Flatpicking Mastery!-4 Key Areas For Powerful Bluegrass Guitar Skills

Hey there, it's Aaron Jaxon coming to you. And so I've got something a little bit different for you today. So in this lesson, I'm not going to be showing you a whole lot of like what to play, but I'm going to be talking about 4 really important concepts in flatpicking bluegrass lead guitar that you want to keep in mind whenever you're learning this stuff, whenever you're practicing, and whenever you're trying to improve in the context of this style of music and this style of guitar playing. But what I am going to be doing is referencing a bunch of videos that are on this channel. You'll see them pop up on the screen here, but I'll also link to all of these down in the video description. So like I was saying, you just kind of want to keep these 4 concepts in mind whenever you're practicing this stuff and make sure that, um, none of these areas are getting neglected, okay? Because if you do, there will kind of be a hole in your musicianship. And again, I'm, I'm dealing with bluegrass lead guitar here, so I'm not going to be talking so much about rhythm, although rhythm is very important as well. So number 1 is technique. And really, when it comes to the lead style of bluegrass guitar, it, it's all about alternate picking. It's about clean alternate picking. Now most people, when it comes to alternate picking, understand that it's, you know, picking down, up, down, up, down, up. And it is that, and that's an important part of it, but equally as important, but that fewer people understand, is like where your pick strokes need to fall rhythmically. Okay, and so I've talked about this in several lessons. You can check out these lessons right here where I do a much deeper, um, much deeper dive into this and really show you how to practice this and practice your timing with it. But basically the idea— bluegrass lead guitar is almost always played as 16th notes. I know sometimes people tab them out as 8th notes, but they fall rhythmically as 16th notes. They don't fall as 8th notes, they fall as 16th notes. And we count 16th notes like this, like 1-e-and-a, 2-e-and-a, 3-e-and-a, 4-e-and-a, 1-e-and-a, 2-e-and-a, 3-e-and-a, 4-e-and-a. And what we want to happen there is we want a downstroke on 1, an upstroke on e, a downstroke on and, upstroke on, uh, 1, e, and, uh. And that will stay that way as we're going through and playing solos, tunes, all that good stuff. Okay, so I'm not going to try to count the 16th notes out verbally while I'm playing that, but when I'm going through and playing that, those pick strokes are falling where they need to fall rhythmically. So it takes a little while to understand that, and it takes even longer to, you know, get that technique to the point of what we might call unconscious competence, which is just kind of a fancy way of saying that you know what you're doing without having to think about that. But that's very, very important, and that technique is what allows us to play this music. It's what allows you to, quote, you know, speak the vocabulary and the language of this stuff. So again, you can check out those two videos where I really kind of go into a deep dive, and also check out these videos right here where I give you a bunch of picking exercises that you can practice to develop your picking technique. So technique is of paramount importance. I would say it's, it's the most important thing because if even if you go through and learn like 100 fiddle tunes but you haven't really developed developed your technique and you haven't got that alternate picking thing to, again, the level of what we might call unconscious competence, it's just going to sound like sloppy garbage. So that's why I start with technique, and I really do recommend going and checking out those kind of, you know, beginner technique level videos to kind of really get the idea down and get some simple things to practice that will really help you lay a solid foundation for this stuff. So that's technique. Number 2, number 2, timing. Timing, timing, timing. This is the thing I see most people neglect. And, um, you know, I kind of have a soft spot for this because I neglected it for years, um, in favor of speed and technique and learning, you know, licks and developing chops and all that kind of stuff. And I had to kind of go back and, um, and I had to, and I had to fix some things. So, um, the, the best video that I've put out on this channel, I think, you know, talking about how to develop your timing, is this one right here. And I just kind of, I just kind of cut to the chase and I talk about my favorite tool for developing your timing, um, with this stuff. And that's a train beat, um, drum track. Again, you can reference that video. Yeah, there's really kind of 4 tools that you can use to really kind of develop timing when you're just practicing by yourself. Obviously, you know, if you can play in a jam or play with other people, that's a great way to develop your timing as well. But if we're talking about, you know, just kind of practicing on your own, you know, number 1 is the most obvious is the metronome. And the metronome is great, but it can be difficult to play along with and also just feels really, really robotic and soulless. Not that you shouldn't practice with that, but it's definitely got its limitations, and there's other things that I like better. So aside from that, I've talked about this before, I talked about it just a second ago, that train beat backing track. That's my favorite thing to practice, um, your timing along with. It makes it more fun and, um, it, uh, it makes it easier to play and stay in time. Number 3 is the Strum Machine. Man, what a cool freaking resource. If you are learning bluegrass lead guitar and you don't have a subscription to the Strum Machine, you are missing out. It is great. It has backing tracks for any bluegrass tune you can possibly imagine, and, uh, you can go through and you can do custom settings in there. You can take the rhythm guitar out and just have bass and mandolin in. You can change the rhythm patterns. It's freaking awesome. Practice with it. And it's again kind of like with the, with the train beat, it's easier to stay in time when you practice with it, and it's just way more fun. And then number 4 is I'm playing along with recordings. That's a great thing to do as well, although that has its limitations too. You know, I've heard a lot of, you know, great guitar players and great teachers, you know, say that the best thing you can do is play along with recordings. And I see what they're getting at, but I disagree, and here's why. You know, I taught local guitar lessons, you know, where I live here in Johnson City, Tennessee, for a long, long, long time. And a couple of years ago, I had a student who— he was one of those students that was just— he was just awesome. He just— he had a lot of talent. He practiced, you know, 5, 6 hours a day. And if you're a guitar teacher watching this, you know that those students are very rare. But when you do get them, they're really fun and they're a real joy to teach. But anyway, we were learning Jimmy Page's solo to Stairway to Heaven, you know. And, uh, you know, he was learning that, and, um, he had got the solo down, and he, he could play it like right along with the recording. You know, he could do all the bends, and, you know, he could, he could play it. But then I wanted to see how well he had developed his timing, and I said, okay, now we're going to turn off the recording, and I'm just going to play rhythm guitar, and I want you to play the solo. So I would play like this. So I sat down and I started playing rhythm, and he couldn't, um, he couldn't play it, or at least he was having a real tough time with the timing on that. And the thing about playing along with recordings are it can be a great thing, but a lot of times it's a little bit like training wheels in that you've got this backdrop of this like amazing professional recording that sometimes you may think you're playing in time with but you're actually not. That's why, again, just when it comes to developing your timing, that's why I like the train beat and the strum machine a little bit more, because it will expose, um, the areas that your timing needs work a whole lot more than maybe playing along with the recording. But anyway, those 4 things are all great to practice with your timing. But again, check out this video right here, um, for a little bit of a deeper dive into why I really enjoy playing along with like a train beat drum track. Okay, so the next area here is what I'm going to call vocabulary. Vocabulary. Vocabulary is— it's the licks, it's the phrases, to a certain extent it's the tunes, it's the passages that you want to learn that are specific to this style. My favorite way to develop your vocabulary, really with any style of guitar, but is, is just to learn solos from the greats. It kind of amazes me how many people I will hear online kind kind of almost kind of poo-pooing that, as if they're like, I, I, I don't know, there's almost this sort of— there's almost just like kind of moralizing around it. It's like, no, I would never learn a note-for-note solo from someone else because I just play, you know, the way that I play. And hey, that's all, that's all well and good, um, but I, I, I just don't see any area where it's going to affect you negatively by kind of kind of learning from the masters, learning solos from Tony Rice and Doc Watson and David Greer and Norman Blake and Clarence White and Kenny Smith and Brian Sutton. And I mean, I could just, I could just go on and on and on here. But the thing about it is, is once you start to learn a handful of these solos, and again, you practice these solos and get it to the point— again, I'm going to use this phrase a lot— to the level of unconscious competence, um, their ideas start coming out in your own playing. Also too, this is really how every single great player that all of us know and love learned. It just is. Like Eric Johnson, like one of my— I've got it around here somewhere. Yeah, it's right over here. Um, here, let me see. Yeah, right here. Eric Johnson, Total Electric Guitar. All right, this is a bluegrass guitar video, but, um, but you know, Eric's always been one of my favorite players. Um, I did a bluegrass cover of Cliffs of Dover last year that, you know, a lot of people really liked. But in that whole DVD, all he's doing is talking about his influences, and he goes through and he can just like nail passages from Jimi Hendrix and from Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton. But he doesn't stop there. I mean, he just nails things from Jerry Reed and Chet Atkins and Wes Montgomery, and it's astonishing to watch. You know, you don't have to go that far, but I really do think that one of the best things you can do to develop your vocabulary is learn solos and licks and passages from the greats. And I'm just going to have a bunch of these kind of flash across the screen here because I've done a lot of these where we cover note-for-note solos but also licks. And I've just got a ton of material on this channel to really help you develop your vocabulary, but You do want to develop vocabulary because what a lot of people want to do whenever they're learning this stuff is they want like a scales-based approach. They want to know like what are the bluegrass scale patterns, you know, and then they want like a pattern to play through a couple of chord changes to make it sound like bluegrass. And I just— there may be some other teachers out there that have a version of that. I don't because I recommend a a vocabulary-based approach. And we do that through learning ideas, passages, and solos from the great bluegrass players that have come before us. So anyway, I've got a ton on this channel here. You can check out the links to those down in the video description to really kind of develop your vocabulary around this stuff. All right, so last one here, number 4, is repertoire. So repertoire refers to the songs and the tunes that you need to know for this style of guitar playing. Now, you may be watching this and be very familiar with like the classic standard bluegrass repertoire. There's a lot of it because this music has been around, you know, you could— I mean, you can debate it. I mean, some of these songs are hundreds of years old, especially some of these fiddle tunes for sure are hundreds of years old. But, you know, kind of bluegrass as we know it, kind of— again, this is debatable, but, you know, I think of it like those first Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys recordings from, I guess it was like 1946, you know, with Bill Monroe and Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs and Chubby Wise and that kind of stuff, and then everything since then. So there's a lot of this material. So if you're already familiar with the, with the bluegrass repertoire, great. If not, I wanted to recommend just a couple of series of recordings for you that you can, that you can listen to, that you can make a playlist out of, that will really give you a good sense of what bluegrass is all about. So number one, number one, especially if you're a guitar player, um, listen to all of the Bluegrass Album Band. And I'm gonna have each one of those album covers, um, no pun intended, flash across the screen here. And what the Bluegrass Album Band was, it was, um, I hope So the lineup was Tony Rice, Doyle Lawson, um, JD Crowe, uh, Todd Phillips, I think. And then Jerry Douglas is on some of it. I don't think he's on all of it. Um, just doing the traditional bluegrass repertoire like Bill Monroe, Flatt and Scruggs, I think maybe some of the Stanley Brothers. But, but what's great for guitar players is it's Tony Rice is singing lead and playing like lead guitar breaks. On, on a lot of the tunes, which was great because the original stuff like the Bill Monroe and the Flattened Strugs didn't feature any lead guitar solos. But then Tony Rice did that on the Bluegrass Album Band. So if you have not listened to all of the Bluegrass Album Band, please do yourself that favor, give yourself that gift, and, um, you know, just listen to this music played in a really, really, really vibrant way. Again, with Tony Rice kind of being the frontman for all of that stuff. And I think their last album was an instrumental album, which you definitely want to listen to. But most of the stuff on there, it's vocal tunes. It's songs that have lyrics in them, and it's Tony Rice and Doyle Lawson singing those, you know, the great, the great harmonies from that traditional bluegrass stuff. So you definitely want to check that out. A lot of great guitar solos from Tony Rice, but that's, that's a really good series of recordings to get into for like the vocal tunes. Now for the instrumental stuff, again, there's a ton of stuff out there, but if you kind of— if I was just going to kind of condense it down for somebody, there's a series of— or that there were a series of instrumental recordings recordings called Bluegrass '95, '96, '97, '98, '99, and 2000. It may have kept going after that. If so, I'm not sure how far it kept going, but I know that those 6 recordings are out there. Again, we'll have those album covers flash across the screen. I'll link to them down in the video description. And that is great stuff because it's just, um, it's a bunch of A-level bluegrass players. Like, depending on the recordings, I think it kind of changes up, but I know Adam Steffi plays mandolin on some of it. Clay Jones plays guitar. Jeff Autry plays guitar on some of it. Uh, Aubrey Haney is on fiddle for some of it. Jim Van Cleve. I mean, it's just like, just great, great, great bluegrass musicians just doing a lot of the traditional instrumental bluegrass repertoire, but they're doing it in a, uh, you know, it's just, it's really, you know, they kind of blow the dust off of some of this stuff, and it's really, really, really cool. So you definitely want to check those out because, like I said, they're covering like the instrumental side of traditional bluegrass, and there's a lot of it too. Obviously we have a bunch of fiddle tunes that we want to learn here, but there's mandolin tunes, there's banjo tunes, there's a lot of traditional instrumental bluegrass music. And that series of 6 recordings really kind of covers the span of a lot of that classic stuff. But again, it's played in kind of a contemporary, really clean way, and I think that you'll enjoy that. So if you, if you'll kind of listen to those two series of recordings, All the Bluegrass Album Band and then Bluegrass '95, '96, '97, '98, '99, and 2000, you'll really, really, really have a good sense of of the repertoire of this music. And then you can also check out some of the other lessons I've done on this channel talking about, you know, some of the great fiddle tunes to learn for flatpicking guitar, again, that are great for developing your repertoire but also that are great for developing your technique as well. So again, there's just 4 areas that are great to keep in mind when you're learning this stuff. Now Depending on where you're at as a player, sometimes you might be focusing a little bit more on one area than another. You might be focusing on technique a little bit more than you are on repertoire, or you might be focusing a little bit more on vocabulary and repertoire than you are on technique. However, you can practice all of this stuff in one setting. So, and a great way to do that is just by practicing a fiddle tune. Tune, or any instrumental tune, but fiddle tunes are great. You know, when you're practicing, you know, something like Big Mind, you know, you can practice your technique, timing, you're getting your vocabulary because contained within those fiddle tunes a lot of times are great lead lines that you can use in your solos in other places, and you're also developing your repertoire as well. So that's, that's just a simple way that you can practice all 4 of those at one time. Again, you don't always have to be practicing all 4 elements at the same time, but it's just good to keep those in mind. And again, I've got a ton of stuff for you for free on this channel that you can use to develop each one of those areas in your guitar playing. So again, I hope this video wasn't too long-winded, but it's just a, you know, kind of a bird's-eye view, a little perspective that I've got after playing this stuff for a long time and also being a guitar teacher for a long time as well. So I want to thank you for hanging out today, and I will see you next time.