom, chucka, chucka, chuck. Boom, Ooh, chucka chucka chuck. Ooh, chucka chucka chuck. Ooh, chucka chucka chuck. To C. Ooh, chucka chucka chuck. Ooh, chucka chucka chuck. Ooh, chucka chucka chuck. Play snow run to D. Ooh, chucka chuck. Ooh, chucka chucka chuck. Ooh, chucka chucka chuck. Ooh, chucka chucka chuck. F to C, G. Again.
Okay, so there's that. Now let's hear the whole thing, um, up to tempo with the backing track. 1, 2, 3, 4. Okay, so I really hope that this will kind of, you know, help you with your rhythm style on, you know, some of these faster tunes. I wanted to share this because, like I was saying earlier, I was in the dark about this for a long time, and whenever I would play rhythm, I would kind of just default to a basic boom-chuck rhythm. Which I, I don't recommend using that strumming pattern unless again you're deliberately going for like a really old-school, really retro bluegrass sound. Um, but, um, I wanted to use— I wanted to show you this because I had somebody just kind of sit me down and just kind of show me this pattern in a couple of these bass note runs, and it just really helped everything to start to lock in for me. And that's why I wanted to share this with you. So again, Remember, you can get the tabs down in the video description and in the top pinned comment. And also with those tabs, in the email that I'll send you, I'll have a link to a custom backing track that I made for this tune in the Strum Machine that just has the bass and the mandolin chop. So you can practice this along with that at any tempo that you'd like. And I've also got the— I've linked down to the, to the Jim Mills recording, which is just awesome. He plays it really fast, and it's got Dan Tominski playing rhythm and Adam Steffi playing mandolin and Stuart Duncan playing. I mean, just the freaking bluegrass all-stars. And it's just a, it's just a really beautiful recording of this tune. So as always, thanks for hanging out. And again, remember, when it comes to the strumming, keep that loose wrist. That's very, very, very important with this stuff. But as always, thank you for hanging out, and I will see you next time.
