Flatpicking Variations On Blackberry Blossom (NEW!)

Hey there, it's Aaron Jaxon coming to you today with 3 different ways of approaching the A part to Blackberry Blossom. I wanted to make this lesson because this tune is a flatpicking guitar favorite. You can go to pretty much any jam session anywhere where people are playing fiddle tunes, and folks will know this, and you can jam on it. But this is a challenging tune to play in and of itself. The basic melody to this tune is really busy, and the chord progression is really busy as well. So sometimes coming up with fresh and interesting ways of playing this tune is a real challenge. So that's what I've got for you today. I'm going to show you how to play the basic melody, but then I'm going to give you two different variations on the melody to the A part here that that you can start implementing in your playing immediately. And remember, you can get the tabs for this lesson down in the video description and in the top pinned comment. And for this lesson, I am just going to be covering the A part to this tune. The reason being is that I've noticed with a lot of my students, whenever they're learning something new, they try to tackle too much at one time. They try to eat the whole elephant in one bite. Or this tune has a particularly challenging A part. I just want to focus on that, on giving you some fresh ways to approach this A part. Now I I will show you the basic melody to the B part in this lesson, but also feel free to check out this lesson right here. This is where I break down and analyze and teach you Tony Rice's version of this tune from the Manzanita album. If you're wanting a much deeper dive into the B part of this tune, that's a great lesson to check out. I'll link to it down in the video description. The way he plays the B part on that recording is probably my favorite Blackberry Blossom B part ever, just in between the ideas that he plays and the tone that he has on that. It's so cool, and I break that down and teach it to you in that lesson. So check that out down in the video description. So I'd say most of you watching this are probably already familiar with Blackberry Blossom. You probably already know it. I'm going to do a real quick rhythm breakdown of Blackberry Blossom for you. I'll play the chords here and we'll put the chords up on the screen. Go like this: 1, 2, 3, 4.

All right, so real quick.

Let's jump in and let's do just the basic melody to the A part of Blackberry Blossom. And I'm going to play it for you along with the backing track and up to tempo, and that'll sound like this. All right, so let's learn the basic melody to the A part of Blackberry Blossom. 1 and 2 and 3.

Take it up an octave.

And there we go. So real basic melody there to Blackberry Blossom. But as you can see there, just that basic melody is challenging to play, and it's, it's a really busy melody. So that's why I wanted to pull the melody up an octave the second time through there. And again, that's just kind of out of that third G major scale scale diatonic position, you know. So most of the— those, um, that melody is coming out of that position, except for right here. We want to— where it goes to our 2, uh, chord, and then Okay, so pretty straightforward there. One more time, let's hear that up to tempo with the backing track. So let's jump into another variation on that. Before I teach it to you, let's play it up up to tempo with the backing track, and that'll sound like this. All right, so let's learn this kind of first variation to Blackberry Blossom. That'll go like this. 1, And 2, and 3, and 4, and Okay, so we're kind of starting you know, with the way that we ended that first variation where I'm just taking the melody an octave up, but I'm throwing in some rests in some key places again to kind of let the melody breathe just a little bit. Throw in a little rest right there, and then a little rest right there, and then— okay, and then after that I'm gonna make it a little busier again, but I'm going to— and so what we're doing right out there is, is it essentially taking these double stops which kind of follow the melody? Okay, but, but what we can do— the open first string is an E, which is our 6 in G major, and it has a nice sound when we're just kind of of hitting that note but then quickly going back to the double stop, it gives it an interesting sound. Okay, and then we'll— okay, and then after that we're gonna get even more ambitious with those, and what we're gonna do is throw in these double stop ideas into a bluegrass guitar solo, and we're gonna do sort of sounds like the guitar intro to like Jingle Bell Rock. But okay, again, taking that which follows our melody there, but we're just adding a little fresh spin on it there. So we change it up rhythmically, but we also change it up melodically and harmonically by throwing in some double stops. And it just makes, um, you know, there's— you don't hear a whole lot of guitar players doing that with this tune, so it just makes it fresh, it makes it interesting. Okay, but then we'll end it. And then after that, we're going to take these little 6th ideas, and then I'm, I'm really kind of pulling from some like chicken picking, some country guitar ideas, and we're doing so sliding into that 6th, but then I'm doing this kind of You know, kind of the way we would do if we were playing country guitar, those little ideas.

And then, okay, so one more time, this little second variation here. Double stops.

Okay, so let's hear that version again up to tempo with our backing track. All right, so let's do a third variation on this. Before I teach it to you, let's play it up to tempo with the backing track. So, um, let's jump in and learn this here. Well, 1 and 2 and 3 and 4. Okay, so we're starting off with this, uh, okay, cross-picking banjo roll, very David Greer sounding. But we end on this shape right here with our little F, our little dominant. Dominant 7th at the end, which leads into the C chord that we go into. Okay, and again, that follows our melody, the, the way the melody kind of follows the like descending major scale. Okay, okay, and then we'll end with And then back up. And then, and then after that, I'm essentially going to take what we did in the second variation, and I'm going to take it, uh, it's at least an octave down. And again, just throwing in that little rhythmic variation with those double stops just really gives this tune an interesting sound. And then we end with the melody, and then I go into this kind of single note version of the double stop thing we just did. Okay, so one more time, all the way through this third variation to the A part of Blackberry Blossom. Okay, so one more time, let's hear that up to tempo. Going with our backing track. So again, this is a very familiar flatpicking tune. I would say most of y'all watching this already know this tune, uh, but just in case you don't, let me just give you a real simple B part melody to this. Uh, one E and 2, E and 3, E and 4, E. And then you'll just play that twice there. The B part leaves a lot more room for improvisation. There's a lot of cool ideas that you can throw into there where it's, you know, going from E minor to B7, but that's just not the scope of this lesson. But if you do want a much deeper dive into what I think is the coolest B part to Blackberry Blossom ever recorded, again, check out this video where I teach Tony Rice's version from the Man's Anita album. I hope this lesson gives you some fresh variations and some new ideas that you can start using in Blackberry Blossom. Use them when you're playing by yourself, when you're playing with friends, when you're at your next jam session or at your next gig. Remember, I got the tabs for this lesson down in the video description and in the top pinned comment. As always, I want to thank you for hanging out, and I'll see you next time.