How To Play Billy Strings' INSANE "Red Daisy" Solo

It's Aaron Jaxon coming to you today with a little lesson video on Billie Strings' blistering solo to Red Daisy. So I am referencing the original studio recording here. I'll link to it down in the video description. And I just say that because there are a ton of live recordings, a ton of live videos of him playing this, and he plays certain phrases the same, but he plays some of them a little different. But the one that I'm referencing in this video is from the original studio recording, and again, you can check that out down in the video description. So while this solo is an absolute blistering barn burner of a bluegrass solo. I don't want you to get intimidated by the speed because there's a ton of really amazing ideas that you can use in your playing regardless of what tempo that you're comfortable playing at. So before I jump in and teach the solo to you, let's, let's do this real quick. Let's do a little rhythm breakdown of what Billy solos over again on this tune from the original studio recording. This tune is in the great bluegrass key of B. We're going to play it with a capo on the 4th fret, and we're going to be playing out of our G, C, and D shapes. So the instrumental break that he solos over here is a little bit different than the verse, but it's actually pretty simple. All it is is 4 bars of B and 2 beats of F sharp. Now in capo speak, that's going to be 4 bars of our G shape and 2 bars of our D shape. Okay, so real quick here, let me just kind of play through the rhythm, and I'll play it a little bit slower, um, than the tune is actually played here. I'll put the chords up on the screen. Remember, the chords are relative the capo, and each chord gets 2 beats. So it'll go like this: 1, 2, 3, 4. And that is it. So down in the video description and in the top pinned comment, you can get the tabs for this solo. And also, included in the email that I'll send with the tabs, I made a custom backing track for this tune in the Strum Machine, and I'll send you the link to that as well. Okay, so even though I played the solo at the very beginning of the video, um, let me go ahead and play it again up to tempo here, and that'll sound like this. All right, so let's jump in and learn this solo here, and we're going to go 1 and 2 and 3 and All right, so some really cool things happening in the solo. At the very beginning here, he's coming in and really just kind of outlining the melody. And then he goes into this little like banjo roll but done with a flat pick to fill up space, and he does— okay, which is more challenging than it might seem. So we'll kind of— that little 6th, um, and then from there we'll do Okay, so really just this kind of first inversion triad, and then with the strings there, you're hitting the second, third, second, first, and then just putting this pinky down here to make it like a 6 minor.

It's really cool.

I mean, you hear these kind of ideas on like a lot of old classic country. You'll hear it on like records from the Louvin Brothers and, you know, other, other music, um, you know, from that time period. You know, Chet Atkins and Paul Yandel would play things like that, and I just think it sounds really cool. Okay, and then from there he jumps into this classic Billy line. I mean, this is classic Billy, you know, almost, you know, like Dust in a Bag. That same kind of thing, just Classic Billy. But then he ends it with this little, which is— I love little ideas like that. You'll hear Jake Workman and also like Cody Kilby will play a lot of those kinds of really cool ideas there. So anyway, that's that kind of second phrase. And then, and then, and then now with this next phrase, he goes into these kind of almost David Greer sounding slides, which is just awesome. And you know, it's again, it's kind of got that David Greer feel to it, but he's also again outlining the melody. And then back into our little banjo roll, and then just you know, ends it with this really cool, uh, you know, and then, okay, which is, you know, very classic Tony Rice, you know. So just a bunch of great ideas in this solo. Below here. But my favorite is this little— so on the one hand, um, you know, that's a great little cross-picking exercise. That's a great thing to practice because our pick is kind of stuck in between those strings, which I normally avoid like the plague. But in this, uh, you know, case, it's just such a cool sounding musical idea. But also too You know, you can experiment around with using that idea, you know, anywhere, you know, you have a bluegrass tune where our G shape, you know, stays on G for longer than, say, 1 bar. You could even, you know, experiment with using it over 1-bar ideas. That's not the scope of this lesson here, but I just throw that out there just to say that you can really apply that in a lot of places. And then we've got the the classic Billy run, and then ending it with the kind of Cody kill. All right, you know, and then into our little kind of David Greer style slides, back to the banjo roll, and then ending with this just gnarly little Tony Rice sounding thing. All right, so Just so many great ideas in this solo. For time, let me go through the whole thing nice and slow here for you. So we'll go 1 and 2 and 3 and All right, bunch of great ideas in this solo here. So one more time, let me play it a little more up to tempo and with a backing track. Okay, so again, remember to check out the original recording down below, and then once you've checked out the original recording, check out some of the other live versions. Like I said, some of these phrases he plays pretty much the same every time he plays it live, but some of them he'll switch it up. But again, I am referencing the original studio recording for this lesson. So I hope no matter where you're at in your playing, you can take some of these really cool ideas, use them in your playing, and start to add those in your vocabulary and use them in your own solos. Don't let the speed of this one— because this one is a barn burner, it's a total scorcher— but don't let the speed of this stuff intimidate you. Take it slow, get these ideas underneath your fingertips, and then you can kind of build the speed from there. As always, I want to thank you for hanging out, and I'll see you next time.